How to plant aquarium plants. Aquarium Plants - Planting

Living plants provide a natural healthy aquatic environment for any aquarium, provide protection and shelter for many small species of fish and fry. Each plant has its own conditions for successful growth, some are very capricious and require special care, others are unpretentious and adapt to various parameters of water. The latter are the best choice for a beginner aquarist.

Step number 1. Pick plants that require the same conditions as your fish. Lighting is usually set at a ratio of 2 watts per 4–5 liters of water. So for a volume of 100 liters, you need light bulbs with a total power of 20-25 watts. These are approximate average numbers !!!

Step number 2. Beginners are recommended to purchase unpretentious plants, such as Hygrophilia varifolia, Java moss, Anubias dwarf, Cryptocrina, Vallisneria.

Step number 3. Use fine gravel or coarse sand as a substrate. Reliable rooting is possible with a soil thickness of 4–6 cm. If possible, mix new soil with a portion of the old from a mature aquarium in the ratio ¼ (for example, you can ask friends or acquaintances). This is true for a new aquarium and will provide initial nutrition to plants.

Step number 4. Before placing the plant in water, carefully examine the leaves, they may have snail eggs. Uninvited guests will fall out of place.

Step number 5. Most root plants are sold in pots / containers. Carefully remove the plant and untangle the roots with a toothpick.

Step number 6. Use a pencil or a wooden dowel to make a recess in which the root system is placed. Fill the roots. Floating plants can simply be placed in an aquarium.

Step number 7. It takes plants from 3 to 4 weeks to acclimatize, all this time they will live off of the stored nutrients. Therefore, adding fertilizers does not make any sense, they will not be absorbed and only pollute the water. In the future, the fish themselves will fertilize the soil, no worse than expensive additives.

After you have acquired the aquarium plant, washed it and disinfected it, it is time to start planting it. It is best to plant the plants in an aquarium with soil and a small layer of water, about 5 cm above the ground. If your aquarium is not new, then we work with what we have. Novice aquarists make quite frequent mistakes when planting plants in the aquarium.

Always start planting plants from the rear window. This rule applies not so much to a proper fit as to a good tone and drawing up the right design. The front of your aquarium should be free of plants, or planted with small plants forming grass cover on the ground.

Avoid bending the roots to the sides. In plants with a strong root system, such as cryptocorynes or vallisneria, the roots should be straight and without bends. To do this, make a recess in the soil with a stick and plant the plant deeper than the neck of the root, fill the root with soil and then slightly stretch the plants to the neck of the root, so the root will always be straight and even.

When planting plants, it is very convenient to use a special long tweezers for aquarium plants in those cases when you have a full aquarium with water or have already started it. Using tweezers, the plant is easily and conveniently grasped by the root without damaging it and immediately deepened in the ground without first making a hole. Using this method, you can plant a large number of small and large plants in a short time.

Arrange the root system of plants in accordance with its natural growth. As we have already described, and plants with a powerful root, it should be completely buried and directed downward. Plants like aponogetone and echinodorus have flat roots growing in the horizontal plane.

For them, a wide shallow pit is made, the roots are spread in it with a fan and sprinkled with soil. Plants with a tuber or bulb are planted so that the tuber is not covered with soil on top. Mosses and ferns can be tied with a thread or fishing line to the stone or snag on which they will grow; after rooting, the fishing line or thread should be removed.

Do not plant nearby plants of different species. Young plants tend to grow and multiply. If two different plant species are planted nearby, then one of them will grow in excellent condition and the other in oppressed. A taller and faster-growing plant will always dominate undersized and slow-growing. To do this, conditionally divide the aquarium into sectors and in each of them plant a certain type of plant in groups in accordance with your taste and preferences.

Do not plant densely fast-growing plants. Fast-growing plants should be planted at a certain distance from each other, because expanding in a short time, they will interfere with each other receiving nutrients and light in the required quantities, which will eventually lead them into a deplorable state. If you do not know how to plant the plant and at what distance from each other, then look in the directory for its adult size. Some especially large plants are planted in aquariums in a single copy at the back wall or in the corners, while the distance to neighboring plants can reach 20 or more centimeters.

Plants that feed exclusively through the root system are properly planted in fertilized soil or in pots with specialized soil for aquarium plants. These plants include cryptocorins, aponoheton, echinodorus. Currently, there is a greater variety of fertilizers for aquarium soil, some of them are applied under the root of large plants directly at the time of transplantation, do not neglect them especially when growing such plant species.

Remember that each transplant of a plant in the aquarium is a great stress for him and a temporary halt in growth. You can avoid or minimize this stress using small pots for plants. In them, you can periodically change the location of your stretch marks without disturbing the root system, and if you select them correctly in size, you can mask very well in aquarium soil.

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All people know that water is essential for growing algae. Therefore, entering it, you see crystal clear water or dirty as hell. You may think that they are nasty, but they save the lives of creatures, and these creatures cleanse the Earth, preserving our health.

