For My 10 Gal. Tank

[Monty2451]

I'm going to be starting a 10 US gal. divided tank soon for my males and I was thinking about putting some live plants in it. So I just want to know what type pf plants you all would recommend for both ease of care as well as the bettas preference. Is it difficult to keep a lightly planted tank? I've heard that they can be troublesome at times when they die and add nitrogen to the water. So asside from this any other hints or tips you all could offer me would be great!

 

[Snooks1!]

Cabomba caroliniana would be a good plant for a betta tank...Mine has been thriving in my 5 gal tank. 3wpg, and I need to trim it every, to every other week. Shatner seems to love the plant, it gives lots of resting places throughout the whole tank strata, really good plant for bettas in my opinion.

 

[stang1]

I keep Anubias with my boys and they love it. The leaves are quite big so ideal for hiding under and resting on!

 

[Monty2451]

Cabomba caroliniana would be a good plant for a betta tank...Mine has been thriving in my 5 gal tank. 3wpg, and I need to trim it every, to every other week. Shatner seems to love the plant, it gives lots of resting places throughout the whole tank strata, really good plant for bettas in my opinion.

What does "3wpg" mean?

 

[Amunet]

Cabomba caroliniana would be a good plant for a betta tank...Mine has been thriving in my 5 gal tank. 3wpg, and I need to trim it every, to every other week. Shatner seems to love the plant, it gives lots of resting places throughout the whole tank strata, really good plant for bettas in my opinion.

What does "3wpg" mean?

3 watts per gallon. They're referring to the lighting in their tank


Cabomba is really good. Grows fast if the lighting is right and bettas seem to love it.
Anubias are good plants as well, but they're pretty slow growers. Their roots shouldn't be totally submerged in gravel. Like Java ferns.. their roots need water flow through them. People usually tie them off to a rock or wood.

Sword plants are pretty easy plants and grow well.

I'd say any kind of low light plant would be best. They don't grow very fast, but they don't require great lighting and from my experience pretty hardy. Crypts.. don't know any specific names.

 

[Snooks1!]

Cabomba caroliniana would be a good plant for a betta tank...Mine has been thriving in my 5 gal tank. 3wpg, and I need to trim it every, to every other week. Shatner seems to love the plant, it gives lots of resting places throughout the whole tank strata, really good plant for bettas in my opinion.

What does "3wpg" mean?

Watts per Gallon...Take the gallonage of your tank, and put it over the wattage of the lights you're using to find your WPG.

5 gallons with a 15 watt bulb = 15/5= 3wpg

 

[Juice]

I have green cabomba it's pretty good in my 15 gal. It does grow alot, so cut it in half and replant the halves every time it gets too tall. I don't reccomend red foxtail. It leaves alot of threads all over the gravel.

 

[littlest]

People have mentioned wpg. The amount of light you have will signficantly impact which plants you can grow successfully. Some plants are fine in low light, some need high light to survive. I've read (in the planted section of the forum) that with small tanks (which a betta tank is likely to be) you actually need more watts per gallon to grow the same plant.

Probably some the easier plantss to grow in low-light are java fern (attach to wood/rocks) and java fern (likewise), also anubias.

I think in general its actually easier to keep a heavily planted tank than a lightly planted tank, as algae can become more of an issue in a lightly planted tank. Swing by the planted section of the forum. There's lots of experts hanging around, and it's worth listening to them as it's easy to become over-run by algae in planted tanks

 

[Yuki_of_the_Stars]

I accually only have one live plant in my 10 gal. right now. A 4 inch shoot of bamboo I got from Petsmart. They're not much trouble to keep, as long as you keep it away from damage, that is... It will cloud up the water rather quickly if damaged. It tends to yellow when kept out of water, not quite sure if it does in water. My females seem to like it, so no rela complaints about it. And it's cheap.

 

[Amunet]

I've heard that if you completely submerge bamboo that it will rot since it's not an aquatic plant. You can have some of it submerged in the water.. but you have to leave alot of it out as well.

 

[littlest]

I've heard that if you completely submerge bamboo that it will rot since it's not an aquatic plant. You can have some of it submerged in the water.. but you have to leave alot of it out as well.

yep, heard the exact same thing. You can have it growing out of the tank so the leaves are out of water, but not follow submerged as its not an aquatic plant.

 

[stang1]

There's a little article in this months PFK regarding bamboo in a tank:

"Unfortunately it will rot and goes through a phase of being very smelly when first soaked in tankwater.
To overcome this either presoak it or just ensure the water is changed regularly, efficient biological filtration is used and/or carbon filtration used to help remove the smell.
Sometimes bamboo can go mouldy underwater too. All bamboo will go through a phase where the golden stuff rots away to leave the dark treacle-coloured stuff. By this time the smell should stop.
I know somone who puts airlines inside bamboo to keep it fresh in the early stages."

Hope that helps!