How to take care of your pet fish


Fish tanks plants

Stemmed plants: These can have severallamps helps but over 18" deep really needs
leaves, pairs of leaves or single, alternatemercury vapour lamps. These are cheaper than
leaves growing along a stem. They arethe metal halides used for marines but
probably the easiest plants to grow and canslightly more expensive initially than
be large and fast growing. Leaf nodes, whereflorescents. They are also very good over
the leaf joins the stem, can produce leaves,open topped tanks. With an open top you can
roots or new shoots. Simply snap the stem,encourage many plants to grow up out of the
plant it with at least one node buried andwater where some of them will flower, adding
you have a new plant. The original plant willanother  dimension  to  your  aquarium.
then grow a new shoot, or shoots, from the
top node on the remaining stem. One of theCo2 is plant food. Plants combine CO2 with
commonest, Cabomba can reach 6m. in length ifother nutrients in the water to produce
it has the space and can grow visibly in asugars and tissues. A by-product of this
day.photosynthesis is oxygen. The oxygen produced
in a planted aquarium is more than sufficient
Rosette plants: These plants grow from afor the fish in the tank. There are a number
crown in or around the gravel bed. Each leafof commercial CO2 units available which
grows directly from this crown. There aredissolve the gas in the aquarium water. The
several types of rosette plants. Theseamount of CO2 required varies according to
include Vallis, a grass like plant, Amazonthe plant demand and the hardness of the
swords, Cryptocorynes, Aponatogens andwater. Soft water needs much less than hard.
Nympheas or lilies. Vallis, swords and cryptsIn very soft water areas, like here in
spread by throwing off runners with youngAberdeen, I get reasonable plant growth with
plants growing along them. When these plantsno additional CO2. Even so the addition of
reach a big enough size they can be separatedCO2 turns the plant growth from reasonable to
from the 'mother' plant. Vallis and swordsspectacular.
(echinodorus) need to be planted with the
crown above the gravel surface; crypts needFiltration for a planted tank should be
to have the crown buried. Aponatogens andslower than for a normal tank, no more than
nympheas grow from tubers. The plant can be1-1.5 times the tank volume/hour. External or
removed from the tuber and a new plant willinternal power filters are good. I like to
grow again. Some of these plants look good asuse a larger filter with the return slowed
individual specimen plants standing outdown. CO2 is easily bubbled off in gas
against a background of stemmed plants.exchange at the surface so set the filter
Contrast  leaf  shapes, sizes and/or colours.return about 4" below the surface. Air driven
filters  or  bubbles  are  not  a  good idea.
Mosses, ferns and runners: There are only a
few aquarium plants in this group but theySubstrate/plant food. Laterite clay is a very
are easily available, adaptable and useful.useful addition to the substrate as it feeds
The commonest are Java fern, Microsoriumthe roots of the plants. Use a fairly deep
pterops and Java moss, Vesicularia dubyana.gravel bed, min.2", to allow for good root
Another plant, which is often featured bygrowth, particularly for plants like sword
Takashi Amano in his tanks, is Glossostigmaplants and crypts. 4-6" is nor too much for
elantoides. This plant produces single leavessome of the larger specimens. Again there are
along the length of the runner but withseveral commercial substrates available. If
enough light it will produce a thick carpetyou use one then try to get one that has a
of cover over the aquarium gravel. Java mosswhole system built round it. Each
and java fern can be grown on rocks or wood.manufacturer adds different trace elements to
Tie them on with black cotton initially andtheir substrate and then balances this with
they will soon attach themselves by their ownother nutrients in their liquid or tablet
roots. Java fern can be grown on gravelplant foods. If you try to mix and match you
provided only the roots are buried. Themay find you are overdosing one element while
rhizome or stem must be above the gravelstarving plants of another. Some of these
surface.systems are fairly expensive. While they do
give good results it is worth shopping
Floating plants: There are a variety ofaround.
floating plants available. They can be very
useful as nitrate reducers. They tend to beUnder gravel heating cables. These low power
fast growing and can provide useful shade forcables are used to encourage a very slow flow
fish like Discus that do not appreciateof water and nutrients around the plant
bright light. They also provide good nestroots. Many plants enjoy having their feet
building sites for bubble nesters likewarm. An additional benefit of this slow
Gouramis. Please, for your own sanity, avoidcirculation is that the gravel bed becomes a
Duckweed. This is less a floating plant, morevery efficient slow biological filter. Some
a  floating  plague.manufacturers make an external thermostat
which controls two heaters, one a cable
Light, CO2, filtration and other accessories:heater and the other a water heater. This
Sufficient light is an essential for goodgives preference to the UG cable with the
plant growth. I find that one florescent tubeother heater as back up if it gets really
the length of the tank for each 6" of tankcold. I achieve the same effect with a heater
width is sufficient, i.e. two tubes for a 12"stat set at 75F and a UG cable controlled by
wide tank, 3 for 18" etc. Deeper tanksan external Stat set at 77F.
require more light. Fitting reflectors to the



1 A 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71