Easy Plants To Grow With Low Light

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iroc

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I went out and spend about 25.00 (US) on some plants about 3 weeks ago trying to give my fish a better place to live, the results are that 2/3 rds of them look like they are dying. (please see sig for plants I have) thing is when I got these plants the ppl at the lfs said these were really good plants for low light ( I have a 15 watt aqua rays bulb) the light stays on from 6am to 8pm and the lady said that would be plenty, but seems as if she lied to me. I want to give the tank a makeover and so I was wonfdering if I could get some seggustions on what plants would be good and would thrive in my 20gal?????????????
 
I went out and spend about 25.00 (US) on some plants about 3 weeks ago trying to give my fish a better place to live, the results are that 2/3 rds of them look like they are dying. (please see sig for plants I have) thing is when I got these plants the ppl at the lfs said these were really good plants for low light ( I have a 15 watt aqua rays bulb) the light stays on from 6am to 8pm and the lady said that would be plenty, but seems as if she lied to me. I want to give the tank a makeover and so I was wonfdering if I could get some seggustions on what plants would be good and would thrive in my 20gal?????????????


are u providing them with nutrients? anubias,java fern, java moss, riccia, amazon sword, hornwort, moneywort, and wysteria is some that i can name off the top of my head
 
I have found that with 28W lighting on a 20gallon: Valliensis, Anubias(the common large vibrant chlorophyll variety), Blue Stricta(a palm like growth plant, with a pale blue underside to the leave, with bright green tops which requires little light). Pink baby tears also do well, as do Java fern in lower light than 1.5 WPG.
 
How bigs the tank iroc? Those plants you got are supposed to be easy to grow in low light, so cold be a lack of nutrients.

Sam
 
you have the correct choice of plants from what I can see. There has to be some other issue. My suggestion is to try some fertilizers. If you have a test kit you should test for NitrAte and Phosphate and get an idea as to what is in your water. If these are low you should look at dosing them for your plants. low for nitrate would be below 5ppm, low for phosphate would be 0ppm, optimal phosphate is like 1-2ppm so you don't need to worry to much about that but the nitrate should be 5-30ppm(in a low tech something around 5-10ppm is good). Now as for a trace fertilizer you should definatley be dosing something, seachem flourish is a great product, there are also many other liquid trace fertilizers that will supply the plants with trace elements such as iron..etc. Trace elements are hard to obtain and if you don't have a good substrate then your plants are prolly getting none, so get on that part.

some other plants you might want to try are the java fern, vallis, egeria densa(as for common name not sure but this stuff grows SUPER fast under low light). As for sagittaria, its not a very easy plant to grow. I think one key to growing this stuff is to make sure you break your initial bunch into at least 3 bunches and plant them 2-3 inches apart. If you don't (which I didn't with a few) then i find they don't grow well.

Anyways goodluck and keep on reading :)
 
Nutrients, except in very high levels will not harm your fish. How big is the tank?

Sam
 
Sorry being an idiot again! So it is! As most people have said what you've got should be OK in that much light, do you know if the bulb is a plant specific one?

I would get a fert like seachem flourish that should help, the plants are probably hungry.
 
I don't think the light is directly just for plants ( it came with the tank) and I have changed my list after some careful research in this forum

the plants I have are:
Echinodorus Bleheri
Hygrophila Difformis
Vallisneria Spiralis

so are these still good with the low light?
 
I don't think the light is directly just for plants ( it came with the tank) and I have changed my list after some careful research in this forum

the plants I have are:
Echinodorus Bleheri
Hygrophila Difformis
Vallisneria Spiralis

so are these still good with the low light?

vallis and hygro will do well under almost any conditions.. as for echinodorus I have no experience but it is a hardy easy to grow plant that will grow under low light so you should be fine. note that echinodorus likes a nutrient rich substrate so if you are using just a plain ol gravel then you might want to add some root tabs.
 
I don't think the light is directly just for plants ( it came with the tank) and I have changed my list after some careful research in this forum

the plants I have are:
Echinodorus Bleheri
Hygrophila Difformis
Vallisneria Spiralis

so are these still good with the low light?

vallis and hygro will do well under almost any conditions.. as for echinodorus I have no experience but it is a hardy easy to grow plant that will grow under low light so you should be fine. note that echinodorus likes a nutrient rich substrate so if you are using just a plain ol gravel then you might want to add some root tabs.


Forgive my retardation but what kind of root tabs should I get and how do you use them.



during this time I have changed the layout a lil cuz I think the plants were to close together and were all fighting for the same light
 
I don't think the light is directly just for plants ( it came with the tank) and I have changed my list after some careful research in this forum

the plants I have are:
Echinodorus Bleheri
Hygrophila Difformis
Vallisneria Spiralis

so are these still good with the low light?

vallis and hygro will do well under almost any conditions.. as for echinodorus I have no experience but it is a hardy easy to grow plant that will grow under low light so you should be fine. note that echinodorus likes a nutrient rich substrate so if you are using just a plain ol gravel then you might want to add some root tabs.


Forgive my retardation but what kind of root tabs should I get and how do you use them.



during this time I have changed the layout a lil cuz I think the plants were to close together and were all fighting for the same light

There are heaps of good root tablets around, Seachem make good ones, it's called Flourish or something I believe. You just lift up the plant a little bit and stick it in amongst the roots. :)

None of my betta tanks have lighting and my java fern is thriving. I also have a snail tank that has no lighting, and my anubias nana in that tank is doing very well!
 
here are some pics

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this was the old tank look

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In our 30 gallon tank we have only 17 watts of light (mostly because i don't have money for a hood, two new lights and CO2) and so far we've had the most luck with dwarf sag, corkscrew val and camboba. Within the last 2 weeks they have had multiple sprouts as can be seen in the pic. :D

picture813zc1.jpg
 

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