• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

PlantsAlive.co.uk? Are they Good?

Joined
4 Feb 2012
Messages
456
Location
nottingham
Hi, i am wondering what online retailer sells the best quality plants and the cheapest. I stumbled upon PlantsAlive when reading this month's PFK magazine. Does anyone have actual experience with this retailer? if so what are the quailty of the plants like? Finally on thier webiste you choose an option, quantity i x25, x5, etc but at the bottom you choose to add only 1 to your basket?!?! how does this work? Does choosing option x5 and 1 quantity i give you 5 pots of say, HC? and option x5 and quantity i 2 give you 10 pots? Below is a link to the page for hc, how many pots for £2.45?? Please answer :thumbup:

http://www.plantsalive.co.uk/Aquarium-P ... y7ezMgbRkh
 
Cheaper plant retailers have been discussed many times on here and the opinion is mixed. What is clear is the plants are usually very young with very small root structures. I would link a thread I ran but on iPhone...
You need to be aware that all the cheaper retailers get there plants from the far east where pesticides are used regularly, which can kill a whole tank of shrimp within hours. So if you keep shrimp buy tropica or aqua fleur.

Personally my experience has been ok for things like blyxa. Be aware though that if you buy 10 plants only 6-8 will be up to much. Even more losses with crypts.
 
My experience with them is pretty good, plants didn't last long althought I cannot judge whether that is down to myself or the plants themselves. I know of a 10% off discount code too but I will have to find it :eek:
 
You need to be aware that all the cheaper retailers get there plants from the far east where pesticides are used regularly, which can kill a whole tank of shrimp within hours.

PlantsAlive are Uk based, surely this has nothing to do with them.

I know of a 10% off discount code too but I will have to find it

you have got to find it! big thumbs up for you if you do! Be sure to pm me :)
 
HarryRobinson said:
You need to be aware that all the cheaper retailers get there plants from the far east where pesticides are used regularly, which can kill a whole tank of shrimp within hours.

PlantsAlive are Uk based, surely this has nothing to do with them.

Yes but it is unlikely that the plants are UK grown, so the plants coming in from places such as Thailand have to be treated with chemicals for import.
 
PS I've found the code and it's 15% off, not sure if it will still be accepted. Will PM you now. Anyone else who wants this code feel free to PM me as I'm not sure whether im even allowed to be posting discount codes for competitors of our sponsors! :s
 
HarryRobinson said:
Will this matter if i dont have any livestock in the tank?
Shouldnt be a problem, just wash the plants thoroughly
 
I have used Plants Alive before, nice plants. I have also used other suppliers, such as plantedtanks and some from eastern europe. They all source plants from Asia. :) Now, there are issues with pesticides, but the plants are ok to use, just rinse and soak on water for one to two days.

Now, none of these plants are on the same level as Tropica or Aquafleur plants, so keep that in mind. You pay cheap money, and you get smallish plants. You buy a Tropica or Aquafleur plant and you will for sure get a really nice plant.
 
I've ordered from alot from the above mentioned sources and actually expecting around 200 plants from plantsalive tomorrow or next day so will see how they go. Easy to blame the sellers when its us messing it up ..... unless its one of our top Aquascapers testing them and them failing I would take it all with a pinch of salt. I'll blame myself first unless its plain and obvious that the plant is crap!
 
I've used them and many many other suppliers. In my view, as with most things in our hobby, "you buy cheap you buy twice".

Reasons to buy good stock.....
Argument 1:
Take Glosso for instance, from these Asian suppliers it comes as a stringy, unplantable mess for £2.50, a pot of Tropica Glosso from TGM for instance costs £5.00 but I garantee that once planted you'd cover twice as much substrate.

Argument 2:
A Plants Alive pot looks to contain about 20 plantlets that have been grown submersed and have become very leggy, which makes prepping a nightmare - the pots from Tropica and Dennerle contain about 50 plantlets and can be pinched directly from the pot and planted into the substrate with minimal effort. I've seen AquaFleur selling pots of both types, long and leggy and tight and green.

Argument 3:
You may think that a plant that's been grown under water would adapt quicker to it's new environment than one grown above the water, this is not the case. Plants grown above the water in Europe are extremely strong and store lots of energy. They are then packed in boxes and shipped the short journey over here, generally overnight. The shops and webstores that stock these plants often order them in specifically for the customer which generally means they spend very little time in their holding tanks which means the customer gets a seriously fresh pot of plants which are packed full of energy. Also, the shops ad webstores that stock decent plants tend to treat them well. The plants that are sent in from Asia are grown outdoors (which is one of the reasons for the need to use pesticides) and are then placed in a bag and then flattened in an over-filled box (they often pay shipping by the box, not the weight) for up to a week. The UK supplier then unpacks the box, sorts your plants and ships them to you. (In my experience the word sort certainly didn't mean check, 70% of the order was wrong and the response when I wanted it rectifying was two weeks of ignored phone calls.) So these plants have been squashed and in the pitch black, getting hot and cold for a minimum of 5 days and a maximum of 10 days before they get to you. Is that a good way to start your planted tank?

