Starting Over...

[knee]

I probably would tell my old self to not go cheap on the lighting. My previous tanks failed because I tried to use cheaper lighting. 

[PaleoShrimp]

As someone who saw plants as a kid and wanted them in my tank and now I am about to start my first planted tank as a more serious hobbyist, I would say research the plants. Know what goes in the substrate and what should go on hard scape. How much fertilizer and light does it need?  I know that’s simple, but it might have saved the first plants I ever tried. 

[EVoyager31]

Don’t buy every single species of plant you can get your hands on.. get yourself a plan, pick a few species and quantities and go from there.

 

I’ve probably spent hundreds over the years buying plants I ended up ditching due to my lack of planning.

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 1/31/2023 at 12:46 PM, JettsPapa said:

Plants use ammonia as fertilizer, so I don't believe that's a problem for them.

In The Ecology of the Planted Aquarium, Diana Walstad says that plants preferentially take up ammonia over nitrate as a nitrogen source (free excerpt from her website [PDF]), but also that ammonia becomes toxic even to vascular plants above 3 ppm. Unfortunately, the copy I read was from the library, so I can't cite it by page or chapter. Maybe someone else can help out? But you're right, that at reasonable levels plants will happily consume ammonia.

On 1/31/2023 at 12:53 PM, Ohad said:

correct the melting will happen , the ammonia spikes will not and to me this is helpful

This makes me wonder if the underlying reason for your success with plants in a microbially cycled tank versus an uncycled tank has more to do with stability of the water chemistry than the actual ammonia levels. That is, maybe spikes generally are just bad for plants.

On 1/31/2023 at 1:46 PM, knee said:

I probably would tell my old self to not go cheap on the lighting. My previous tanks failed because I tried to use cheaper lighting. 

I like this because it provides post hoc rationalization for my spending!