how to plant in pots; coldwater hardy plants

angyles

angyles

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I finally got an axolotl today (WOOHoo!!) and have a vision of how to design his tank but would like a little input on the best way to go about it. I'm going to leave the tank with a bare bottom to avoid any ingestion issues, and I think this is gonna look really cool. I'm going to have select coldwater hardy plants growing in glassware as planters. Unique shot glasses, brandy snifters, etc. so my questions:

1. what would be the best way to plant these? I was thinking maybe just like I would a house plant. Some vermiculite and organic soil. I want to completely avoid gravel. Any ideas or advice?

2. what are some cold hardy plants? so far I've decided on elodia, amazon sword, val, hornwart, but I'd like more options. The tank will be room temp 66-70.

thanks for any ideas! i'm super excited :-) he's ADORABLE! I've named him Seymore and he's white with dalmation mottling on his back. It's a 10G for now (he's a baby) and I have a 20G that eventually I plan to upgrade him to. I've got 28W CF lighting on it, and plan to incorporate some driftwood and caves.
 
Please try planting with vermiculite and then post a picture on here for my amusement... It floats.. ;-) Same thing with perlite.

If you want to use little pots you can use sand or regular garden soil.

I wouldn't use an organic based potting mix as it is mostly made up of sphagnum moss or bark and will color your water. It will also acidify the water was it degrades.

A little bit of dirt from the back yard baked in the oven for a couple of hours will generally do the trick nicely as well. Provided of course that you can grow plants in the soil in your backyard.
 
THANK YOU!! I was begining to feel like no one would say anything. That's exactly what I needed to know. I didn't even think about the vermiculite floating...doh! :-)

okay plain old soil it is. I won't be using my backyard soil though. it's contaminated with arsenic and lead, and the parts that are my gardens are pure compost and organic soils SOOO

I guess I get to track down 'dirt' LOL
 
What plant do you mean by "Elodea"? I can think of three plants often given this name which are more or less suitable for coldwater aquaria.
 
Anachris and horwart can be left floating if you want. Very pretty pit bull BTW.

I have two axies, and I love them. They have a planted tank, and I used sand as a substrate with no problems, but not until they were about 6" long. Swords and crypts grow just fine in the sand. I highly recommend floating plants like water lettuce (I hate duckweed, but water lettuce is nice) for a bare bottom tank. They work like a nutrient sink and since they float at the surface, even very low light is fine and they can pull CO2 out of the air.

Sand will be your easiest bet. You don't want organics in the soil. Stay away from dirt. If you've got your heart set on dirt, do a search for planted tanks with mineralized top soil for the process of wetting/drying necessary to make it tank safe- but it is a PITA and probably not worth the aggravation. Look for pool filter sand since it tends to be uncreative and won't change your water chemistry. Home depot play sand is finner than the pool filter sand I used. It was very fine, which would be perfect for smaller axies, but you have to be careful since it won't necessarily be neutral, it may effect your water chemistry. Let it sit in a jar with water for a week or so and then check the PH.
 
I was thinking about adding some sand as substrate. And yeah I've found the play sand makes my PH drop but by including a little aroganite I'm usually good.

I've been rethinking the soil for in the containers and am now thinking a mix of sand and gravel, but low enough from the opening so that he can't really vaccuum it up.

I hadn't thought about crypts. I didn't know they could tolerate the cold. That's awesome! I have included some water lettuce and duckweed. Not on purpose at first, but once you have duckweed in your house, it's quickly in every single tank you own..AND your friends tanks too LOL. But then I decided it was a good thing to create a bit of a light shield for him.
 
angyles said:
I have included some water lettuce and duckweed. Not on purpose at first, but once you have duckweed in your house, it's quickly in every single tank you own..AND your friends tanks too LOL.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it- I did a load of laundry the other day and it was floating in the washing machine!
 
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