new aquarium debating plants with new stock. advise please

**dcsnowwake** · 03-17-2010, 03:02 PM

so after taking everyones advice about putting another AC20 on my 20g high (which worked out GREAT, no more cloudy water, parameters great)
I will be stocking the tank with either rams, apistos or kribs, whichever I can find at my LFS's.

So in the past I shut down my huge aquarium as I had algae overrun my tank. 55g with compact florescent lamps. I do not want to have to deal with that again.
SO here are my questions::
current setup:
20g high
regular size gravel
3 ornaments, tiki hut, waterfall cave and palm trees which i dug a cave underneath for the fish.
2 AC20's
regular lamp on hood

for the fish I have listed,
should I include plants? and if i do which ones?
will it benefit the fish, esp since I would like to breed them then transfer them to a bigger tank.
I do not want to get into expensive lighting, so I would like to keep the stock hood if possible.
How do I make sure I will not relive my tragedy of algae again and lose the whole aquarium.

thanks

**rich311k** · 03-17-2010, 03:12 PM

Those fish will like cover; (plants. plastic plants, driftwood, stones, or whatever), just provide cover and several little cave like structures. The apistos and rams would do better with some dither fish as well. A school of a smaller tetra would work nicely.

**Cliff** · 03-17-2010, 03:44 PM

In addition to Rick311k's comments, if you want to add plants, you could look at something harty with a wide range of light tollerance like Java Fern. It should be OK with your set-up

**dcsnowwake** · 03-18-2010, 11:52 AM

If I added Java fern, I have been doing some reading, should I ge a piece of driftwood, or will it be fine to tie to an ornament, or the gravel?

**Cliff** · 03-18-2010, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by dcsnowwake

If I added Java fern, I have been doing some reading, should I ge a piece of driftwood, or will it be fine to tie to an ornament, or the gravel?

I would tie it to a pc of drift wood or to a large rock. That would provide a surface for the roots to attach to. I don't know about using a ornament, never tried or read anything on that.

If you plant it in your substraight it will likely die.

**Wild Turkey** · 03-18-2010, 02:09 PM

Well, first I have to say algae is always fixable without tearing down the tank, and virtually any non planted tank with a light will have algae. Theres no much you can do about that besides get in there and scrape it away.

That being said, the powerful light im sure made things worse. You can usually use stock lighting to grow java ferns, naja grass, java moss, and sometimes other low light plants if you have the right color lamp.(bulb) Planting the tank is the first step to stopping algae, but its usually not a quick fix.

In the short term (without plants) simply running the light for short periods of time can really help.

**dcsnowwake** · 03-18-2010, 04:42 PM

no my tank was really really bad...I tried to save it but got overrun with it, I would scrape scrape scarpe away, and it was always there the next morning.
I only had the lights on 8 hours a day too

I will get a piece of driftwood then...I was hoping not as it doesnt really fit into the scene, but I will make it work