Aquarium Plants

For all the time I have kept fish I have used artificial plants, however, this time when I am starting my 10 gallon tank I am only going to use live plants, however, I don't know anything about live plants such as types and care, advice and comments, ect, would be greatly appreciated. Also, I am looking for a plant that grows a lot and very thick, because I want my tank to be heavily planted.

 

After 2 years of trying, I'm just now having luck keeping aquarium plants alive. I think a lot of my problem in the past was I was buying plants that where in the aquariums at Walmart, but they weren't actually aquatic plants so after a week of being submerged, they died. Plus I don't think I had enough light.

But I've actually managed to keep an amazon sword alive in my 10 gallon for several months now so I've been slowly adding more plants. I've added a little bit of pothos (actually an houseplant, but does fairly well in an aquarium), water clover (from my pond), and just today I added some lace java fern and anacharis.

I don't know how much help that is, but other than really watching what plants I get and having lots of light (I belive it's 20w or 30w, but I'll check later), I don't do anything special for those plants. Personally, live plants aren't important enough to me to be worth getting into CO2, special fertilizer, etc.

-Chelle

 

That is good enough for me, thank you for your reply.

 

when you buy plants in a pot, it should havea label to say how much light it needs, how it grows, and its ideal temp.

i keep live plants in all of my tanks. java fern on wood dont like light much attal so they are difficult to keep, or atleast i found that.

i have variations of thin, thick, low med and high plants.

ask at your LFS which are more hardey then others. vails like to die alot if you keep fidling with them like i do. the one plant i love has purple leaves at the top, really purple and green underneigh and is sold in bunches so it loks really think, but mollies and guppies will eat it all. as mine did, livebearers like anyplant that isnt toxic to them, java fern is toxic to them so they wont eat it, but they only seem to eat my fave plants not all of them!

 

Alright, thanks for you post.

 

i know this an older post but i thoguht i would reply anyways. I have a 15 custom tall setup and i only use real aquatic plants. I have one mother amazon sword that is about a foot tall and has a kinds of new growth, 2 arrowheads (a smaller type of sword) fully green and doing great,new growth. also i have 2 onion plants, doing so so but thriving. I have always had luck with plants, just now the ones that come in little pots, i prefer the plants with just the roots. Finally i buy aquarium plant fertilizer that if your willing to spend the money helps your plants flourish incredibly. I will try to post a pic, the plant color and size is great. -tl

 

these are all doing great


just another similar pic, its a 15 gallon commy tank but i was surprised at how well the plants were doing.



-tl 8)

 

wow, that tank looks real nice....nice setup you have with the plants. :y_the_best:

 

thanks sorry for the really tiny pic i screwed up the sizing and whatnot but thank you very much. -tl

 

What is that plant with the red/purple on the undersides of its leaves?

-Chelle

 

the really large one in the center? if thats the one your talking about, than it is a "Ruben Sword" and all those purple reddish leaves are new leaves that will be turining green soon. This plant is about a foot tall and its doing excellent. -tl

 

Thanks. I'm going to be ordering more plants for my 10 gallon soon so I'm trying to decide what I want.

-Chelle

 

yeah go ahead and try the ruben its really great, and really hardy. good luck with that chelle. -tl

 

I only have 2watts/gallon right now but my amazon sword is doing great. I'm going to try upping it to at least 3w/gal so hopefully a ruben will do okay with that and it will allow me a slightly larger choice of plants.

-Chelle

 

I think alot depend on the lighting of the tank also i have a normal fluorescent light but i leave it on about 8 hrs a day plus fertilizer. -tl

 

I don't add CO2, fertilizer, or anything like that (don't want to hassle with it), but my tank is overstocked, so I'm sure all the fish & frogs provide plenty of CO2 & fertilizer by themselves.

My lighting right now is 2 of those 10w flourescent bulbs that fit in standard incandescent sockets. I'm going to go to Lowes and see if I can find 2 15w bulbs to replace them with (hopefully it won't get too hot and the fixture can handle it). If I can't find any with that low of a wattage, then I have a new, single socket that I'll wire in and get a single 30 or 35w bulb. Hopefuly I won't burn my house down.

-Chelle

 

haha, no that would probably work, and if you do have plenty of waste from the fish and frogs that should act as a co2 supplement. -tl