June 2009 - Kitchener Waterloo Aquarium Society

J U N E 2 0 0 9
The PlantED Tank: Is Your LFS Green?
A Regular Column by Ed Koerner, KWAS (edkoerner@sympatico.ca). Photos by Ed, Phil & Zenin.
Okay, it’s the last issue of Fins & Tales before the summer break
and I’m looking for words of wisdom to fill these pages to carry
over till the fall. Okay, I’m always looking for some words of
wisdom, but I’m stuck with what I have to work with so please
take that into account and be kind to me as you read on. I’ve
been filling this column with chats on my experiences with
various plants. There are some that have not tried real live
plants yet, or have and have found that they’ve had better luck
trying to grow plastic ones. Don’t give up, because it gets easier
on the third, fourth or maybe thirteenth try. But I know that
some of you will decide to buy a plant or two over the summer
and for those brave folk we are talking about buying plants at
your local fish store.
that is key. Unless the salesperson just happened to sell you
every piece of equipment that you have and remembers you
and each of your purchases, they will not know what you have
at home. Also, any credible and respected LFS wants to do more
than just sell you something once. They want to develop a
relationship with you that will keep you coming back to that
store over time because you trust the service and advice you
receive. Having the proper information will go a long way in
establishing a good groundwork for many happy purchases.
Doing Your Homework
Most LFS will sell various and assorted plants for your
aquariums. There are choices to make and there are often
several questions to ask yourself before putting your money
down and bagging something up. Lets go over some of the first
few and see where we end up. This will also help the staff serve
you and help you make the best choices for your needs.
Remember when you walk into a store, an employee is there to
give you service and steer you in the right direction but they
can’t do that unless you come in with some basic information
One of the first questions to ask yourself is “What kind of
lighting do I have?” This will help determine the basic
parameters of plants that you can keep right off the bat. Most
lighting found today is fluorescent, but there are still
incandescent fixtures to be found. The latter are quite limiting to
the amount of light that can be used due to the heat produced
by the bulbs. Newer compact fluorescent bulbs can be used
safely in these screw in fixtures and will offer much more light
at a much lower temperature and can be quite effective. If the
lighting is fluorescent then you should know the size of the tube
as this will often determine the wattage of the bulb and whether
it is a single or double tube. Also, what is the width of the tube?
Older florescent bulbs were T12 or 1.2 inches in diameter. These
are being phased out. Some fixtures handle T8 bulbs but the
newer and most efficient bulbs are high output (HO) T5 bulbs.
These will give up to 50% more light per bulb than an old T12,
so that will also be a big difference to how much light your
plants will get. If you have gone out and spent money on metal
halides then you likely are more advanced or have switched
over from salt water. If that is the case, don’t worry because if
you are using MH bulbs you likely have enough of a light
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