Help me decide - Low or High Tech?

[Mark.A]

For any beginners reading this thread, heavily planted low tech tanks are very easy, if you select straightforward plants. You'll still need to think about lighting and fish feeding, but CO2 isn't needed for heavy planting.

A lot of money is needed for the plants though! 😄

 

[Mark.A]

Just wanted to add - it doesn't have to be all 'easy' plants. Just slow growing, low to medium light plants. There are slow growing, low to medium light plants that are considered hard or difficult to keep. An example that I love to keep is the Madagascar Lace Plant (Aponogeton madagascariensis).

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

For any beginners reading this thread, heavily planted low tech tanks are very easy, if you select straightforward plants.

I think that is <"the secret"> - <"I just cant keep plants healthy!">.

cheers Darrel

 

[Oldguy]

Amazon Sword plants

Large root spread and greedy feeders. Tend to grow out of the water column.

 

[Oldguy]

TNC Lite

About 2% ingredients and 98% water. At £12.99 a 250ml bottle the dearest thing is the bottle.

 

[Mark.A]

Large root spread and greedy feeders. Tend to grow out of the water column.

Ahhh yes, they certainly do that. 😄

I've just been talking it over with my Mrs and we've decided that it's going to be open top after all. We want to have the hardscape wood coming up out of the tank and have some plants growing above the tank on the wood. I'm not sure what plants (not a house plant person) but we don't want huge plants.

 

[Mark.A]

About 2% ingredients and 98% water. At £12.99 a 250ml bottle the dearest thing is the bottle.

Yeah, I think I'll still do an EI mix and just dose very lightly.

 

[Someoldguy]

Your other tanks look great ! You have the whole lower light / low tech tank process down pretty well , so why not set up the big tank using a process you're well aquainted with , and once everything's running well consider slowly moving into co2/heavier dosing/higher light .

 

[Aqua360]

Ahhh yes, they certainly do that. 😄

I've just been talking it over with my Mrs and we've decided that it's going to be open top after all. We want to have the hardscape wood coming up out of the tank and have some plants growing above the tank on the wood. I'm not sure what plants (not a house plant person) but we don't want huge plants.

Consider creeping fig?

Very versatile, will root into the water and climb the emergent wood

 

[Mark.A]

Consider creeping fig?

Very versatile, will root into the water and climb the emergent wood

I certainly will. I'm looking at possible plants at the minute and trying to figure out how to situate them.

I think I'm going to start a journal for the tank (even though it hasn't even started yet) so I can keep all the conversation together and not keep this thread going off topic.

 

[bazz]

I think I'm going to start a journal for the tank (even though it hasn't even started yet) so I can keep all the conversation together and not keep this thread going off topic.

 

[Oldguy]

I'm not sure what plants (not a house plant person) but we don't want huge plants.

There is a thread on this forum about suitable house plants that like/tolerate their feet in water. From experience it is often very important to remove all compost from the plants roots otherwise they will just rot. The Philodendron family is worth looking at. Any plants with aerial roots are possible candidates. Had a Monstera with its aerial root in one of my tanks, roots became branched and were very attractive, however these plants are the 'monster' in the room.

 

[DioramaDieHard]

Thanks. I have looked at doing the EI Ferts, you can see the discussion here.

The plants suffering as they run out of carbon happens because the plants are faster growing and/or have too much light so they are trying to grow more leaves but there is not enough carbon for them to grow them with. It's nothing to do with low tech and being heavily planted. It's too much light and/or the wrong plants in low tech that causes it.

The idea with the low-med light, low tech approach is that the light is kept low enough and the plants are slow growing enough that they use very little carbon and other nutrients. The low dosing of the TNC Lite should be enough to cover the minimal needs of the slow growing plants and there may already be enough carbon in the water (from waste, etc.) for them as well or you can dose the EasyCarbo to give them a little bit more carbon if needed. You could just dose a minimal amount of actual CO2 instead of using the EasyCarbo to provide a small boost of carbon to the plants. Either way should work, so long as the plants are slow growing and the light is low enough so that there is nothing growing fast enough to use up all the minimal available carbon.

This is the balance that you see loads of people talk about in planted tanks - the balance between the light, nutrients and the requirements and growth rate of the plants. Where I see people often go wrong is they try to have low tech tanks that have med-high lights over them, med-high light plants and/or fast growing plants. The plants then suffer because there is nowhere near enough carbon for that.

What do you mean about the Amazon Sword plants? Do they go round in gangs beating up the other plants? 😁

Haha! I think Oldguy was referring to their ability to spread runners in a wide radius (especially the more thuggish types like grisebachii in my experience). Hence a monthly check for runners leaving the crown is worth it, followed by trimming them and replanting them close to the crown if you like. Swords also ten to grow horizontally before growing vertically, and their broad leaves can block out light for shorter/ nearby epiphytic plants. Thus researching your own type of echinodorus (and its general size) can be helpful to determine how large a radius you should leave unplanted around each plant.