Newbie needs plant advice

[KittenFishMom]

I am taking a new approach to having plants in my aquarium. I have tried several approaches, and it is time for a new one.

First, I took seaweed with roots, out of the lake and put the roots in 2 inch pots with the suberates gravel and tuck them together against the back of the aquarium.  The large number of crayfish tried to climb up the plants and dug around in the stones, going after settled fish food and such and always uprooted the plants.

My second attempt was to let the seaweed float around and I changed it often, because the lake had a huge supply floating around on it.  Now the lake is down and out and the fresh seaweed is not washing up anymore. I have some floating in my scud 10 gallon tank and my 55 tank. But there won’t be new stock until spring.

My third attempt was to hang a plastic basket with side handles about halfway in the water with fiber fill in it and the HOB filter emptying into it. I put cutting in it. Some cutting grew, others did not. Now my tanks are inside with covers to keep the cats from going swimming, so baskets at the water surface don’t really fit under the covers.

Currently, I am keeping the bottom of the tank substrate free so I can tell what and how much the picky eater fish are eating. I bought a water sprite and an easy planter, and it is starting to settle in and grow new leaves. I can easily move it between tanks in the easy planter. I have ordered "Windelov" Java Fern to tie to a rock and Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus to put in any other easy planter. I have a feeling the P S Octopus will want to be in soil, so I was planning on getting some aquarium soil and layer it in a pot between pebbles top and bottom to keep the circulating water from disturbing the aquarium soil. I bought Easy Green All-in-One Fertilizer Easy Root Tabs to feed the plants.

My questions:

Does this new approach sound like it will work, or does it need adjusting?

What kind of soil should I put in the pot?

What plant light to get? I want to get a good plant light for the 55 gal 4-foot-long tank.  I don’t want to do colored light shows or fancy programming. I just want something that will be good for getting the plants to grow.  Please let me know what you know about the lights on the market. (This really confuses me because aquariums should not be near windows with natural light because algae will grow out of control, but tanks need plant lights for the plants. I don’t understand where the balance is.)

[Patrick_G]

Your plan sounds great to me. There’s quite a few forum members that use easy planters or small pots instead of planting in the substrate. You won’t need fancy pants lights. Take a look at the Finnex ones sold by Aquarium Coop they’re not very pricey and are reported to work great. For my 4’ tank I was on an even tighter budget so I went for a Nicrew light from Amazon. An even less expensive solution would be a led shop light from Amazon.  All of these lights will grow the plants you mentioned. I wouldn’t worry to much about soil. In my tanks both Pogostemon Octopus and Water Sprite grow without soil. You could just leave the new plants in their containers or you could fill the easy planters with gravel and plant in that. 

Edited December 6, 2021 by Patrick_G

[PineSong]

I have water sprite growing in an easy planter (on the left in the photo), and a sword plant (on the right), too. They are working fine so far.

I do put root tabs in the substrate right near them, and since the easy planter has a hole in the bottom, the roots can access the nutrients. I believe I heard Cory say in a video that the Co-op root tabs have clay in them. Since I only have gravel substrate, I am hoping this is true and over time the bits of clay in the root tabs combined with fish mulm and detritus will make some 'soil'.

My tank is a 20 long and has a Finnex Stingray.

 

[JettsPapa]

Water sprite in my tanks grows much better floating instead of planted