Ok so the stuff growing on the wood in the mid left is
JAVA MOSS. Very very easy to grow. Just tie it to wood or rocks with fine fishing line, and leave it alone. It does absolutely fine under basic light, requires nothing special.
The shortish ones in the far right and left are
ECHINODORUS, again, very easy to grow under bog standard light.
The bog brush looking fluffy plant in front of the filter on the left of the moss is
CABOMBA. I always reccomend this to beginners because it's cheap and easy. It's usually sold as a bunch of stem cuttings ( no roots basically ) most places sell a pretty good sized bunch for your money and for around £10 you can really fill up some space in a typical 5 gal tank. You simply remove the bottom couple of pairs of leaves, and plant the stems in pairs or trios, about an inch apart between each clump. Roots will form and the plant grows quite long/tall. You will need to trim it as it reaches the surface, but since this one usually puts off side roots, just poinch it off slightly below a side root, remove the bottom leaves as before and plant in a bare space or transfer to any other tanks you may want to plant.
The short broad one in front of the coconut cave is a
CRYPTOCORYNE. Another easy one that does fine in low/normal light. These are good for ground cover so you could actually carpet the tank floor in them if you plant carefully.
The long grassy stringy stuff you can just see nar the coconut cave is
HAIRGRASS. Just plant the clumps and trim occasionally. I need more of that actually but my LFS has run out for the moment so I'll have to wait.
The round green balls are
MOSS BALLS. They are not actually a moss at all, but a form of algae. But this type will
not spread to anything or cause more algae, it just stays in a ball. When you first put them in they will float , but by the end of the week they will have sunk to the bottom where they'll happily sit. Very slow growing and the only thing you'll need to do is give them an ocasional rinse in your bucket of tankwater when doing a water change, just to get any bits off. Shrimp really love to pick bits of food and biofilm from the surface of these so if you do have shrimp or plan to, they are a good plant to get.
There are a fair few who wll insist you need all sorts of added ferts, CO2 ect ect to make plants grow well which is absolutely NOT the case. I've yet to ever use ferts in any of my tanks, and my plants have flowered and also produced plantlets ect. Certainly there are quite a few plants which do require high light and ferts and CO2,
but the ones I have and the ones shown here in Bronson's tank do NOT require these things and are extremeley easy to care for.
The only real tip I will give you if you want basic live plants to get off to a good start when you first add them, is to buy a bag of basic cheap
pond soil. ( you will need to start with a bare tank or empty the one you have and start again for this )
Spread a thin layer, around half a centimetre of soil on the bottom of the tank, then top with 2 inches of fine gravel or sand before filling ( carefully!!! ) and planting. I've found this to work excellently in my tanks.
Bettas LOVE plants, the more the better . They come from heavily planted waters in the wild so really
fill your tank don't just have 2 or 3 plants. That's a huge mistake many people make and then wonder why their fish is not happy in a 5 gal+ tank ( and most of them subsequently put the fish back into a 2-3 gallon deathtrap ) .
They like space, they simply dislike OPEN space.
I still haven't finished planting this tank here !!!!
