Growing First Aquatic Plants

[FreshwaterAfishianado]

I was looking into trying to grow live plants in my 20 gallon aquarium but can't decide if LED or T5 lighting would be better. My tank is 24"x12"x16", I'm using ~50/50 pea gravel/sand for my substrate, I currently have the tank stocked with platys, sword tails and corys. PH 7.6 semi-hard water (no tests but local tap water is hard). Some of the plants I found I liked are Alternanthera reineckii, dwarf lily, dwarf baby tears, anubias nana petite, glossostigma elatinoides, star grass, hygrophila corymbosa stricta, java fern and some various mosses. LFS says LEDs will work fine but I find a lot of mixed reviews when it comes to plant growth, especially when it comes to low growing plants with high light requirements such as the baby tears. Any advice would be extremely helpful as I want to be well informed before I spend too much money on something that won't meet my needs. Thank you all in advance for any input as I've found the community on this forum both helpful and friendly with past inquiries.

 

[mike455555]

if there normal LEDs go for T5's, there more powerfull, although if there high output LEDS then there worth the cash, afew members on here use them, steve the mod makes them as well (you can see some of his tanks on the forum) theres also others who use them and have great results, as for T5's my light in my sig is T5's they work great as well, dont waste your time with T8's 
 
if you have high lighting remember you might have to dose ferts and co2

 

[FreshwaterAfishianado]

I wasn't sure about pressurized co2 but I have heard good things about Flourish, and Ive heard Seachem makes a liquid co2 supplement, how affective are these and/or are there better/more cost effective ferts?

 

[mike455555]

liqid co2 is not as good as co2 but it does do the job but not as well, look up EI dosing, you can buy starter pack of dry salts and mix your own its the cheapest way 

 

[CoryLover95]

I use API's liquid CO2 for my plants and it works great.  Pretty cheap, good quality, keeps my plants alive.  LOL  As for your plants, I've had no experience with any of those except the Java fern.  Let me just say it's a great plant, very hardy, and looks good.  Good luck!

 

[mike455555]

 baby tears, are you on about HC? if so good luck, it loves light and co2 you will need to set up some sort of co2 system for HC 

 

[FreshwaterAfishianado]

Is co2 difficult to do? I've heard it can have adverse affects on fish, never really looked into.it very deep tho

 

[mike455555]

its not difficult, but it is more work weekly because your going to have to be dosing ferts as well, and doing 50% water change a week 
it can have bad effects on fish in high amounts, but generally in a heavily planted tank running at 20-30 ppm with a good light and ferts, it wont have a read up on it =]

 

[FreshwaterAfishianado]

OK we'll thanks for all of your advise, I'll deffinitely look into co2 and some ferts then, are there any plants that are particularly difficult to grow that I should avoid? Or I guess what I'm asking is what some good hardy beginner plants are, the list I have above were just ones I saw selling online that caught my eye.

 

[mike455555]

if you are putting co2 and ferts into your tank you can grow the difficult ones :L 
 
as for easy plants check out plants which have one of these words in there name majority are easy to grow 
 
Microsorum pteropus 
Anubias 
Vallisneria
Cryptocoryne
Echinodorus
Taxiphyllum