fresh water plant tank

[Amstar]

Well since my 16 gallon reef nano bit the dust with the heater problem.  I was going to just turn it into a fresh water tank with some of the extra fish from our 5 year old tank.  Lots of extra guppies, mollies etc. 

however since I have a 65 watt pc 12k bulb and a 65 watt pc actinic light set I thought I might throw my hand at having some live fresh water plants.

is this difficult?  am i going to have to buy alot of new things??  if so im not interested.

just thought the everyday up-keep of a freshwater tank is boring!!! I like to fiddle around.

thanks

[REDPYRO]

only thing hard thing about fresh water plants is planting them and keeping them planted.  Some fish tend to dig them up 

Also in such a small tank you will have to keep them groomed.  once they start to grow they are like weeds

[Amstar]

any paticular gravel or mixture you should use for the plants??

[Joel]

K temp is wrong for fw plants. More like 55-65K would be better.

Need to do some home work on the specific needs of the plants your interested in keeping, not all plant want the same water parameters (kh/ph, etc)  and just like corals, not all plants want the same type / amount of light.

Substrate is very important, regular old gravel is not good for most, laterite would be a good idea. I believe that this system has a wet / dry filter? Also not god for planted aquariums, it strips the co2 two efficiently. Perhaps keeping the filter area over filled with water might be a way of decreasing this. A co2 system would be a good addition to address this as well.

Joel

[JoeAyers]

You might want to check out gcas.org. There are some pretty intense plant guys on there that could help I'm sure.

or Check out these guys:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/south-western-ohio-aquatic-plant-enthusiasts/

[Amstar]

wow!!! never mind.  I didnt know there was that much to fresh water live plant tanks.  I will continue to spend my money on salt (my reef) and just make the nano tank the sponge-bob tank that the girls want with just guppies, and mollies.


just didnt know how much it took.

[MechanicalEngineer]

Wow, I didn't know there was that much to it either.  I just figured it was just an underwater garden.  I have considered a planted tank several times...nope, I'm going to stick with my corals too!  No wonder ya don't see planted tanks very often.