Hey OFL, I have 2 18", 18watt bulbs on my 55 gallon tank and I was wandering what Kind of plants would survive in that much light and with Oscars.

thanks

Plastic, and you will have to rebury them everyday. O's destroy plants.

BTW what part of Oregon you from? Im from Canby its just 20 miles south of Portland.

I would go along with what James has said. The chances are plants will not survive in such a small aquarium with the Oscars. A few years ago I did have plants in my 125 gallon and the Oscars took great pleasure in just uprooting them, it's almost a game to them. You can go down the route of using plastic plants that they are pretty naff in my opinion, I just don't see the point of plastic plants, they will slowly collect algae so you will have to clean them, and again, the Oscars will probably play around with them.

If you must have real plants try java fern or Hornwort. both are easy to grow and will survive being pulled up. java fern don't need and soil and hornwort is a floating plant. thats all my plant expertise gone. I know very little about plants. (

i dont know, thats not much lighting, im running two 48" 40 watt GE t-12 plant/aquarium lights on my 55 and i have japanese moss balls, and some java moss, that is thriving in it. in my situation, the oscar didnt care about them at all. it would pull up my plastic, but it left the real stuff alone strangely... so i just dont have plastic in there, like penn said, its just an algae magnet. since ive moved out the oscar, all thats in there is a lil convict and a bichir, lastnight i moved my 2 GSP's into the tank, we shall have to see how they all get along! with any luck they wont care about the plants either lol.

from what ive read... ideally... you want about 2.5 watts/gallon for keeping most live plants, any more lighting, usually requires a co2 generator (again, from what ive read).


and FYI, silk plants dont require any lighting at all

The lumen in your tank will be sufficient for some canadian waterweed or common elodia.
That will grow fast and make a mess of your tank, for the bottom where the roots are will collect a lot of dirt.
I got some hanging plants that need to be cleaned every other month and they get a beating from my O from time to time.


uhm, live plants will not survive oscar attack, as you can figure...

My Oscar has left the plants alone. He could care less about them. The Pleco on the other hand, has taken it upon himself to move them around. There's one plastic plant in the tank that's got algae on it, and he moved it to his territory of the tank. LOL The poor Oscar has no plants on his side, but I don't think he minds.

Oh and Welcome to Oregon!! OSU is a great school, and really nice campus.





(Did you see that James? Another OSU fan already. Oh yeah, that's right. You're outnumbered now. LMAO)

HEHE...well thanks guys...I used to have some floating hornwort...but that has been moved into a guppy breeding tank (I breed guppies to feed the Os). I kinda figured there weren't many options with this amount of light, but had to ask. I don't think I'll use plastic...not a big fan of the look.

I might just try a few java ferns or some marimo moss balls.

Thanks for the input.

And just because I wanna brag...check out this bad-ass piece of driftwood I found on the beach. It was the root structure to an 8-9 foot tall tree and I just sawed the trunk off...got lucky as hell that the dimensions were a perfect fit for the tank.


And...I'm still living in Ga and getting my associates degree at the moment...but I will hopefully be moving up the Oregon way in the next year or so...but I can't wait.
Really looking forward to OSU.

I like that as it is, no plants looks fine.

Thanks marcus, I might just resist the urge to improve. I am enjoying the simplicity, especially when cleaning time comes each weekend.