Steps

Find a clean container. Fill it with water (not salt water). If you use chlorinated tap water, place a container so that it settles for at least a day, this will allow the chlorine to disperse.

Place the container next to the window where it will receive a lot of sunlight.
Sunlight is critical to algae growth (as with any green plant). The high intensity of UV radiation kills algae, but thanks to evolution, the intensity of UV radiation in sunlight is great for algae.
- Put a small piece of lettuce in a container, this will speed up the growth process.
Collect trial algae in a container. A stream or pond is usually a safe place to do this.
Add some conventional plant fertilizer to speed up the flowering of algae. Water from an aquarium or pond is also suitable, as it contains nutrients from fish waste that help algae growth.
After a few days, expand the surface area for algae growth. Adding stones to water is a good example.
The container can be closed. However, remove the cover for an hour or two every week.
Watch the growth of algae. If you have a microscope, then the fun is just beginning. Examine a drop of your algae culture at 40-100x, most likely you will discover much more than just algae. You can even find representatives of protozoa floating around!

If the algae overgrows, you can feed them to your aquarium pets.
Adding salt can help algae growth, especially if you have seaweed.
Buy some fish food and add it a little to the algae container twice a day. This ensures that the algae live longer.
Some algae species need a lot of sunlight to grow, while others do not, just type in the species you grow on Google to find out how much sunlight it needs.
Keeping a journal with photos of algae growth will be an exciting addition to the project and will leave you pleasant memories of the experience gained.
Add worms, soil, and rock particles to the container.

Warnings

Do not eat seaweed.
Do not give algae to children; they may swallow them.

What do you need

Algae sample
Container, preferably a jar

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Novice aquarists who decide to practice

growing plants , they often ask questions on forums: how to fertilize, how to apply CO2, how to plant, how to prune, what to do with black coating on leaves, etc., etc. ... They are usually advised to “achieve balance” ... And this is certainly true, but all this general words, there are no instructions like: "How to achieve balance in the aquarium, step by step ..." Recently, I have also often been asked about such topics and it occurred to me to write such an instruction based on my own experience. Why not? After all, we all launch new banks and use the same launch schemes and UDO ..

I will most likely get a multivariate instruction, and the number of options will depend on the goals of the aquarist and the initial conditions .. However, it seemed to me that it was possible to average, so to speak)) Therefore, I decided not to take the initial conditions into account at all! No, I’m not a fever and I’m not delirious)) But since we need to achieve a balance, it means it isn’t there yet ... and this means that the initial conditions are as they are. Well, I think it will be clearer later ...

Perhaps I'll start with the simplest option: aquarist grows plants for himself and the plant growth rate is not critical for him. If only it were clean and without algae. The gardener-aquarist does not grow plants for sale in bulk, does not cut them in three days and does not have technical devices such as CO2 plants and expensive UDOs, which by the way, for example, were not necessary to me at all. As I wrote, I use my Samemes)

So the first option and call it:

Growing plants in the simplest way.

We have an aquarium with an age of 1 or 6 months with a Vietnamese, a beard and a black coating on the leaves, the water is clean but periodically come out, green threads, sometimes blue-green (for example, in the ground or at the roots) ... The light in the aquarium is simply very important. LIGHT AND NOT SUPER LAMPS! For example, I have ordinary daylight lamps but: 100W per 140 liters ...

Let's start perhaps as before suggested with a change of water. But first, take a couple of steps. To do this, we need clay balls and self-made udos which are described by me below.

Step one: Tightly plant the aquarium with plants such as valysneria, hornwort, hygrophile and for example rotala indica ... In short, to the fact that we plant penny but very unpretentious plants that grow quickly and are designed to consume excess nitrates and phosphates. Plants are chosen by me so that there are both lovers of nitrates (hornwort) and big lovers of phosphates, or rather, quickly absorbing them - as a rule, plants actively giving air roots and ready to eat not only leaves ... Rotala, by the way, contrary to popular belief, eats both nitrates and phosphates perfectly , well, that’s it, by the way ... The main problem is the number of fish and organics in the water. therefore

Step Two: We cultivate in the soil, EXACTLY IN SOIL, a culture of nitrobacteria. I would advise Nitrivek, I use it myself at startup .. Why in the ground? Because if organic matter is full in water, then the filter (simple, with a sponge) needs to be washed often! Once a week and carefully.

We add clay balls to the soil to the plants, which we can make ourselves, there would be clay. This is necessary in order to make less udo by water ... After top dressing, we begin to change the water.

The first week - every other day by 30%. The second - after two days by 30%, the third week - once by 50%. Then change the water weekly by 25 - 30%. And it’s important: we try to keep the temperature, if possible, no higher than 25 degrees! The fact is that at low temperatures, plants that have not yet started to grow properly should have the advantage of a nutrient reserve over algae. At higher temperatures, plants are less likely to occur unless they have already begun to grow actively. Algae start much faster!

