# Foreground



## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I have a 29 gal. with 1.2 wpg I think and all the plants on my sig. Im gettin bored of my gravel and was wondering if there was a plant that would cover it? Also what are the ups and downs of a covered bottom. How do you clean the gravel? :smile:


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## awesome kid (Jun 10, 2005)

use a gravel vac that you can find at a good lfs


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I have one but wont that hurt the plant?? Would riccia work?


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

As for how you clean the gravel, you don't need to. The plants will make sure that any stuff that gets into the gravel will not cause any harm, and will in fact help the plants grow. However, stuff can collect on top of the gravel and look ugly, so while it's harmless you'll probably want to get rid of it. To do that you just take your gravel vacuum and sort of hover it over the top of the gravel, near the stuff you want to collect, and it will be sucked up. Don't plunge the gravel vacuum into the gravel.

As for ground cover, well, with 1.2 WPG your choices are limited. You could get lots of anubias but that would be really expensive. I would go for a mess of cryptocornes, small ones like wendtii. They won't grow great in plain gravel, but I think they at least have a chance of survival. I don't think that any of the really small ones like riccia, dwarf hairgrass, or Echinodorus tenellus will work for you.


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## Aqua Essentials (Jun 23, 2005)

I agree - you'd certainly need to increase your light and your nutrients in your substrate if you are serious about growing the more typical forground plants i.e. glosso/dwarf hair grass etc.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

Your best bet for a foreground plant would be dwarf sag or marsilea crenata (aquatic). Better chances with the dwarf sag but I'm not sure how low it would stay if it even grew in your tank. Cround covering plants, as a rule, need more light and a nutrient rich substrate. Plain gravel just doesn't fit the bill. 1.2 wpg isn't really enough light either.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Hmmmm. "dwarf sag" seems to some in a couple of different varieties. S. natans is about 4" to 6", not very small. I think S. sublata is a bit bigger than that but haven't tried it yet (as I was under the impression that S. natans is smaller). S. natans does great for me, even growing in plain gravel and low light (1.5WPG). I have a much smaller one, S. lileopterus (micro/carpet sag), that's tiny, like 1" tall, but it doens't do that well. It's still there but just barely. It's not a vigorous plant. 

My marsilea crenata does better than the micro sag, but it's still just kind of hanging in there. (And this is with 2 or more WPG, soil + gravel substrate, much better than Fishboy93's setup)

I recommended crypts (especially) C. wendtii because it's smaller than S. natans and does really well, looking lovely and healthy in all my tanks.

Actually there's a newcomer in my tanks thtat I don't know the name of, which does amazingly well. I got it from a friend who just found it growing in his tank one day. I should post some pics and see if anyone here knows what it is... I would recommend that as my top condenter for carpeting plant in low-tech setups, if only I knew what it was!

Hmmm. I just had a look through the pictures of Echinodorus at Tropica
http://www.tropica.com/
My mystery plant looks most like Echinodorus quadricostatus var. ''magdalenensis'', especially the light green leaves and fast growth, but mine is only about 3" tall.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

Thats Cuban broad leaf chain sword (all Echinodorus varities are swords if one reading this doesn't know). All swords need lots of nutrients. THey may start off well but if the gravel hasn't become "seeded" it may die off. Will also need more light than is available in said tank.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Ah, the mystery plant is in my most successful planted tank, a 10 gallon with 24W of light and soil + gravel substrate. It is growing pretty amazingly, but Simpte is certainly right, its success there may not translate into success in Fishboy's tank.

So, OK, I'm back to recommending crypt wendtii. Or dwarf sag (the 4" to 6" kind, not the micro sag) if you want something a bit bigger.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

You can keep the dwarf sag trimmed to 2-3 inches for a grasslike effect. 
C. Wendtii get large also. My mother plant way over 8 inches.


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I already have some dwarf sag but it hasnt spread at all. I was thinking of making a java moss ground cover. Sorry i havent posted in a while.


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I am also looking at willow and christmas moss..... will it grow well and spread on the bottom?


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

X-mas moss is easier to grow than willow. Though I don't think either moss will provide an adequate carpet effect. They grow to slow and never the way you want them to.


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

do you mean willow and christmas moss wont work or all of them? Are Xmas and christmas moss the same thing??


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I just found this

http://www.plantgeek.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=32110&sid=03a5bad69f9bc1

can dwarf sag be tied on to rocks??

Sorry for all the questions....


