Papa Red wrote:
..I recently purchased my first aquatic plants for my aquariums, Elodea
densa I think they are called. Well anyway, they came in bunches of
three and four, connected together with lead wraps,...The pet store
person said that it wouldn't harm my fish, but then he once told me that
my four large Angel fish would get along great with the plattys and
fancy guppys that I was buying from him,...So I tend not to trust him
all that much. Will the lead weights pollute the water and harm the
fish? My online friend said that because the plants came with the lead
that it must be safe, and that maybe she would use lead 'sinkers', the
weights that fishermen use on their fish lines, to weigh down her plants
[her tanks, as mine, have neither gravel or sand],...But I told her to
wait until I had heard from you folks who are far more experienced in
this sort of thing. After a lifetime of working with and around all
sorts of critters, even living with some of them, I have finally got
around to keeping fish, which is certainly far more safer than some of
the critters that have lived under my roof. And where I know just what
to do if one's tarantula is bleeding to death from a gash [lightly
splash some powdered {confectionary} sugar on to the wound, which in
turn, will act as a coagulant, stemming the bleeding], my knowledge
about aquariums and fish keeping is some what limited, so any help would
be very much appreciated. Pax Vobiscum,...~Dean.


Material aside, may I suggest an alternative? I've always found that
the stems of bunch plants held together with metal weights eventually
rot. Aquarium Products makes a fantastic product called the Plant Plug.
It's rockwool with a flexible grid to hold the plants against the
wool. You remove the bottom leaves and slide the bare stems between the
plastic grid and wool. I bury these in the gravel, but you could hide it
in a small flowerpot. The stems will actually root into the rockwool
and your bunch plants will stay much healthier.

To propagate the plants, when they reah the top of the water and start
to float, cut off the top and put the stem into the Plant Plug the same
as before. The new stem will keep growing and the old often sends off
shoots, depending on the plant.

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__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__