At this stage, we don’t pour any udos at all! We hope only for fish. The number of fish can be calculated approximately like this.

Optimum 7cm per 10-12 liters of water. Those if you have a can of 120 liters, it is advisable to have no more than 12 fish there, the size of which is about 7 cm ... This is of course roughly and crudely, but the principle is clear, fish are the best producer of fertilizers, but also organics and we need it in such a proportion that would have time to decompose and nourish our grass. The task is to ensure that bacteria quickly decompose organics and plants have time to absorb it faster than algae.

Step Three: We take a time out ... About 2-3 weeks ... We change the water and do not do anything .... The aquarium system is self-regulating .. Clay does its job in the soil .. Do not intervene and wait for the biological balance to manifest, and this will happen in about 2-3 weeks. How to see it? Just. You will see that the filter has become slower clogging, the water is always clear, and you wipe the glass less often from the plaque ... and ... you cut the rotala already every 10 days and the valysnria starts to creep out its branches on the bank ... All this is still not in perfect condition but can be seen that grass life began to spread in volume ..

Now we are one step away!

Step Four: This step depends on the results of the previous steps. Namely:

If algae disappear in the aquarium, and the plants grow, then you should not give extra udo .. In general, you do not need to climb into the biosystem while it heals itself! Then when the purity comes, you feed the plants on a leaf and improve their size, but for now just watch the miracle: everything grows MYSELF by itself! This is really a miracle, nature regulates itself very effectively without our intervention and chemistry ... You can add more complex and beautiful plants)

If purity has already arrived, then with the planned change of water, we begin top dressing with the Samemes. Very careful! Macro and micro + separately iron citrate. Slowly. We continue to keep the temperature not high. If the temperature is reduced to 23-24 gr. then you can increase the number of fish by 50 percent! Temperature and light are the most important factors, and in my opinion, temperature is more important.

That's all! It's simple. but there are small additions.

if the aquarium is young, less than 6 months, then the denser you plant it, the better.
if the jar is older than 6 months, the planting density will affect the amount of CO2 in the water, the rate of absorption of UDO and metabolism, and it can be changed arbitrarily by changing accordingly the amount of UDO and the amount of CO2.
if the light in the aquarium is less than 0.6 watts per liter, then CO2 is not needed at all when planting grass 30% of the volume. If the light is brighter, then either give CO2 mash or tighten the landing.
i’ll separately note the usefulness of shrimps, cherries, beeline snails, etc. in the aquarium. Organics will be several times smaller and black plaque, respectively, too. With thick grass, cherries will survive even with barbs and cichlids, it’s verified, I’ll even publish a video soon.

In the next article, I will describe in more detail and accurately the schedule and the number of entries made by me personally. How much to give CO2 and about temperature in more detail ... and maybe something else))

How to grow aquarium plants from seeds

Instruction manual

Get a few options for aquarium plants in the store. Be sure to find out the characteristics of a particular plant, as well as the requirements for caring for it and compatibility with plants of another type.

Do not forget that in order for the plant to grow and give new shoots, three components are necessary: \u200b\u200bminerals, carbon dioxide and light.

Adjust the lighting in the aquarium so that it is as bright as possible, long enough and not much different from natural. The daylight hours of aquarium plants should be from 10 to 12 hours. In order for the lighting in the aquarium to be bright enough, purchase lamps of the required power - from 1 to 5 watts should fall per 1 liter of volume. Pay attention also to the range of lamps for lighting an aquarium. According to experts, the growth of plants is most promoted by lamps emitting red and yellow light. Of course, such lighting has a bad effect on the eyes, for this reason it is better to combine red-yellow spectrum lamps with, say, blue spectrum lamps. Optionally, you can increase the lighting thanks to reflectors, which can also be purchased at the pet store. Pay serious attention to the choice of soil for aquarium plants. As such, it is better to use gravel or sand. Consider also that not all plants need planting, for example, floating plants exist.

Plant the plants so that there is sufficient distance between them, so it is better to arrange them in a checkerboard pattern.

Be sure to use fertilizers for aquarium plants. They can be bought at any pet store. A good fertilizer must include such substances as phosphates, nitrates, iron and potassium in large volumes.

How to grow algae

How to raise a child? For some reason, modern parents, for some reason, increasingly invest in the answer to this question material significance, rather than moral. We completely forgot that not expensive education and the best things in the “arsenal” of our children are the basis of character, habits and attitude to the world, relatives and friends. We educate children on the principle of detocentrism. The Russian journalist and prose writer Yevgeny Schwartz more precisely than all psychologists and educators described this social phenomenon in the middle of the last century: “Children need to be pampered, because only this way it will be possible to grow real robbers out of them.”