Argument 4:
I like to support those who support our hobby. If you look at all the aquascaping competitions around Europe, they're all sponsored by AquaFleur, Dennerle or Tropica. Yes they get good bang for their buck but without the help of these guys we'd all be stuck with what is in my view inferior plants.

Based on my experiences with Plants Alive I won't buy from them again.

unless its one of our top Aquascapers testing them and them failing I would take it all with a pinch of salt.
It's not necessarily a case of them failing but you ask any of our "top aquascapers" where they get their plants and I bet I know the answer ;)
 
I've used them and many many other suppliers. In my view, as with most things in our hobby, "you buy cheap you buy twice".

Reasons to buy good stock.....
Argument 1:
Take Glosso for instance, from these Asian suppliers it comes as a stringy, unplantable mess for £2.50, a pot of Tropica Glosso from TGM for instance costs £5.00 but I garantee that once planted you'd cover twice as much substrate.

Argument 2:
A Plants Alive pot looks to contain about 20 plantlets that have been grown submersed and have become very leggy, which makes prepping a nightmare - the pots from Tropica and Dennerle contain about 50 plantlets and can be pinched directly from the pot and planted into the substrate with minimal effort. I've seen AquaFleur selling pots of both types, long and leggy and tight and green.

Argument 3:
You may think that a plant that's been grown under water would adapt quicker to it's new environment than one grown above the water, this is not the case. Plants grown above the water in Europe are extremely strong and store lots of energy. They are then packed in boxes and shipped the short journey over here, generally overnight. The shops and webstores that stock these plants often order them in specifically for the customer which generally means they spend very little time in their holding tanks which means the customer gets a seriously fresh pot of plants which are packed full of energy. Also, the shops ad webstores that stock decent plants tend to treat them well. The plants that are sent in from Asia are grown outdoors (which is one of the reasons for the need to use pesticides) and are then placed in a bag and then flattened in an over-filled box (they often pay shipping by the box, not the weight) for up to a week. The UK supplier then unpacks the box, sorts your plants and ships them to you. (In my experience the word sort certainly didn't mean check, 70% of the order was wrong and the response when I wanted it rectifying was two weeks of ignored phone calls.) So these plants have been squashed and in the pitch black, getting hot and cold for a minimum of 5 days and a maximum of 10 days before they get to you. Is that a good way to start your planted tank?

Argument 4:
I like to support those who support our hobby. If you look at all the aquascaping competitions around Europe, they're all sponsored by AquaFleur, Dennerle or Tropica. Yes they get good bang for their buck but without the help of these guys we'd all be stuck with what is in my view inferior plants.

Based on my experiences with Plants Alive I won't buy from them again.


It's not necessarily a case of them failing but you ask any of our "top aquascapers" where they get their plants and I bet I know the answer ;)

Very well put across Dan. My view down to a tee.
 
Would have to agree with Dan on this one, when I first started on the hobby I was buying plants from ADC in London, which is my local store, and always did well while other people I spoke too always had issues and they used to buy plant packs online.

I only realised when I joined UKAPS that I was actually buying Tropica plants already hence as a beginner I was having great success already.

I have purchased plants packs online from various suppliers and I had to say they are ok for the money but don't expect miracles and that 40-50% of these plants will not make it.
 
yep, what they said. You'll be lucky if you get what you order, 50% will be useless and the other half will struggle to settle (if at all) causing issues from day one which is never good.

Yup, this was pretty much my experience with the three cheap suppliers I tried. Not to mention losing several hundred shrimp to pesticides.
 
I totally agree that there is no comparison to Tropica or Aquafluer for quality but for someone to plant a tank from scratch paying £5.99/£7 for one pot of one species it is going to cost them alot of money. Say they can only buy around 10/12 species, thats upwards of around £70 before p&p ! Buy 200 stems/around 60 species for £32 (soak them for 48hrs), loose around 50% due to poor quality from far east/travel wise. You still come away with around double the amount of plant species for half the price! Not everyone can afford to buy quality at higher prices in these hard times and still fulfil their desires for the love of aquascaping! Don't get me started on the prices for Mr Amanos products! ;)
 
You still come away with around double the amount of plant species for half the price!

That was the reasoning I used when starting out and buying plants, but it just never seemed to happen that way. In terms of plant biomass/coverage I reckon good quality Aquafluer/Tropica pots are genuinely better value for money. Especially if you can get three for £10 or £12 in Dobbies or other large chains.

And I should qualify this by pointing out that I'm all for doing stuff on the cheap... my (inexpensive) tank is on a stand made of old wooden pallets, lit by a £22 shop light with a home-made frame and uses garden soil for substrate, with wood and rocks all collected for free by myself. However, I don't scrimp when it comes to fauna and flora, because it isn't worth it (barring bargains from other hobbiests).
 
Back
Top