Suggestions required for plants with a sand substrate

[Carl Whitbread]

Hi, I am looking for some friendly advice and helpful guidance for new plants to be considered for my tank. It is currently set to a sand substrate as I have corydoras and has an external JBL Crystal Profi e1501. I do not have a CO2 system and would prefer to stay away from it so I am looking at a low tech setup with the addition of dosing with Seachem Excel.

I have a Juwel Vision 180 tank with T5 lighting consisting of two 35w tubes (just replaced) I have a Nature tube at the front and a day light tube at the rear and these also have Juwel refelectors on them. The photo period is 6 hours a day with a one hour break during the photo period to disrupt algae.

I used to have Carib Sea Eco complete but removed this in favour of the sand for the corydoras and the clown loaches the latter I have sadly lost. Sand has been in tank now for over 5 months so the tank is very stable.

I also have a phosban 150 with added Rowaphos so my phosphates are very low almost to zero. I do realise adding a liquid fert will raise the phosphates but would it be really necessary to remove it?

I also have a Eheim Reeflex 500 UV on the output side of the JBL filter.

The fish I have are 4 x Corydoras, 5 x Zebra Danios, 3 x Celestial Pearl Danios (aka galaxy raspboras), 7 x Cardinal tetras and I x Platy

The filter media has 4 trays. I tray has Seachem matrix, then trays 2 has sponges, tray 3 has sponges with a pack of Fluval active Carbon and tray 4 has the two JBL fine filter sponges. Once I have used up all of my Fluval Carbon I am switching to Purigen or even Perlite

I also have 2 x slate airstones (Fennstones) 1 x Juwel internal heater and yes the dreaded plastic plants for now

I am looking at putting plants back into my tank that would suit my setup and to find out if I would plant them or leave them in their baskets etc but would prefer to find out what has worked best for you if you have a similar setup.

Also, could you recommend some stable low tech plants that will not frazzle up by using Seachem Excel and has anyone tried perlite instead of purigen?

I realise that this is a lot to ask but hey that is why I am here - Ask the Pros !!!!

Thanks for your help

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

It is currently set to a sand substrate as I have Corydoras

Sand is fine as a substrate, I have it in most of the tanks, and it is definitely best for Corydoras. I've got a lot of not very exciting spare low tech plants you can have for p&p if you need a starter pack.

I also have a phosban 150 with added Rowaphos so my phosphates are very low almost to zero. I do realise adding a liquid fert will raise the phosphates but would it be really necessary to remove it?

Plants have a quite a high PO4--- requirement (it is the third of the macro-nutrients after nitrogen (N) and potassium (K)), so you can't really keep it. Plant growth nearly always has one limiting nutrient (<"Liebig's law of the minimum">), which means that if you have very low PO4--- then it will limit plant growth, even where an excess of other nutrients are available.

If you feed the plants with a low rate of fertiliser they should be fine without CO2, or a carbon supplement like Excel. I use the <"Duckweed index"> but you can use EI salts but just <"dose them at a lower rate">, a 1/4 amount? or similar.

The filter media has 4 trays. I tray has Seachem matrix, then trays 2 has sponges, tray 3 has sponges with a pack of Fluval active Carbon and tray 4 has the two JBL fine filter sponges. Once I have used up all of my Fluval Carbon I am switching to Purigen or even Perlite

I'd chuck the fine sponges out, I'm not a great fan of mechanical filtration media in external filters. I like an easy clean sponge filter on the intake.

I'm not a purigen user, and I'm not sure about perlite. I've used as a media in hydroponic filters, but it floats and it doesn't have any ion exchange capacity, so it isn't really a similar product.

cheers Darrel