If the best becomes the enemy of the good

Modern mothers and fathers are trying to compensate for the lack of their attention and personal communication with all the best - commercial schools and clinics, branded clothing and expensive gadgets. Harmonious development? Easy - drawing, swimming pool, sports, foreign languages. And this approach has a negative effect not only on the child, but also on adults. It is necessary to have time for everything - to work, to take away a child at lunch or take the child to a circle (training, classes). Nannies and helpers are not affordable for everyone, which means they have to sacrifice their minutes of rest and nerves.

Detocentrism is the principle of building family relationships when the whole world revolves only around the child and for the child.

The first victim of detocentrism is adults. And the point is not only that they are under a heavy load, but also that sooner or later, mom and dad (grandparents) arrange a competition - who can and will manage to do as much as possible for their beloved child. The conflict that the child observes develops, and it is he who begins to consider himself his culprit.

Not rich in happiness or poor "rich" kids

For a child, the fuss around him sooner or later becomes like a dance with tambourines, and he begins to hate it or take it for granted. As a result, he builds a family on the principle of "everything for me, I am the center of the universe." But what will this family be like if the other half was brought up in exactly the same way?

In tsarist Russia, the smallest rooms were reserved for children's rooms, even in rich large houses. And in these rooms there were several children.

I will show you the world of harmony and happiness

Teaching a child is the main task of parents. In our example, they form the image of the world and a model of behavior in the family. During the formation of character, mom and dad should take on the role of leader, leader and mentor. In a family where detocentrism is practiced, this role is shifted and transferred to the child - he decides what and when, why and how much. The unformed nervous system of children in such a family is subject to stress, which by the age of 16-18 leads to a steady apathy. The child just gets tired of the hustle and bustle of the unattainable. And if he didn’t live up to any of his parents ’hopes, then this could result in a stable inferiority complex.

Psychologists say that self-confidence is formed when the child feels protected and weak, follows his parents, listens to their advice and takes what he is offered, and not what he chose. But you shouldn’t forget about freedom of choice - every step should be discussed with the children, to get their opinion and to take it into account.

What is the secret of success

Detocentrism is a trap in the modern world, but avoiding this trap is easy. How to raise children correctly? Follow all 4 basics of communication.

Show that your other half also means a lot to you.
Be selfish - do not forget about your desires, needs, do not try to predict the desires of the child.
Clear boundaries even in the daily routine (breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleep, time of games and classes) will help reduce the baby's anxiety and build a sense of self-confidence. In addition, the rules of behavior are important - it is impossible and can be left unchanged, regardless of the situation.
Get rid of illusions - you do not need to grow your child, protecting him from reality. This will teach him to perceive society adequately, to build relationships with others without the help of parents.

And most importantly, be together more, talk, become a friend, not a source of material wealth.

Sources:

What if the child grew up selfish? How to re-educate him?

www.kakprosto.ru

Propagation of aquarium plants by seeds

Decorative and healthy plants propagated by seeds efficiently and effectively, as the result is a lot of plants at once. The same can be done with aquarium plants.

Presowing seed treatment

Although the metabolic rate occurring in seeds that are dormant is low, they remain alive. The seed does not germinate and is at rest until it is placed in a favorable environment. For aquarium and other aquatic plants, such an environment is oxygen-rich water and plus temperature.

Not all seeds of aquatic plants can be stored for a long time in a dry state, some remain alive only in water and at a certain temperature. The seeds of plants of the middle band cause significant difficulties in their storage, since the temperature should be constantly around 4 ° C, so the seeds need to be stored all winter.

Relatively easy to propagate in cultural conditions, plants from the family are chastochny, aponeto-flowering - with the exception of those species in which the network structure of the leaves. Aronikovye and aroidnye rarely bloom at home. Growing seedlings of aquatic plants, germinating their seeds, first of all, you need to protect them from the worst enemies - algae.

Seed development

The seeds are germinated most often in a small vessel, the water level in which does not exceed 10 cm. The seeds begin to germinate and release from the membranes after 2-3 days. First, leaves appear on the seedlings, and only after that - roots. Plants with roots can be planted in the soil, which is composed of coarse quartz sand and a small amount of peat. For planting in an aquarium no more than 35 cm deep, seedlings are ready, grown by 5-7 cm. It is recommended to grow any plants to an adult specimen, which is able to bloom and form seeds. After the plant has blossomed and the seeds have ripened, it needs rest.

It is even more difficult to grow seedlings from small dry seeds, as their fruit shell is very hard and grows tight with the seed. For those seeds that live only in water, it is much milder. Some fruits need to be split, placing the seeds in soft clay, some should be slightly cut. Large fruits in aquatic plants are less common, most often the seeds do not exceed a size of 2-4 mm, which makes the processing of their shell even more difficult.

The depth to which the seeds are embedded in the soil depends on the type of seeds and the type of soil. From the soil with the addition of clay, it is more difficult for the sprouts to make their way to the surface, therefore, in this type of soil, the depth is minimal. But in large seeds of nutrients and vitality more, so they are sown deeper. In general, the depth can vary from 2 to 5, in rare cases up to 10 mm.

