How to Choose the Right Aquarium Plants. Selecting your supply of live plants in the freshwater aquarium may sound as easy as the process of walking into a fish store and selecting some decorations to make the tank more beautiful. However, in case you would like your plants to prosper then you need to think about not only the choice of plants but also taking into account the reaction of the fish who is in your aquarium. You still have to keep in mind the aesthetics and the amount of room you are adding when planting plants in your aquarium compared with the amount of specimens you have in your aquarium.
Live aquarium plants are numerous and they may demand different care. Hence, prior to introducing your aquarium with live plants, you need to think about why you want them, what kind that will fit your aquarium better, and how will you take care of them. In this guide, Olacuario will make you understand how to separate the plants in terms of their difficulty to maintain, their association with the fish and of course the price it is available in. When planning to buy freshwater aquarium plants, the foremost thing that should be borne in mind is to just sit down and ponder about the need of having them in your fish tank.
Beginner’s Guide to Aquarium Plants
The thing is that living plants may be a pleasant source of many valuable purposes but we too should think how we want to address it and why. With that said, now we should check the advantages that live plants could introduce to an aquarium: On top of all these advantages, aquarium plants have a tendency to promote and control the quality of water in the aquarium. Therefore, there is a direct relationship between quality of water and the health and well-being of the fish, hence, a low water quality means that the fish resorts to stress, compromising their health, and thus, increasing the chances of a disease.
Thinking about why you need freshwater plants in your aquarium, the reasons mentioned above should remembered. The advantages of live plant are however clear and you will therefore want to take a bit of time of considering the details of the plants like the final appearance you would want your fish tank to have after planting the live plants. Moreover, live aquarium plants are available in a great number of varieties with respect to shape, sizes, and colors.
Why keep plants in your aquarium in the first place?
Aquarium plants can used to make a rich carpet along the bottom of your aquarium or a living background to your aquarium and the large variety of sizes and shapes available to us give us a very large choice of aesthetics and practical applications. The background of aquarium plants and their purpose in your aquarium environment now established and so now you can begin to think about the types of plants you wish to put into play. Therefore, the aquarium plants can be classified into three various groups based on their place in an aquarium foreground plants.
The plants in the fore ground are those that are in the front of the aquarium; they tend to be shorter and also they grow very slowly. Others foreground plants which can also sometimes referred to as carpet plants since they have a special habit of protruding horizontally as compared to vertically and thus they form a carpet-like picture at the bottom of the aquarium which happens to green in color. Mid-ground plants. The plants used in the mid ground are even more taller in comparison to foreground plants; it is possible to use such plants in the sides of the aquarium as well as in the center.
What lighting do you have?
They will be able to contribute towards the beauty of the aquarium, even though not occupying excessive and precious swimming space by the fish contained in it. Background plants. Largest kind of plant is called background plant which is utilized in the rear of the aquarium. They are able to form a natural setting within the aquarium, and also a hiding place of the fish. The other factor one has to take into consideration when making a decision on what kind of aquarium plants to obtain is the substrate within. Plants require particular nutrients to grow, and even though.
They extract some nutrients into the water column, the majority of their nutrients are taken through the roots (this is when the substrate is considered). Substrate is literally the material that lines the bottom of the aquarium and on which the plants will be rooted. Fish tanks use sand and gravel substrates but a planted aquarium will require a complete substrate that is nutritious. In case you have an already established aquarium, then you will have to factor in the substrate in the selection of the live plants you desire or intend to add and their numbers.
Choosing the Right Substrate for Aquarium Plants
When you are using a total substrate, then the options are manifold, because these substrates are tank specific and specifically made to use in tanks with plants. In case you also have a sand/gravel substrate, you can proceed with planting live plant species, however, you also will require periodical plant fertilizing to provide them with the needed supplies. The other substrate you can utilize is the Seachem Flourite. This substrate is found to be rich in iron although other nutrients are absent. It is also highly dense and porous with it not being a very good choice to hold plants with sensitive roots.
Conversely, in case your aquarium has a substrate soil, it is likely to support the growth of most of the plants, although you need to consider that it is capable of clouding water in the aquarium when disturbed to root your plants. Light constitutes one of the important sources of energy to your aquarium plants since it enables them to synthesize the photosynthesis process where the plants synthesize carbon dioxide to form energy. The possibilities of lighting in an aquarium are numerous; not all, however, are very suitable to plants. There are plants that like dim light and the reverse is also true.