Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!pyramid!lll-winken!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: alt.aquaria
Subject: Re: Fresh water plants
Message-ID: <3830@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 5 May 88 05:01:42 GMT
References: <317@unisv.UUCP> <28007@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <334@unisv.UUCP>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 36

In article <334@unisv.UUCP> vanpelt@.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>In article <28007@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) writes:
>>- Try plant plugs or peat pots.
>I have.  Didn't seem to help.
>>
>>- If there is copper in your tank (most medications have copper), it's bye-bye
>>plants.
>I quit using copper after someone in a fish store told me about how
>clown loaches will rid a tank of snails in nothing flat.  That was a
>number or water changes ago.  (Boy, those clown loaches go through
>snails like Sherman through Georgia!)
>
>Come to think of it, though, my last attempt at pots & peat plugs may have
>been while I was dumping enough copper in the tank to turn the fish green
>in an (entirely futile) attempt to control the snails.

I'm not sure I'd agree about peat pots, they always putrify for me.
The copper is a definite bad move. It bonds to the gravel and if there
is an acid introduced the sum of the cumulative doses is released
back into the water. Nasty shit.

>One thing that might be relevant -- San Jose has extremely hard, alkaline
>water.  I'm using phosphoric acid to neutralize it

AHA.

It seems to me that everywhere I've heard of has hard alkaline water, and
all fish are bred in this stuff, from fancy guppies to discus. I wouldnr
bother trying to alter my aquarium chemistry. It's just not worth it.

>Should plants have soft water?  

Not in general.

-- 
                You've always been the caretaker here.
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM                          rutgers!marque!gryphon!richard