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Parting words for beginners in growing plants in an aquarium

purga_tao (purga_tao) wrote, 2013-12-01 19:32:00 purga_tao purga_tao 2013-12-01 19:32:00 I will write in simple language, so that it is clear to those who just bought an aquarium and want to see growing plants in it, rather than quietly fading the shoots of a seemingly healthy bush that I bought, so I won’t get into the endless terminology and description of the substances required for the plants. I often see a post: “Tell me, what kind of algae did I buy in the store?” Here you should immediately remember that algae is something that the aquarist tirelessly tries to get rid of, all the algae are lower plants for example, blue-green algae, brown algae, green algae, etc. This is all that grows on the glass of the aquarium, rocks and grottoes, green threads throughout the aquarium and the most unpleasant - fouling on plants, the plant loses its appearance, withers and can die. Consider the standard case of a novice, fish, grottoes, stones, and finally plants are bought (well, or already everything is bought plants), several bushes are brought home, planted in the aquarium, after a few days of observation, the question arises, why doesn’t it grow ?? Unfortunately, after several attempts, many people give up trying to plant living plants and do not try to better understand the essence of the problem, and it's not so difficult to create a garden of various plants in the aquarium (I do not mean the aquarium of Takashi Amano - this is a whole art requiring deeper knowledge) So, you need to immediately understand that aquatic plants as well as plants that live outside the water, say in a pot on the windowsill, need food and light, and not just water and stones or clean sand. In addition, the temperature of the water, the soil, the chemical composition - the amount of dissolved mineral and organic substances, the hydrogen index (pH) and many others are important. Most plants prefer soft water or medium hardness with a neutral pH (7). Here, in order:

LIGHT: Without light in the aquarium, nothing will work! If you buy an aquarium with a cover, lamps are already built in there, but, alas, often this light is not enough for growing plants. For plants, the light power for standard aquariums should approximately be 0.5-1.0 W / l for fluorescent lamps (I take fluorescent lamps as an example, since the most common ones), here we need to understand 0.5 W / l - for not very demanding plant light, 1 W / L - for more fastidious and photophilous plants. It must be remembered that passing through the water column there is a big loss of light, therefore, the higher the aquarium, the more difficult it is to enlighten. To ensure the normal functioning of plants, you need the entire visible light spectrum, this is difficult to achieve in an aquarium. The most important role is played by two relatively narrow spectral ranges - blue-green and red, and this should be considered when choosing lighting. Now there is a huge selection of various lamps. For freshwater aquariums, special lamps are expensive, but they were specially created with a spectrum for plants - there is even a full solar spectrum. You can light it with ordinary fluorescent inexpensive lamps, you can combine ordinary with special lamps, say one Grolux lamp, for the red spectrum of plants (if this spectrum is not enough, the red plants will not be saturated with red color, but most likely they will be either green or pale orange) and one ordinary one is permissible with the marking 865 (the marking "865" indicates a color rendering index of 80 Ra, and a color temperature of 6500 K - indicate the color temperature of the lamp, the lower it is, the more yellow the light, say 3000K will turn yellow, like incandescent lamps, 10000K will be used with a blue tint in marine aquariums).

NUTRITION: Do not underestimate the role of nutrition for aquarium plants, their lack leads to stunting, dying and yellowing of leaves, curvature of the plant, etc.

SOIL: Soil is not only a decorative element, but also serves to root plants and the habitat of bacteria, which in turn maintain biological balance in the aquarium, like plants that process fish waste products. The soil should not be too shallow, but not coarse about 2-5 mm. Since most plants like soft water, it is desirable that the soil does not contain such rocks as marble, coral chips, limestone - these stones enrich the water with dissolved salts of calcium and magnesium and make it hard, and the constantly growing GH and KH plants will not be appreciated. The stores now have a large selection of primers of all colors and shapes, but colored primers will discolor over time and the paint will go off. I like the natural color of the soil, I don’t really like the colored (blue, red ...) soils - it’s not natural, and the design looks closer to the natural aquarium. There is also nutritious soil, just for the herbalist, if it is possible and it is planned to plant most of the aquarium with plants, it will be nice to use it.

