# Impulsively bought some plants



## fuhreakz (Dec 7, 2010)

So I was at big Al's on friday during their "Tent" sale and noticed plants were 25% off.

I found a nice fern attached to driftwood which i picked up and 2, 3 stem bunches of Hygrophila difformis.

I have placed them all in my 10 gallon established community tank. It currently only has normal gravel as the substrate but during a water change tonight I'll be removing half the gravel and putting in Fluval Plant Stratum in half the tank.

I plan to stick the difformis in there.

I have a heavy fish load in the tank with:

4 Neon Tetras
2 Amazon Sword Tails
1 ghost shrimp
2 Barbs (small ones don't remember what they are called)
2 guppies (the other 3 died when i tried to put frogs in with the fish oops)

I've got a life glo 65K bulb in there and a penguin filter with the bio wheel removed.

So I'm wondering if I'll need CO2 injection in there to keep the plants alive due to the amount of fish that are in there. I also read that the difformis plant will use up most of the nutrients in the water, will there be any left for the fern?

Darn impulsive purchases...


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## qwerty (Dec 15, 2009)

> So I'm wondering if I'll need CO2 injection in there to keep the plants alive due to the amount of fish that are in there


CO2 is necessary to grow plants under intense lighting where CO2 is the limiting growth factor. In your low-lit tank, light is the limiting factor. CO2 would be appreciated by the plants, but it is far from necessary.

I wouldn't be surprised if your plants would be just fine with root tab ferts and your plain aquarium gravel.

Java fern doesn't grow all too fast and is pretty undemanding (which I assume is the fern you purchased). It will probably do alright with just the nutrients in your water column provided by the fish, etc.

If anything you might need a little flourish comprehensive or something similar to add every once in a while... Maybe.

Basically you don't have a lot of light, and you don't have CO2, so you're going to have relatively slow growth, so the plants aren't going to be taking up a lot of nutrients quickly, and you have a light plant mass... So there's no need to start providing lots of nutrients.

Just to put it in perspective, I have a 10gal with hygro difformis in it lit by a 15W T8 bulb (which I believe is what your bulb is). I use a potting soil substrate and the rest is provided by the fish (I have a lighter bioload than you). I also have the tank full of other plants, including some pothos at the surface which grows quite nicely. My slow growing anubias which gets its nutrients from the water column is doing great in this tank despite all the other plants and the lack of added fertilization. So... My opinion is that with root tabs you should be alright.


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## Arkerone (Mar 15, 2011)

I have some hygrophilia difformis in my tanks and find it to be very undemanding and grows quickly with no added CO2. In my 10gal it reached the top of the water and then started spreading out from the bottom and looks great.

I've planted it in plain black gravel as well as eco-complete with very little difference in growth, seems to take most of it's nutrients from the water column.


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