:)hi,just wondering where in ottawa i can get some nice plants for my 10 gal.
i just set up my new tank yesterday(wooohooo) ;D and want to add some plants before i put any fish in.
how long do i have to cycle without fish for anyways......i'am chomping at the bit to get started.LOL
In theory, if you have enough plant mass, you don't need to cycle your tank. The plants will take care the ammonia as their food source. Welcome to the wet green side! ;)
The best place we found was Big Als in Kanata. The one in Ottawa is ok but Kanata is better. PetSmart has some nice looking ones too. The prices all seem to be comparable. And you may want to check out PlantGeek.net beforehand so you dont end up buying plants that arent really aquatic (such as Sandriana aka lucky bamboo). I would also suggest soaking your plants in a sink with a bit of lettuce to attract any snails that may be on them. I made that mistake once and now have a gazillion stupid pond snails that I cant get rid of.
A nice fast grower is hornwort, but its a bit messy too and hard to keep anchored. If you are looking for a nice low cover, try java moss. It looks pretty good on driftwood and I have it starting to grow over some rocks now so it looks like a moss ball.
:) thanks for the advice on plantgeek. i will check it out.
ok iam a newbie so be nice...lol... but arent snails in a tank a good thing...dont they eat the icky stuff? or are they like rabbits and breed like crazy.... ;D
Hello & welcome to OVAS & the green side, keeping a ten gallon planted tank can be very rewarding & enjoyable, I would caution you to research what kind of plants you can keep with the lighting you have & the other requirements to keep those plants.
The site below gives a pretty good insight on lighting & other aspects .
http://www.rexgrigg.com/
Happy planting
Here is some other interesting sites
http://ovas.ca/index.php?topic=35307.0
I know snails can be a good thing, but the ones I have are unwanted ones. They leave , pardon the expression, hard snotty stuff on the side of the tank and the last time I cleaned out the filter, there was about 200 in there alone! ewwwwww!
I dont know very much about which snails are the most beneficial so I hope someone else can give you some advice on that one.
The links Charlie posted look like they are full of good info too!!
Ask people in the classified's.
I filled my 75 gallon with a large assortment for less than $20.
Anyone who has several tanks or a few very large tanks running CO2 will be throwing out clippings weekly and often are happy to get rid of them for a very reasonable price.
Also, goto an OVAS meeting, often you will win the bid with just $2
ive got 3 plants in my tank now,thank you everyone.hopefully they will help my ammonia levels and keep everything ''happy'' lol.
When I used to have a planted freshwater tank I would take the looong trip over to La Niche as they often had some really nice plants there.
fellow ovas members are the best way to get plants for sure!