I also want to say about the use of CO2 in the aquarium - carbon dioxide, this is the most important food for plants. Sometimes the fish’s breathing is not enough to saturate a lot of plants with CO2, so you have to start it up additionally, they do this mainly by putting a balloon system with CO2 and dissolving it in water through various diffusers, this is a rather expensive method, but a stable supply of CO2 for several months. The more budgetary one is the production of CO2 by fermentation (yeast + water + sugar) or by chemical reaction (soda + citric acid), knead it in a bottle and bring it to the aquarium with a tube, where, using the so-called bell (an inverted cup in which carbon dioxide is collected ) gradually dissolves in water CO2. This method has drawbacks - this is a short fermentation reaction of 1.5-2 weeks, the reaction is unstable, at first there is a rapid evolution of gas, but every day it will be less. You need to be careful when using CO2, because if plants absorb it and produce oxygen during the day, then at night everything is exactly the opposite, and this can lead to the fact that the fish may not have enough oxygen until morning, so you need to take care of additional aeration of the aquarium at night . CO2 also lowers the pH in the aquarium, which is good if it’s high, but you don’t need to go too far with the feed, constant fluctuations in the hydrogen index badly affect the inhabitants, so a stable and in the right amount of CO2 supply is good. Carbon dioxide easily dissolves in water, but it also erodes quickly; you should not create unnecessary currents on the surface of the water. And again, it’s worth considering the saturation of water with carbon dioxide if you have enough light, fertilizers for plants (when applying CO2, nutrients are consumed much faster) and of course there should be a lot of plants themselves, not a bush of vallisneria with a twig kombombs, otherwise you can only make it worse. FISH AND PLANTS: think carefully about what kind of aquarium you want to see at home, do not try to put many fish and many plants in one aquarium, fertilizers and CO2 can negatively affect the fish, and most fish in sv st place incompatible with the plant, so you should consider before you buy fish in herbalist if she spoils him. Therefore, you need to decide what you want more on that and focus. The above could be described in much more detail, but I didn’t have such a task, this article is for those who have just started to grow something in their aquarium, you need to understand that if you want to see in your "pond" something that will please the eye, you will have to make at least some effort for this. In conclusion, I want to say that if you strive for the correct ratio of all elements - light, fertilizer, CO2, then in the end you will get a good result that will delight you with a beautiful underwater garden. This article I found on the aquarium forum and, I hope, it someone will definitely come in handy!

Tags: (c), Aquarium, Interesting, Master Class, Lighting in the aquarium, Plants, CO2

purga-tao.livejournal.com

I will write in simple language, so that it is clear to those who just bought an aquarium and want to see growing plants in it, and not quietly fading the sprouts of a seemingly healthy bush, so I will not get into the endless terminology and description of the substances required for plants.

Very often I see a post: “- Tell me, what kind of algae did I buy in the store?” Here, one must immediately remember that algae is what the aquarist tirelessly tries to get rid of, all the algae belong to lower plants, for example, blue-green algae, brown algae, green algae, etc.

This is all that grows on the glass of the aquarium, rocks and grottoes, green threads throughout the aquarium and the most unpleasant thing is fouling on plants, the plant loses its appearance, withers and can die.

Consider the standard case of a novice, fish, grottoes, stones and finally plants are bought (well, or plants are already bought), several bushes are brought home, planted in an aquarium, after a few days of observation, the question arises, why doesn’t it grow ?? Unfortunately, after several attempts, many people give up trying to plant living plants and don’t try to better understand the essence of the problem, but it’s not so difficult to create a garden of various plants in the aquarium (I do not mean the aquarium of Takashi Amano - this is a whole art requiring deeper knowledge)

So, what you need to immediately understand that aquatic plants as well as plants that live outside the water, say in a pot on the windowsill, you need food and light, and not just water and stones or clean sand. In addition, the temperature of the water, the soil, the chemical composition - the amount of dissolved mineral and organic substances, the hydrogen index (pH) and many others are important. Most plants prefer soft water or medium hardness with a neutral pH (7). Here, in order:

SHINE: Without light in the aquarium, nothing will work! If you buy an aquarium with a cover, lamps are already built in there, but, alas, often this light is not enough for growing plants. For plants, the light power for standard aquariums should approximately be 0.5-1.0 W / l for fluorescent lamps (I take fluorescent lamps as an example, since the most common ones), here we need to understand 0.5 W / l - for not very demanding plant light, 1 W / L - for more fastidious and photophilous plants. It must be remembered that passing through the water column there is a big loss of light, therefore, the higher the aquarium, the more difficult it is to enlighten. To ensure the normal functioning of plants, you need the entire visible light spectrum, this is difficult to achieve in an aquarium. The most important role is played by two relatively narrow spectral ranges - blue-green and red, and this should be considered when choosing lighting. Now there is a huge selection of various lamps. For freshwater aquariums, special lamps are expensive, but they were specially created with a spectrum for plants - there is even a full solar spectrum. You can also light with ordinary fluorescent inexpensive lamps, you can combine ordinary with special lamps, say one Grolux lamp, for the red spectrum of plants (if this spectrum is not enough, the red plants will not be saturated with red, but most likely they will be either green or pale orange) and one ordinary one is permissible with the marking 865 (the marking “865” indicates a color rendering index of 80 Ra, and a color temperature of 6500 K - indicate the color temperature of the lamp, the lower the yellow the light, for example, 3000K will turn yellow, like incandescent lamps, 10000K will be used with a blue tint in marine aquariums).

If you install reflectors, you can significantly enhance the lighting in the aquarium. In general, you can write more than one page about light, but I promised briefly, the main thing is to understand that it is important for plants and it is worth paying attention to what it is like.

