Help with plants

[Jhenderson]

I would like to keep my plants in the baskets they came in. Can I do this? Do I have to take the foam out so the roots have room to grow or will they grow around it? Thanks in advanced.

[Daniel]

The short answer is yes, they can stay in the baskets. What plants did you buy?

[lefty o]

while not ideal, most plants can stay in the baskets they came in. the co-op even sells little fake rock looking things you can set the basket in to hide it.

[Jungle Fan]

@JhendersonYou can keep them in the baskets, however you'll see better growth if you plant them in the substrate, or on rock, or wood, depending on what type of plant you got, Anubias, Java fern, Bucephalandra, and Bolbitis will rot if you plant their rhizome in the substrate; they will thrive if you attach them to a rock, or wood with either moss cotton, or the gel type super glue.

I take all of my plants out of the baskets, and remove all the rock wool by means of a small plastic fork, and a small hummingbird feeder port brush. I then rinse them off under the faucet, remove any damaged leaves, and trim the fine endings of the roots. That makes the plant easier to plant and encourages establishment of new roots and  a better hold in the substrate. If the plant is a root feeder like Amazon sword, and cryptocoryne I also place root tabs next to the plant as deep as I can get them to provide them with the extra iron, and potassium.

The reason why I remove all the rock wool is that growers, especially some in Asia, a lot of times not only drench the rock wool in fertilizer and add long release pellets, but many of them add pesticides to make sure their products arrive undamaged by pests. While that is great for the plants it can get costly as I found out years ago when I lost around $200 worth of Discus due to whatever pesticides a grower had been using.

Back then my LFS had received the shipment from  his distributor who had made a change in growers. It wasn't my LFS's fault, but I learnt a valuable lesson. Today I continue with my routine to especially save my Nerite snail, and shrimp population, as well as my fish, also I don't need any added fertilizer since my current level of fertilizers I add is sufficient and I don't want to invite algae growth from any amount of excess mystery nutrients.

I hope this helps.

 

[Jhenderson]

I have a bunch of diffrent kinds, I can not rememberwhat types they are. Here's a pic if you want to zoom in to see them. I have them in my peacock/hap tank and they don't get dug up nearly as often if I keep them in the baskets.

[Jhenderson]

Jungle fan, thank you. Yes that was very helpful. I really do not want then to grow much so keeping them in will help with that too.

[Frank]

I've had mixed results. One, of two potted ludwigia repens rotted at the roots. After cutting and replanting, the stems are still growing well.

[Deku-Corydoras]

14 hours ago, Jungle Fan said:

@JhendersonYou can keep them in the baskets, however you'll see better growth if you plant them in the substrate, or on rock, or wood, depending on what type of plant you got, Anubias, Java fern, Bucephalandra, and Bolbitis will rot if you plant their rhizome in the substrate; they will thrive if you attach them to a rock, or wood with either moss cotton, or the gel type super glue.

I take all of my plants out of the baskets, and remove all the rock wool by means of a small plastic fork, and a small hummingbird feeder port brush. I then rinse them off under the faucet, remove any damaged leaves, and trim the fine endings of the roots. That makes the plant easier to plant and encourages establishment of new roots and  a better hold in the substrate. If the plant is a root feeder like Amazon sword, and cryptocoryne I also place root tabs next to the plant as deep as I can get them to provide them with the extra iron, and potassium.

The reason why I remove all the rock wool is that growers, especially some in Asia, a lot of times not only drench the rock wool in fertilizer and add long release pellets, but many of them add pesticides to make sure their products arrive undamaged by pests. While that is great for the plants it can get costly as I found out years ago when I lost around $200 worth of Discus due to whatever pesticides a grower had been using.

Back then my LFS had received the shipment from  his distributor who had made a change in growers. It wasn't my LFS's fault, but I learnt a valuable lesson. Today I continue with my routine to especially save my Nerite snail, and shrimp population, as well as my fish, also I don't need any added fertilizer since my current level of fertilizers I add is sufficient and I don't want to invite algae growth from any amount of excess mystery nutrients.

I hope this helps.

 

I have a habit of just putting new plants in the tank with the pots and rock wool on whenever I don't have time to plant them right away. Luckily I've never had an issue, but I'm definitely going to stop doing that after reading this story!