Choosing Plants For 10 Gallon

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OneOnion

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Hi, I'm planning on setting up a low tech planted tank for my currently cycling 10 gallon. I need help choosing plants. I'll need some short carpety plants to go around rocks, and maybe some anubias nana to go on driftwood, but I don't know about anything else. I'll need a lot of plants too, because there will be 6 female bettas in there, and they need to establish territories. Do you have any suggestions on easy first-time plants for a ten gallon, so I can at least narrow it down to a few? Thanks.

P.S. Sorry if this is a dumb post, I'm just really confused about getting plants right now. O__O
 
Some easy plants, that will benefit the bettas are, Vallis, Elodea Densa, Camboba Carolina, Java Fern (easiest).

Are you in the UK or US, if your in the UK, id reccomend using PlantsAlive.
 
Some easy plants, that will benefit the bettas are, Vallis, Elodea Densa, Camboba Carolina, Java Fern (easiest).

Are you in the UK or US, if your in the UK, id reccomend using PlantsAlive.
 
Thanks. I like the twisted vallis and the anacharis. I'm in U.S. and found some cool sites like azgardens.com and liveaquaria.com. So far the things I've found that I liked were:
anubias nana
anacharis
java fern
vallisneria corkscrew
micro sword or dwarf hairgrass or dwarf baby tears\
water sprite
banana plant

I have one question about the java fern, though. Is it ok for it to be planted in gravel? And what's the best way to encourage the micro sword or the hairgrass to carpet, not grow upwards? Thanks.
 
If it were me I probably wouldn't bother with the dwarf hair grass or microsword at first. I'd stick to the others in your list.

And no, java fern will more than likely die if planted in the gravel. You can get bits of wood quite cheap to attach it to though.
 
Java Fern should be tied to wood or pebbles. If planted in gravel or sand, they die *apparently*. Touch wood, i have planted mine in sand and its doing fine so far.

Dwarf hairgrass needs a fair amount of lighting, ferts, and preferably a nutrient rich substrate to grow a carpet.
(id reccommend asking the question in the PLANTED SECTION of the forum)

EDIT: Whoops, just noticed this is the planted section :S :D
 
dwarf hair grass needs a considerable amount of light, fertilisation and CO2 is a must, although I know of one person who grew it with high levels of easy carbo.

microsorum pteropus (java fern) is fine when planted in the substrate, providing the rhizome isn't covered.
 
Well, I narrowed the plants down to the ones I wanted... I even made a drawing of what I wanted the finished product to look like. Anyway, here are the plants and the place they will go:

1 anubias nana - on driftwood
1 java fern - on same driftwood
1 vallisnera corkscrew - back corner near driftwood
carpet of dwarf baby tears - surrounding rocks
1 banana plant - front corner
2 water sprie - near driftwood and vallisnera corkscrew
a few anacharis - behind rocks

I'll make a pic of it on paint.net
Here:
10gallonpicture.jpg

P.S. I realized I made some of the plants way to small(like the java fern and the water sprite). Just imagine them being a little bigger.
 
IMO, you will need *way* more plants than that. The tank needs to be 'covered' in long plants mainly, like vallis. Maybe try getting a few bunches of vallis.

:good:
 
IMO, you will need *way* more plants than that. The tank needs to be 'covered' in long plants mainly, like vallis. Maybe try getting a few bunches of vallis.

:good:
Well, bunches of vallis will have to work now: I found out that on AzGardens.com, the minimum amount of twisted vallis you could buy was 10, the minimum banana plants you could get is 3, and the minimum BUNCHES of anacharis you could buy is 2. :good: I'll be sure to, actually, I have to get more plants, don't worry. I'll probably have some spare, too.
 
Here ya go. I moved the rocks to the middle to give more room for plants and stuff. I think it looks pretty cool.
Oh yeah, the java fern is supposed to be on the rock. And I'm switching to gravel, too.

10gallontankbetter.jpg
 
As far as I am aware banana plants are terrestrial plants that will not survive being submerged for long so you may want to omit this, another excellent plant to add would be java moss to carpet any wood or rocks and limnophilia both of which flourish in most conditions and are very easy to care for.
 
As far as I am aware banana plants are terrestrial plants that will not survive being submerged for long so you may want to omit this, another excellent plant to add would be java moss to carpet any wood or rocks and limnophilia both of which flourish in most conditions and are very easy to care for.
Maybe you're thinking of the banana tree, which is a terrestrial tree, but the banana plant is an aquatic plant with roots shaped like little bananas, hence the name. I'll post a pic of one at the end of this post.

I have some java moss, just a few strands though. It never seemed to grow at all, I may try using java moss for the bogwood though. I think I'm pretty much set on plants though, but I'll look at limnophilia.

banana tree:
http://www.silkplantsamerica.com/sites/spa.nsf/(Images)/427BBB7A84D08822852574380063F523/$FILE/BananaTree.jpg

banana plant
http://www.liveaquaria.com/images/categories/product/p-330026-Banana-Plant.jpg
 
As far as I am aware banana plants are terrestrial plants that will not survive being submerged for long so you may want to omit this, another excellent plant to add would be java moss to carpet any wood or rocks and limnophilia both of which flourish in most conditions and are very easy to care for.
Maybe you're thinking of the banana tree, which is a terrestrial tree, but the banana plant is an aquatic plant with roots shaped like little bananas, hence the name. I'll post a pic of one at the end of this post.

I have some java moss, just a few strands though. It never seemed to grow at all, I may try using java moss for the bogwood though. I think I'm pretty much set on plants though, but I'll look at limnophilia.

banana tree:
http://www.silkplant.../BananaTree.jpg

banana plant
http://www.liveaquar...anana-Plant.jpg

I will save you some greff, the banana plant won't live in your aquarium it needs alot and I mean alot of ferts and co2 and High lighting, don't care what anyone else says about it. I have first hand experience with this plant and eventually it will die anyways I have grown the leaves to bigger than my hand in my planted tank and I have also grown them in just a normal tank eaither way they don't seem to like florish to well for some reason. and I am not talking about the banana tree...... Also a note would be that this plant does not like high flow in your water, so the main things are high lighting and low flow!

Anubias well have fun, it to requires high lighting and co2 to grow submerged.... At least if you want it to flower not sure if that one flowers under water or not can't remember

Water sprite is actually a bog, I have found I have better luck after it gets to a hand size to grow it half in the water and half out of the water. It requires high lighting as well

Here is a list that you can go over I think this would be better suited

Fanwort
Comoba
Anything from the vail family will work great with high water flow
some crypts would be a nice add just remember some require high lighting some require moderate
ricca might do okay it just won't pearl without co2
different mosses dont' require co2, actually i can't keep it alive with co2
java fern

add high lighting and co2 and the list becomes big!
 

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