Plants
Aquarium plants – the green lung of your aquarium
Aquatic plants can do much more than just look beautiful and produce oxygen. They remove phosphates and nitrates from the water (for more details, see Water values ) and even act as competition with the algae for nutrients. They can absorb toxins from the water and provide a well accepted supplementary food and hiding places for the fish. In a nutshell: aquatic plants are the best helpers your aquarium can have!
Please don’t skimp on your aquatic plants!
It’s better to purchase a few too many plants than not enough. Choose fast-growing species, not dark-green ones which mostly grow slowly. The quicker a plant grows the more nutrients it absorbs from the water and ensures a healthy, functioning aquarium.
Which plants are the best for you?
If you have picked one of our themed aquariums you will receive the appropriate plant selection list for it.
If you want to design your aquarium yourself, you will need to keep some points in mind
In your specialist shop select as many different species as possible. Not all species thrive in the same way, and therefore you increase your chances of finding species, that will settle well in your aquarium.
Select some fast growing plants because they absorb more algae-promoting nutrients from the water than slow growing species.
Dark green
Slowly growing, mostly undemanding, needs little light and fertiliser
Light green
Mostly fast growing, liking light, a bit of fertiliser, does grow better with CO2 fertilisation
Red
Needs a lot of light and fertiliser and by all means a CO2 fertilisation
Marsh plants
Many marsh plants look very attractive and are therefore often sold as aquarium plants. However, they often only last a short time once completely submerged in the aquarium and we therefore don’t recommend them!
Inserting aquarium plants and adding the water. Here’s how!
How are aquarium plants correctly inserted? What can you do about plants that won’t stay in the soil and keep floating up? How do you add the water without disturbing your arrangement?
What’s the best way to plant them?
When inserting the plants please take into account how high the plants will grow and how much space they require to their sides. Lower remaining plants should be at the front, whereas higher plants are better positioned in the background. You can purchase a lot of plants in plant pots at specialist shops. Please remove the wool-like material from the plant roots and prune the roots with scissors ( JBL PROSCAPE TOOLS S CURVED ).
Then carefully insert the plants into the soil. Sometimes plants get out as quickly as you insert them. A good help are plant clips ( JBL PROSCAPE PLANTIS PINS ) and long pincers ( JBL PROSCAPE TOOLS P STRAIGHT ).
How do you fix plants on wood and stones?
There are plant species which don’t need to root into the soil but can easily grow on stones and wood. These include the well-known java fern and many moss sp.. You can attach these plants with fishing line which you remove after a few weeks. Or use the aquascaper trick: simply bond the plants with an underwater adhesive ( X JBL PROHARU UNIVERSAL ) to the desired place. Please wear disposable gloves to avoid coloured fingers.
How do you promote growth on plants and roots?
Before adding new aquatic plants you need to trim the roots with scissors ( JBL PROSCAPE TOOLS S STRAIGHT ) to about 3 cm length.
Before you push the plants with pincers ( JBL PROSCAPE TOOLS P CURVED ) into the soil, you have the opportunity to promote the root formation with a fertiliser ball ( JBL PROFLORA 7 Balls ). The fertiliser balls release their nutrients slowly and need to be replaced after 180 days. For the monthly redosage we recommend JBL PROFLORA Ferropol Root , which you just press as tablet into the root area. Fertiliser balls and tablets are the perfect supplement for long-term nutrient substrates, such as JBL PROFLORA AquaBasis plus .