"Cammie" wrote in message ...
I think lines got cross a little. I DON'T have algae with the live plants,
I have zero algae in my tank, no need for plecos and algae eaters. It's
just that after 2-3 months and the plants get real sparse and shabby
looking. I don't do the CO2 thing (not even sure what that is and if I want
to get into it) but I have very good filtration, water flow, and my
parameters are perfect. I also do have Flourish nutrient in the water I top
the tank off with.

I like Cabomba, they keep growing for me, but I wish they would keep looking
nice like when I first get them. I just wondered if this was typical of
Cabomba.

Not in a well run planted tank.
It's pretty lush if supplied with nutrients, grows, well......like a
weed which it is in many states. Inches per day type of growth.

Also, my three tanks are only 10 gallons each and the lighting, well don't
laugh... the lighting I have is only incandelescent and I can't change that
unless I get all new tanks. The tanks were the Eclipse style with the hood
and tank combo (but not Eclispse, some off brand of a similar style).

Well 4w gal is not much then If it were FL bulbs, then you'd have
loads of lighting. But at best, the equivilent FL wattage would be
about 3/4w per gallon as far as "usable light output".
At least 5x more light for the same watt. Most of the electric goes
into heat with your lights.

You might try some of those screw in FL lights they sell at the
hardware store. Cool whites or Daylight color temps work well.
This will greatly increase light output. Light bulbs also last lots
longer and have a better spectrum for your eyes and the plants.

So,
do you think the incandelescent lighting is why the plants don't do as well,
or is that not an issue?

It's part of it.

Aquatic plants need three basic things to do well also.
Light
CO2
Nutrients.

Plants can get some/enough nutients from fish etc at lower lighting
including CO2, but every tank I've ever seen has benefited greatly
from CO2 additions. Even the low light ones.
The higher the lighting, the more you need to add nutrients/CO2. It
gets depleted from higher plant uptake when using more light.

My other question was if it was possible to maintain a tank with zero algae
with fake plants or decorations too, and how one could manage that.

Copper sulfate [CuSO4] will work. Some fish are sensitive. There are
other algicides you can use also.

With
artificial things I always have an algae farm. In one of my smaller tanks I
would just like to have some rock, driftwood and coral pieces, but algae
forms on this stuff and looks aweful.

Take out and soak in a bleach solution of 20:1 water/bleach once a
month etc for 10 minutes, rinse well, add declhorinator etc return to
tank.

Credit cards are particularly good for glass algae and never scratch
the glass.

Regards,
Tom Barr