Planting problems

[Blackstitch]

I want to put a few plants in my 26 gallon in the New yr, but the problem is that I have an algae eater who loves to dig up the plants, yes it will even dig up the fake ones every once in a while. Any help on how to tackle this problem would be greatly appreciated.

[dan2x38]

What kind of algae eater? How & what type of fish? What type of lighting do you have? What type of substrate & how deep?

[Blackstitch]

I have an albino algae eater, a siamese algae eater, and about 5 full grown pineapple swords. I'm guessing the algae eater digs up the plants when it is cleaning the substrate around them. I have a mix of blue and white gravel as a substrate in the tank and it is about half an inch thick. I'm going to try and add a little more substrate to the tank to see if that helps with the problem. For the lighting, I have an F18T8 single natural daylight tube in there. If anyone can help me with what the ratio is, watts per gallon wise, that would be great.

[dan2x38]

I doubt the SAE is digging up any plants but the albino algae eater sounds like a chinese alage eater. These guys get nasty as they age. They also loss their taste for algae and often enjoy the slim coating on some fish especially goldfish. They can suck on to them and put some holes in their side causing injury then infections, etc.

Try some simple plants to start like ludwiga repens, westeria, water sprite, hornwort, bocopa carlinia you can float these until you get a nice root system. Make a hole in the substrate push the plant into it. Cover the roots make a little pile around the stem. Your substrate is not very deep though. You can also grow java fern by tying it to a piece of driftwood or on a rock. You can also get some windtii crypts. These last 2 are slow growers but look nice nd easy to grow as well.

Get some complete liquid fert. like Seachem Flourish and some iron. You can also use root tabs.

Likely be able to find all these on sale on Boxing Day. Also check the classifieds here several members have posted some of these plants for sale.

[BigDaddy]

Your biggest problem is the depth of your substrate.  Not a lot is going to stay rooted in substrate that thin.  Get it a good two inches deep and it will help.

As far as your lighting goes, your on the low end.  You are actually less than 1 WPG, so only very low light plants will do well in your tank.  Java fern, java moss and some of the hardier anubias would be good first choices.  With the fern and anubias, you could tie them on driftwood in such a way that they'd be a bit closer to the light (as opposed to being near the gravel) to help out as well.

[presto]

Sometimes I bunch my new plants together, wrap them with a plastic tie(ones that click closed), add one of those fishing weights(bell shape) and loop it with the plastic tie, and then close the tie and cut the end of.

It keeps my plants bunched and weighted down. After a few weeks when the plant is rooted I simply cut the tie wrap and remove the weight.

[Fishnut]

The substrate is definately the issue for uprooting plants.  If you want to try growing live plants, increase the depth to 2 inches, as BD said and start with something simple.  Cryptocrenes don't require as much light to grow.

Is your light bulb something that you buy at the pet shop or at the hardware store?  I like the hagen Life Glo bulbs.  They're pretty bright and they grow the low light plants nicely.