How Quickly Do Plants Have To Be Planted Into The Substrate?

I have kept plants for several days in a bucket or bowl of water at room temperature before planting them. I just left them floating around in the water. Plants can generally live perfectly well at temperatures below those of a normal tropical tank. Make sure you use water conditioner in the bucket/bowl though as heavy metals in tap water can affect plants badly.

I used the Tetra complete (is it the orange coloured one) Diz1? . I did a quick rinse to see if any dust came off as I'd seen a review that complained about it but it was fine.  There are very fine, broken granules in there but even they didn't float.

I too left my plants in a bucket of conditioned water overnight and then I checked them Very Thoroughly for any hitchhikers! as I had introduced a pond snail with the first lot I put  in.

The only problem I had with the Tetra was I topped it with gravel. I found that putting the plant in and removing my fingers brought the plant back out again as the Tetra doesn't seem that heavy and fiddling around trying to get the plants back in after they had floated raised some of the Tetra up to the top. Over the few weeks that the tank has been going, I have had to replace several plants and each time I bring up more Tetra so I now have a mix of gravel and orange coloured Tetra on the surface. (Makes if difficult to see my reddish/orange shrimp as they match the substrate exactly.

It was my own fault, I looked at how to plant into the substrate and watched a video on youtube and some expert said to trim the long roots of the twisted vallis which I stupidly did and then, of course, there wasn't enough to help anchor them with the substrate OR gravel

I've found that it's much easier if you plant up before adding water. Make sure you really firm the substrate round the roots of the plants. The only problem I've had with plants floating up is when I've tried to plant them in a tank already filled with water. I think sand would hold them down better than gravel, especially if the gravel is quite coarse. Valis and Sagittaria will tend to die if the crowns are buried, which might happen if you planted them in the Tetra Complete, then covered that over with sand.

Diz,

I used a layer of windbreak netting over the base layer of aquatic compost, then added the sand.

As Richard says, chuck your plants into a bucket until ready to plant. You could also just plonk them into the tank and leave them floating for a bit.

Hi Diz

When I set up my tank I kept the plants in a bucket of conditioned water for a couple of days, unlike Sanjo I did not check for hitch hikers and now have a couple of industrious pond snails in my tank.

I didn't rinse my the planted medium as the instructions on it said not to as you could wash away the nutrients.  I put a layer of sand over which I did wash and the planted it up before I added the water. 

I found the plants stayed in place as I was able to dig a place for the roots and firm the damp sand around the plant.  Some how I don't think it would have gone as smoothly if I had added the water first.

Yes, the stuff from a garden centre.

It helped keep the soil layer separate from the sand layer.

No need to cut through the fabric to plant (as you would with garden weed suppressant fabric). In fact, try not to cut it at all, as bits of the soil work their way through as you move plants about.

Following on from Naughtymoose's post, if you find you do have to make slits to plant into and then the soil is leaking out a bit you could try what I had to do in the garden.

Having put down your weed suppressant and having planted through it, cut some circles of the material, cut a hole just about big enough to go round the stem of the plant. Now CUT THROUGH THE SIDE OF THE CIRCLE so that you can slip it around the plant and overlap it on itself and anchor the join with sand or whatever you are using.

Worked in the garden anyway when I was trying to get weed suppressant down around plants already in the ground !!

Good luck

Ooh, I never thought of that SteveS, thanks for the advice.
One last question to try everyone's patience:
When putting in the Tetra Complete substrate, should I dampen it with water before topping with sand or will the damp sand (having been thoroughly washed first) be enough to allow moisture down into the Tetra Complete?

ThankS Helen,
So just putting the substrate in dry with damp washed sand on top should be enough then?