FOOD: Do not underestimate the role of nutrition for aquarium plants, their lack leads to stunting, dying and yellowing of leaves, curvature of the plant, etc.

Plants are able to actively extract the substances they need from the environment. Aquatic plants are more dependent on the environment than terrestrial plants, which receive the bulk of the nutrition from the soil, because unlike them, they absorb nutrients along their entire surface. Plants need macroelements (nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, chlorine, silicon, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium) and trace elements (boron, zinc, copper, manganese, iron, molybdenum, cobalt, etc.). Some of them accumulate in the aquarium as a result of the life of fish and other inhabitants, some come with fresh water during the change. But this far from exhausts the entire list of necessary connections. In such a situation, to solve the deficit problem, fertilizers of which in stores are also an impressive amount. It’s possible to make fertilizer yourself, but you need to study this topic in more detail and it will not be very small. It should be noted that the use of fertilizers is advisable if you have a sufficient number of plants in the aquarium, and not 3 bushes. Excess nutrients can lead to algae overgrowth in the aquarium.

PRIMING: Soil is not only a decorative element, but also serves to root plants and the habitat of bacteria, which in turn maintain biological balance in the aquarium, like plants that process fish products. The soil should not be too shallow, but not coarse about 2-5 mm. Since most plants like soft water, it is desirable that the soil does not contain such rocks as marble, coral chips, limestone - these stones enrich the water with dissolved salts of calcium and magnesium and make it hard, and the constantly growing GH and KH plants will not be appreciated. The stores now have a large selection of primers of all colors and shapes, but colored primers will discolor over time and the paint will go off. I like the natural color of the soil, I don’t really like the colored (blue, red ...) soils - it’s not natural, and the design looks closer to the natural aquarium. There is also nutritious soil, just for the herbalist, if it is possible and it is planned to plant most of the aquarium with plants, it will be nice to use it.

I also want to say about the use of CO2 in the aquarium - carbon dioxide, this is the most important food for plants. Sometimes the fish’s breathing is not enough to saturate a lot of plants with CO2, so you have to start it up additionally, they do this mainly by putting a balloon system with CO2 and dissolving it in water through various diffusers, this is a rather expensive method, but a stable supply of CO2 for several months. The more budgetary one is the production of CO2 by fermentation (yeast + water + sugar) or by chemical reaction (soda + citric acid), knead it in a bottle and bring it to the aquarium with a tube, where, using the so-called bell (an inverted cup in which carbon dioxide is collected ) gradually dissolves in water CO2. This method has drawbacks - this is a short fermentation reaction of 1.5-2 weeks, the reaction is unstable, at first there is a rapid evolution of gas, but every day it will be less. You need to be careful when using CO2, because if plants absorb it and produce oxygen during the day, then at night everything is exactly the opposite, and this can lead to the fact that the fish may not have enough oxygen until morning, so you need to take care of additional aeration of the aquarium at night . CO2 also lowers the pH in the aquarium, which is good if it’s high, but you don’t need to go too far with the feed, constant fluctuations in the hydrogen index badly affect the inhabitants, so a stable and in the right amount of CO2 supply is good. Carbon dioxide easily dissolves in water, but it also erodes quickly; you should not create unnecessary currents on the surface of the water. And again, it’s worth considering the saturation of water with carbon dioxide if you have enough light, fertilizers for plants (when applying CO2, nutrients are consumed much faster) and of course there should be a lot of plants themselves, not a bush of vallisneria with a twig kombombs, otherwise you can only make it worse.
FISH AND PLANTS: think carefully about what kind of aquarium you want to see at home, do not try to put many fish and many plants in one aquarium, fertilizers and CO2 can negatively affect the fish, and most fish, in turn, are incompatible with the plant, so it’s worth think before buying fish in the herbalist whether it spoils it. Therefore, you need to decide what you want more on that and focus.

The above could be described in much more detail, but I didn’t have such a task, this article is for those who have just started to grow something in their aquarium, you need to understand that if you want to see what will be in your “reservoir” please the eye will have to make at least some effort for this.
In conclusion, I want to say that if you strive for the correct ratio of all elements - light, fertilizer, CO2, then in the end you will get a good result that will delight you with a beautiful underwater garden.

I found this article on the forum of aquarists and, I hope, it will definitely come in handy for someone!

Best wishes in your work!

Novice aquarists who decide to practice growing plants, they often ask questions on forums: how to apply fertilizer, how to apply CO2, how to plant, how to prune, what to do with black coating on leaves, etc., etc. ... They are usually advised to "achieve balance" ... And this is certainly true , but all these are common words, there is no instruction like: "How to achieve balance in the aquarium, step by step ..." Recently, I have also often been asked about similar topics and it occurred to me to write such an instruction based on my own experience. Why not? After all, we all launch new banks and use the same launch schemes and UDO ..

