Habitat - Indoor :: Plants and Substrate

[marie_09]

hey guys,

Just wondering as I'm planning out my set up for my new, but I'd like to give it a shot growing aquatic plants. I'm wondering how I would go about this? Do they grow right underwater? Also, I'm thinking of adding sand to the bottom of my tank. This is safe for my turtle correct? What kind of supplies will make it easy to clean? I am setting up a 55 gallon tank by the way. Thanks!

[marie_09]

Oop! Just found the post on Sand FAQs. Well, anyway, I'm still wondering about growing the aquatic plants!!! Thank you~!

[rsour24]

i have a planted tank, although most of my plants died bc im off at college and a bulb burtn out and by the time i got to replace it i lost a lot but am currently re-building. basically the first thing you should know is you wont be able to grow plants like a RES. they will destroy all of them and end up a waste. i used to grow plants with my RES when he was a baby, lasted 2 weeks before he decided to go crazy and destroy every single plant. i'd suggest using a seperate tank and when it is over grown moving some to your RES tank. you can grow plants in sand but i suggest flourtie. it has a lot of things plants need to grow. it is pain to clean though. depending on how daring u are id suggest a layer of dirt on the very bottom, yes dirt, although i really dont recommend it for beginners. lighting is extremely important. depending on what plants will depend on how many watts you need. id have a minimum of 2 watts per gallon. you can use store bought expensive lights or shop fluorescent lights from home dept of lowes. some plant require 4 watts per gallon. id suggest starting with plants that need less light. also if you have a bigger tank you will need to add c02. there are ways to custom do this for cheap but have never done any of them. i have a 29 planted and do not use c02 on it. i currently have amazon sword, java moss, anachris, and hornwort, i also have some grass looking plant i cant remember the name of. hope this helps

[marie_09]

thank you very much! Ugh, sounds too complicated for me right now! I think I will just stick to the plastics then to help dress up my tank!!! I'm still working on trying to figure everything out getting a really good tank set up going, so plants I think, will just be too much for me at the moment. Thank you for the reply!

[steve]

Sand is safe, I'm guessing cleaning involves a lot of hosing and draining but won't require any special maintenance once you have it setup.

[rsour24]

i dont mean to discourage you from making a planted tank, they are my favorite type of tank by far. i like the idea of having a tank that changes and is different everdya. they are a lot of fun to have and definitely worth doing. they can be a lot fo work though

[marie_09]

rsour-I think right now, as I'm still just a newbie to RES care and what not (I have only had my turtle for a little over a year now) it would be better to try aquatic plants once I'm more familiar with proper aquarium care/set up/turt care. Perhaps once I'm a little more experienced with the ins and outs of it all I will try it. I didn't realize it would be as complicated! Very interesting and good to know though!

Steve-With the sand, I take it there is not much for special cleaning once its in my tank? Or when I do a full water change do I need to clean my sand by taking it all out? I'm mostly concercened about cleaning up my turtles waste, or should my filter and a net be sufficient enough?

Thanks for the replies so far!!!

[steve]

I haven't used sand before, but I'm sure everyone will have their own preferred way of cleaning their tank. I think filter and net should be sufficient, and you can stir things up when doing a full water change.

[77f2504by4]

I have sand in my tank. When i do a water change (10-60%) i will use the gravel vac to pick up all the little bits off of the surfave of the sand. the sand is dense and tightly packed (compared to gravel) and all the junk sits on top. this makes it just as easy for me to clean as the tank was when it was a bare bottom. plus the tank looks 100% better than bare bottom!

[marie_09]

So with using a gravel vac or something similar...it won't pick up any of the sand will it? I have a battery operated syphon i bought from a menards and it clogs up if sucks up any of the algea that sometimes grows or things like that. Poo is fine with, but I'm curious if a gravel vac would be better than that? I'm not sure how powerful they are compared to what I already have. See? I still have SO much I'm clueless on!!!

[77f2504by4]

i like the gravel vac that i got. it was 6.49 at petsmart. it will suck up some sand if you arent careful. the waste is lighter than sand so if you get the gravel vac close enough it will suck up all the junk and not disturb the sand. personally i like small gravel vacs. it gives me more time to be picky and get every last bit of waste. i had a large one before, and it syphoned the water out so fast, i didnt have time to get all the waste.