Help Pick Plants For My First Planted Tank

[cchris]

ok. I recently moved, and broke down my malawi saulosi species tank. its back up and cycled and im going to do a freshwater community planted this time around.

it is a 55 gallon tank, substrate is gravel. (will change to black sand someday, not in the cards at this point)
my lighting is two 15'' aqueon full spectrum daylight bulbs.. I dont know the wattages.
temp is 78
I definately need beginner plants i guess..

Im looking for a nice piece of driftwood, and have a bit of java moss to tie to it.

my stock will be:
3 dwarf gourami
30 neon tetras
10 harlequin rasboras
6 panda cory
2 blue rams

what im looking for:
I like the tall plants in the back, but i really dont like the amazon sword.. It just gets too big. it seems to take over the tank imo.
so some full tall plants in the background..

other than that i would need some mid area plants as well as foreground.
some nice short grass would be awesome for this.
I have 1 java fern and 1 wisteria. the rest of my plastic plants i need to replace with live..

help please

ready... go!

 

[cchris]

i ordered 5 dwarf sag, for foreground, and 1 hornwort.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Hornwort doesn't root so will prob end up floating, good plants for you are Cryptocorynes, there's tons of types and sizes, even huge ones. Anubias, also lots of different sizes, there are also some nicer swords, reds, wavey leaved ones. Have a look on the tropica website for ones you like then purchase in the UK.

 

[cchris]

floating hornwort would be good for the gourami's though huh?

im in the US

 

[SLIM]

Indeed it will. Gouramis love abit of surface cover

 

[SombreroBanana]

Jungle val would be good for the background. It's tall and skinny, and propagates itself by runners, so it's easy to remove them when there gets to be too many.

 

[cchris]

looks good, im looking for some.. thanks!