I am planning a bare bottom 29 gallon tank for my 2 goldfish, Goldie and Jamie! I love aq plants and have many already in other tanks. I want to plant some of these plants into clay pots, like I have seen on this forum, for my soon to be 29 gallon. What I want to know is how do you sterilize these pots before planting?

Thanks

Anita

Some peopel recommend soaking them to make sure they're not going to affect pH.

I just rinse the ones I use, add topsoil, add the plant and cover the top with a layer of gravel.

Wow! That seems too simple! No boiling or anything! Wow!

Thanks, DataGuru!

Anita (always wanted to use that one)

Life should be that cooperative all the time!

what I was thinking!

Anita

I am going to be putting potted plants in my new bare bottom and found your advice very useful Dataguru, but I was curious about the topsoil. Will that hurt the fish if the pots have holes underneath? I was going to just going to put some filter wool at the bottom, put the plant in and top up with gravel. Do you recommend topsoil is better? I dont know much about this subject

That would work. might add a root fertilizer tab.

I know people who just put regular gravel in their potted plants in bare bottomed tanks. They rinse the pot when they do partial water changes to remove any collected debris.

or you could use one of those speciality clays flourite or laterlite perhaps combined with a root tab.

I use topsoil. I put a flat rock over the hole to keep the dirt in and put a layer of gravel over the top. The plants seem happy so far. Dunno how that'd do in a bare bottom tank tho. It it got knocked over, it'd be messy. I haven't noticed any issues with it so far.... but then mine's not bare bottom.

So what plants are you going to pot?

I'm not sure DataGuru. I have to do some research because my local fish shops sell alot of plants that arent aqautic. Do you know of a link that may have some useful infomation about aqautic plants which are safe for goldfish?

bowling would kill the live plant!

Raith--- Of course I was talking about the pots, not the plants!! I should learn to explain myself better!

Anita

I have those too. Didn't need to boil them or anything. I sanded the outside to make em smoother and soaked them over night. Then they were good to go.

Here's an article: Aquatic Plants and Goldfish, by Liv

Thanks for the artical, DataGuru!

Anita

A suggestion, don't know if its useful but putting topsoil in microwave/oven etc will sterilize it.

I don't sterilize the topsoil before potting up my plants and haven't had any issues from it so far.

99% of the time there shouldn't be bought its possible to transfer diseases from soil to plant. I am very new to this, years of working with computers, and now i am going into landscape gardening, so am at study stage. Big career change..

That sounds like a wonderful career change!

Yea, there are bacteria in soil. and I was a bit worried about that. but Diane Walstad routinely uses soil as a substrate in her natural planted tanks with no problems. I was really impressed by her book, the ecology of the planted tank. That's why I'm shooting for an ecosystem type thing rather than minimizing debris in the tank. Soil may actually help with removing nitrAtes to some degree.

It's like the antithesis to bare bottom tanks tho. The whole goal there is to minimize the debris and bacteria that consume those debris. Bare bottom should work well to reduce the ammonia load of the tank and the bacterial count in the tank as long as you have good mechanical and biological filtration.

Excellent article! Exactly what I was looking for Dataguru