From the Inside Flap

A spectacular selection of beautiful aquatic plants is the dream of every aquarist. But all too often, after the initial burst of euphoria, the budding aquatic plant enthusiast tends to focus his or her attention on other aspects of fish keeping. One of the main reasons why this beautiful hobby is abandoned is that mistakes are usually made in the initial set-up of the aquarium. This book shows how you can avoid such mistakes by learning the right approach to plant care.

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Beautiful tanks full of varied aquarium plants and fishes are the dream of every aquarist. Nevertheless, many budding waterplant enthusiasts soon give up their new hobby once their initial euphoria has abated, and they concentrate on other aspects of aquatics instead. In most cases the reason why they abandon this beautiful hobby is that the whole set-up of the tank is wrong. This book will chiefly focus on correct plant care and to start with we have to establish one important fact: if something is not quite right in the tank and the fishes are not happy, it very quickly shows in their behaviour; however, once you detect the first symptoms of disease in plants, any remedial car will generally come too late. It is a common misconception that plant care is much easier than fish care, as plants die much more slowly than animals.
However, provided that some basic rules are observed, plant care can be as easy - if not easier - as looking after fish, but without the right water, nutrients and light, no plant will thrive. Just as fishes need to be fed daily, so plants also need basic nutrients and light daily. It goes without saying that light is as important to plants as food is to fishes. The fact that plants also need carbon dioxide just as fishes need oxygen is not commonly known or is often ignored. At night, when the lights are switched off, plants still breathe just like fish and for that they obviously need oxygen. However, in a well functioning aquarium plants often produce more oxygen through photosynthesis during the day than they actually need at night.
There are both tough and delicate plants now available and it is quite possible to keep some of the more robust species in poor light conditions.