To immediately avoid the anger of the great gurus who are always and everywhere, I will give a photo of my aquarium (at the bottom of the article) and how it looks at the time of writing this opus. From the moment it was launched, it all went through all types of algae without chemicals and technical equipment such as CO2 cylinders, external filters, UV lamps ... T4 6400k lamps of ordinary daylight instead of regular ones, as I wrote earlier ... No super-spectra and there are no such super-funds for super loot!
I will most likely get a multivariate instruction, and the number of options will depend on the goals of the aquarist and the initial conditions .. However, it seemed to me that it was possible to average, so to speak)) Therefore, I decided not to take into account the initial conditions! No, no, I am not delirious and not delirious)) But since we need to achieve a balance, it means it is not there yet ... and this means that the initial conditions are such as they are. Well, I think it will be clearer later ...

So the first option and call it:

Growing plants in the simplest way.

Let's start perhaps as before suggested with a change of water. But first, take a couple of steps. To do this, we need clay balls and self-made udos which are described by me below.

Step one:

Tightly plant the aquarium with plants such as valysneria, hornwort, hygrophile and for example rotala indica ... In short, there are penny but very unpretentious plants that grow quickly and are designed to consume excess nitrates and phosphates. Plants are chosen by me so that there are both lovers of nitrates (hornwort) and big lovers of phosphates, or rather, quickly absorbing them - as a rule, plants actively giving air roots and ready to eat not only leaves ... Rotala, by the way, contrary to popular belief, eats like nitrates so well and phosphates, well, that’s how it was, by the way ... The main problem is the number of fish and organics in the water. therefore

Step Two:

We cultivate in the soil, EXACTLY IN SOIL, a culture of nitrobacteria. I would advise Nitrivek, I use it myself at startup .. Why in the ground? Because if organic matter is full in water, then the filter (simple, with a sponge) needs to be washed often! Once a week and carefully.
We add clay balls to the soil to the plants, which we can make ourselves, there would be clay. This is necessary in order to make less water udo ... After top dressing, we begin to change the water.
The first week - every other day by 30%. The second - after two days by 30%, the third week - once by 50%. Then change the water weekly by 25 - 30%. And it’s important: we try to keep the temperature, if possible, no higher than 25 degrees! The fact is that at low temperatures, plants that have not yet started to grow properly should have the advantage of a nutrient reserve over algae. At higher temperatures, plants are less likely to occur unless they have already begun to grow actively. Algae start much faster!

At this stage, we don’t pour any udos at all! We hope only for fish. The number of fish can be calculated approximately like this.
Optimum 7cm per 10-12 liters of water. Those, if you have a can of 120 liters, it is advisable to have no more than 12 fish there, the size of which is about 7 cm ... This is of course roughly and crudely, but the principle is clear, fish are the best producer of fertilizers, but also organics and we need it in such proportion that would have time to decompose and nourish our grass. The task is to ensure that bacteria quickly decompose organics and plants have time to absorb it faster than algae.

Step Three:

We take a time out ... About 2-3 weeks ... We change the water and do not do it .... The aquarium system is self-regulating .. Clay does its job in the soil .. Do not intervene and wait for the biological balance to manifest, and this will happen approximately after 2-3 weeks. How to see it? Just. You will see that the filter has become slower clogged, the water is always clear, and you wipe the glass less frequently from the plaque ... and ... you cut the rotala already every 10 days and the valysnria begins to creep out its branches on the bank ... All this is still not in perfect condition but it is clear that the life of the grass began to spread in volume ..

Now we are one step away!

Step Four:

This step depends on the results of the previous steps. Namely:
If algae disappears in the aquarium, and the plants grow, then you should not give extra udo .. In general, you do not need to climb into the biosystem while it heals itself! Then when the purity comes, you feed the plants on a leaf and improve their size, but for now just watch the miracle: everything grows MYSELF by itself! This is really a miracle, nature regulates itself very effectively without our intervention and chemistry ... You can add more complex and beautiful plants)

That's all! It's simple. but there are small additions.

if the aquarium is young, less than 6 months, then the denser you plant it, the better.
if the jar is older than 6 months, the planting density will affect the amount of CO2 in the water, the rate of absorption of UDO and metabolism, and it can be changed arbitrarily by changing accordingly the amount of UDO and the amount of CO2.
if the light in the aquarium is less than 0.6 watts per liter, then CO2 is not needed at all when planting grass 30% of the volume. If the light is brighter, then either give CO2 mash or tighten the landing.
separately, I note the usefulness of populating shrimp cherries, Beeline snails, etc. in the aquarium. Organics will be several times smaller and black plaque, respectively, too. With thick grass, cherries will survive even with barbs and cichlids, it’s verified, I’ll even publish a video soon.

In the next article, I will describe in more detail and exactly the schedule and the number of entries made by me personally. How much to give CO2 and about temperature in more detail ... and maybe something else))