Planting a Bare Bottom Tank

[ksb1001]

Hey guys, I'm looking to plant my bare bottom tank but haven't a clue how to start. It is a 20 gallon long tank for housing ribbed newts (Pleurodeles waltl) and I would like to have a nice habitat for them to thrive in. Thanks guys! Any input would be great!

One of the concerns that I have is using a UV light to grow the plants. Will this harm my waltls? That's the last thing I want to do.

My ultimate goal is to have plants both adhered to the bottom and some floating at the top. I can't figure out how to keep the bare bottom tank and have plants growing at the bottom.

 

[Asevernnnn]

You can put dirt topped with sand into terra-cotta pots and plant them in there or get plants that don't require substrate like java fern, elodea, java moss, etc.
For lighting I just use regular florescent light strips and they grow fine.

 

[innerdialogue]

You can use fishing line to tie some plants to rocks or other large pieces that sit on the bottom.

 

[frogman]

What I always did when planting a bare bottom tank is go to the dollar store and pick up a bunch of small glass cups. Take them back and fill them with sand or gravel. Then you can plant your plants in them. You can choose to wrap mesh around that afterwards but I never did.

Evan

 

[innerdialogue]

That's a cool idea with the cups. It even allows you to move things around if you need to.

 

[sde]

I did something similar to what Evan did...except in a larger and uglier way, heh.....
They are just one gallon plastic shoeboxes filled with sand, however I would recommend not filling them as deep as I did because of the risk of anaerobic decay, which can cause algae blooms and gas bubbles that are dangerous to amphibians. I only filled them that deep because at that point I didn't know about anaerobic decay.

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...-newt-salamander-help/94766-does-look-ok.html

LED lights are really great because they don't put off much heat and use less energy.