Bought some live plants

[Steve]

Well I just bought my very first live plants off Aquabid last night. I've never had live plants before so looking forward to getting them in the tank. I bought 12 Java Fern for a pretty low cost. Since these are the first live plants for me I don;t have much knowledge of their care yet but have been doing a lot of reading up on the Java fern this morning. From what I can tell....

They are a good low light plant (I have a 48" dual 10,000k & acentic in the tank they are going in that stays on for about 10 hrs per day) Should this be good?

Do not bury the rhizome and roots can be let exposed on this plant

Attach to wood & rocks with cotton thread

Anything else I am missing or maybe not thinking of? Should I wash them thoroughly before I put them in the tank?

[linuxrulesusa]

Some type of dip/rinse might not be a bad idea.  Especially if you want to avoid having snails.   Here are some options: http://www.plantedaquariumscentral.com/Information_on_Snail_Dip.html

[Steve]

appreciate the help, good info there

[Steve]

Plants just came. They look nice and green & healthy. I'm going to try to get some time to clean them and get them in the tank tonight. I'll post some pics once I get them in.

[Ron]

Congrats!

[Steve]

Got them all washed and in the tank now. Some of them I actually sewed to the background with a stainless curved needle and 4lb test fishing line. I'm extremely happy with the look they add to the tank, and I'm sure the added benefit of lowering nitrates will be nice over time as well. Hopefully they grow well. The light in this tank is actually a "plant" rated light (10,000k I believe it is) so we'll see how it goes. If they grow well I may end up doing some more live plants in my other tanks.

[Regalblue]

Looks good Steve

[linuxrulesusa]

Really like the added visual interest of the live plants.  Great move.

[jamarini]

I'm not sure what plant species you have in the tank, Steve, but I had an entire tank of vallisneria completely consumed by a small group of mbuna.  I put the plants into their tank and in less than thirty minutes I returned to nothing but fish and plant roots!  It was sad.  So, hopefully, you planted species with tough leaves.

[Steve]

They are all Java Fern. I did a lot of asking around before deciding on java fern and it seemed that most people I asked that tried plants with Mbuna all said the only plant they could ever keep without them eating it was java fern. I have no idea why that is, but that seemed to be the one plant everyone agreed worked so we'll see how mine do with them. It's been in the tank for about 5 hours now and so far they haven't messed with them yet.

[four_by_ken]

Looks great!!!!

[mightieskeeper]

Very nice plants, they will be really cool to see grow out.  How large will they grow?  Some ferns get big.

[Steve]

The place I bought them from (A plant seller on Aquabid) said they will get to be about 6"-7" so roughly twice what they are at the moment. I really don't know for sure though because I've seen some java that was way taller than that, so we'll find out

[LoveTheFishies]

Looks nice.  Would like to see some pix when the plants get bigger.