Plant and Gravel Question

[Axis of Weasel]

two questions

1. do you plant live plants go directly into gravel? do they need some sort of soil?

is low light ok for most plants?


2. is there any difference among different gravel types and brands?

thanks

[mitcore]

yes you plant the roots in the gravel

low light is not so good for plants they need a higher watt to grow,

yes though i cant tell you the difference in gravel or sand

someone who knows is sure to help shortly

[Fishguy2727]

Barron's MiniEncyclopedia on Plants is a good place to start. It goes through all the basics and gives good information on lots of plants.

[Lady Hobbs]

Smaller gravel is supposed to work fine. Some put a "light" layer of peat under the gravel, some use Laterite (clay) and some use nothing but plant tabs. I will say the peat and the laterite make a heck of a mess unless you plant the whole tank at once and plan to not move anything around much.

[country_boy454]

I mixed my gravel with fluorite. Made it about a 50/50 mix. Works great but is messy at first because you are not supposed to wash it out. If you do wash it you wash all the nutrients out of it.

A good book on plants is Ecology Of The Planted Aquarium by D Walstad. Dave666 recommended this book and I got a copy of it and WOW.

[smaug]

The best plant substrate is 1/16" and under particles.It would be either a substrate you have had in the tank for awhile[nutrient build up]or ideally a mix of small sized gravel with fluorite or one of the other iron enriched plant substrate.All the being said most plants will do ok in gravel up to 1/4" in size.You will want no less the 2" in depth with 3 being better.Yes the roots need to be in te gravel in most cases,anubias,java ferns and moss do not do well with planted roots they should be tied to something with there roots free.As for low light that depends on what you call low light the above stated plants can all do well with lower light and though I dislike stating the watts per gallon rule it really is unavoidable.You need at least 1.5wpg for the stated plants 2.5-3wpg for swords,apongentums,lilys etc.4-6wpg for stem plants.As for gravel types,stay away from gravels that will raise your ph and Gh..Course sand and fine gravel is best.Good luck.

[Josh708]

best gravel/substrate for live plants

Http://www.aquariumguys.com/ecocomplete.html

[Fishguy2727]

I have Estes' Marine Sand in all of my planted tanks and they are alldoing very well at no more than one inch of depth. Maybe they would do better with more substrate or specialty substrates, but if you are not wanting to get into that you still can have a beautiful planted tank.

Watts per gallon is a very bad way of determining light, as said. The plants DO NOT care how much electricity you are burning. They want light, measured in lumens. Per gallon is bad because it ignores surface area and depth. The amount of light needed for a 4' 150 gallon tank (30" tall) is different from a custom built one that is only 15" deep. The depth cuts down the light by 1/4 every foot (if I remember correctly). So if you have 2,000 lumens hitting the surface, there are only 500 hitting a foot below the surface. And this even ignores what is reflected off the surface. This is in clear water without a glass cover or anything in suspension in the water.

So pay attention to lumens and kelvin temperature color.

[Sasquatch]

We saw this a while ago on another site.

One guy did a planted tank and as a "substrate" put about 1" thick of polywool on the bottom of his aquarium and covered that with about 1" of gravel.

His plants were going crazy ... He was probably using ferts and had loads of light, but his plants were rooting like mad in the polywool.

One advantage was that you could do a good gravel cleaning and not uproot all your plants. They stayed in the polywool, along with a lot of nutrients.

[smaug]

I have Estes' Marine Sand in all of my planted tanks and they are alldoing very well at no more than one inch of depth. Maybe they would do better with more substrate or specialty substrates, but if you are not wanting to get into that you still can have a beautiful planted tank.

Watts per gallon is a very bad way of determining light, as said. The plants DO NOT care how much electricity you are burning. They want light, measured in lumens. Per gallon is bad because it ignores surface area and depth. The amount of light needed for a 4' 150 gallon tank (30" tall) is different from a custom built one that is only 15" deep. The depth cuts down the light by 1/4 every foot (if I remember correctly). So if you have 2,000 lumens hitting the surface, there are only 500 hitting a foot below the surface. And this even ignores what is reflected off the surface. This is in clear water without a glass cover or anything in suspension in the water.

So pay attention to lumens and kelvin temperature color.

that is very good advice of course.The problem with it lies in the fact that most people have no idea what you are talking about when we talk about lumens or decreasing light the deeper you go.Thus WPG is the best way there is to educate a person who is just begining the gigantic pain in the arse that is planted tanks.I did leave out that the wpg thing really only pans out when using compact fluor or metal halides and the like and not incadesant.In short I really do believe that the best way to bring people into the hobby of planting a tank is to keep it simple.