Real Plants VS Fake VS None (for breeding) GENERAL

[steve]

Basically an opinion thread here.

As far as BREEDING goes:

Does everyone find REAL plants, fake , or none to be idealistic?

(I know this will vary with species but for generally speaking purposes)

stevel

 

[aaron]

I personally use only live plants. I feel safer with real plants, because many of the fake plants have sharp edges which may injure an animal. I prefer to keep my tanks as natural as possible, and I don't really like the appearance of fake plants. I also like real plants because of more useful purposes, such as using some ammonia and nitrates.

In my opinion, live plants are definately better for breeding because most newts that will lay eggs on plants like to fold the leaves over the eggs. I can see how this may work on silk plants, but not a chance with the plastic ones. Also, with live plants such as elodea/egeria, you can simply break pieces off of the plants and move them to a tank where they won't be eaten while the plant continues to grow-try that with plastic plants.

Live plants will also continue to grow and spread to create more hiding spots and increase the functionality of them. I've seen tons of plastic plants, but have never seen any of them grow.

~Aaron

 

[morg]

If you have the correct lighting in the set up for live plants, then I would also say live plants.

If you are expecting lots of eggs from your breeding newts you could also cut some thin plastic strips from bin liners.
These strips are often used as they are soft end easy to fold around the eggs.
Another plus is that they are easily removed to another tank and in my experience the eggs layed on plastic strips have less chance of fungal attack than those layed on plants.

If a lot of the strips are weighed down with a stone they do not look too bad, and are great hiding places for shy newts.
MORG

 

[jennifer]

The only live plant I use regularly is java moss. I have a few remnants of other live plants, but they grow very slowly and are just "hanging on" at the brink of life. My experience with live plants is that they usually just die or get covered in black hair algae, so I refuse to spend money on buying them any more. I use a lot of silk plants. And when eggs are being laid, I put in plastic strips. Some newts actually prefer to lay eggs on plastic strips, even when real plants are available.