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

I don't know anything about using moss as a carpet plant. I personally wouldn't try it, as I have a nice rice soil + gravel substrate and it seems silly to waste it by covering it up with mesh! I'd rather put in plants that cover the bottom on their own.

As far as I know sagittarias like to be in the substrate. Java ferns look really nice tied to rocks, especially if you get the frilly kind,
http://www.tropica.com/productcard_1.asp?id=008B


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

This was my plan was if it works:
1) Put all my dwarf sags on a rock leading up to a java fern
2)Then adding a few new plants so i can combine shipping
3)Lastly atatch some java and (or) willow moss on rocks and on the base of my driftwood and let them slowly or fastly grow over the tank


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

You cannot attach dwarf sag to rocks. It has no rhizome.


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

Okay I changed my mind anyway i moved all the rocks around and made my plants a little more compact. I am still planning on buying some willow moss and attatching it to my driftwood because i like it.


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I upgraded my lighting to a power compact 65 watt that will come in the mail this week! :-D What new plants can i have?


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

65 watts is much better for growing plants! However, gravel still isn't a very appropriate substrate, as the grain size is too big to provide much surface area for plants, and it doesn't have any nutrition in it. I'd suggest changing the substrate for something more plant-friendly. You could go for a commercial substrate (Eco-complete, Flourite, etc), or laterite under sand, or (my favorite because it's the cheapest) 1" soil + 1" gravel.

I think that if you stick with your plain gravel you will still be fairly restricted in the types of plants you can grow. I had a 20 gallon tank with 1.5 WPG lighting and a gravel substrate, and I was trying to grow plants in pots of Flourite. The plants did kind of OK, but disgusting black algae eventually took over the tank. Three weeks ago I changed the substrate over to soil + gravel, rinsed off the plants (those that were still alive, anyway) and replanted them. The plants are looking better, the black algae seems to be gone, and other algaes are slowly retreating.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

Turface MVP grey or regular is a good substrate. It basically baked clay (like the rest) but no added nutrients. I get it for $8.00 for 50 lbs. Cost me $32.00 to add to my 75 gallon tank. You can find it at some Super Walmarts and most lawn centers. (Its the same stuff they use on baseball fields to soak up extra water. May also go by the name Profile or Schultz Aquatic planting soil though it may be more expensive in these forms.


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I bought Eco Complete i think or the flourite but i had a huge mess. I took 2 days for the stuff to settle after cleaning it 7 times. Then whenever i put my hand in the gravel will shoot all the silt back up makin an enormous mess. I was thinking about the root tabs at aquariumplants.com in the substrate fert section. It costs $8 for a pack and thats 50 tablets and they last 5-8 weeks i think. So 8 dollars a year isnt bad. would that work? I got a shipment of vals and crypts comin towmorrow


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Flourite sometimes does make a mess. It's basically a rock made of clay, so the dust is clay dust, which has very fine particles which take a long time to settle out of the water. I didn't have any trouble with that when I used in pots in the old setup of my tank, but that's probably because I used so little of it. I have read of other people having problems with it as thier only substrate. I hope it will eventually settle down for you.

Funny thing is that many people think of soil + gravel as being a very messy substrate, but any soil I stir up when adding or removing plants settles back down in a few hours. Sounds like, if you're unlucky, some of the commerical substrates can be worse!

I don't have any experience with root tabs. Will you really need them for vals and crypts? They aren't very demanding plants. If you get swords, this is the sort of thing that would really benefit from the root tabs, I think. But then, I've got a few varieties of smallish to medium sized swords that are growing fine in a soil + gravel substrate wihtout any added ferts (in a tank with 2.4 WPG).


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## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

I was thinking about adding a 1" layer of soil and 1" of sand. What is the best and reasonably price type there is? How do I change them? take all my plants and stuff out lower water level then change them out? At my lfs they sell swords if i do get root tabs can i keep them?


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

From what I read in the "El Natural" forum that I read, where Walstad-style natural tanks are discussed, soil + sand doesn't work nearly as well as soil + gravel. Something about the sand being too dense, so no oxygen at all penetrates to the soil level.

You've already got the Flourite, right? I have heard of people having success with sand on top of Flourite, see 
http://www.plantedtank.net/sandsubstrate.html

As for how to redo the substrate, you take all your fish out and put them in buckets, take all your plants and decorations out, empty tank of water, remove as much of the old substrate as you like, add new substrate, moisten it, replant plants, fill carefully, replace decorations, let it sit for awhile for particles to settle and temp to stabilze, put fish back in.


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