Live Plants

[Livewire]

Hello everyone, I'm looking for some recommendations on live plants.
The plants I'm looking for are going into a 40 gallon fish tank and I do not have Co2, So I am looking for plants that do not require it and pretty much will be able to sustain themselves in my tank.

 

[Baccus]

Many mosses will do fine such as java, willow, christmas even fissiden will grow without Co2 but maybe even slower. Elodea, parrots feather, Java fern, Amazon swords, crypts, tiger lotus and anubis are all growing in my tanks without Co2 or even added ferts. I have a few other plants that are growing like mad but their names escape me at the moment.

 

[deftuch]

Many mosses will do fine such as java, willow, christmas even fissiden will grow without Co2 but maybe even slower. Elodea, parrots feather, Java fern, Amazon swords, crypts, tiger lotus and anubis are all growing in my tanks without Co2 or even added ferts. I have a few other plants that are growing like mad but their names escape me at the moment.

i find that hard to believe if im honest as anubis require a moderate amount of c02, they can survive without it but only with a good strong high dose of ferts every week. and as for your amazon swords, how long have you had them for because they need alot of iron otherwise they yellow and die very quickly, how can your plants be growing liuke mad without co2 or ferts?

 

[mike455555]

anubis does not require any co2.

 

[DrRob]

We always used to grow plants without CO2, just needed a different way of doing things and the stocking was lower plant wise with slower growth. That's a lot of the reasons that the old faithfuls were in the hobby, they're capable of growing slowly in lower light conditions and therefore don't need the CO2 supplements that we didn't have.

So the answer is, take a look at what we used to grow years back, with low light, and you'll be half way there. I'm thinking anubius, swords, elodea, vallis and crypts, as well as the mosses.

Problems you're likely to run into are of nutrient depletion, and I've had good going tanks bomb into BGA when the nitrate ran out, so things can still go wrong, but it's a slower way of doing thing.

Also algae on leaves is difficult to keep away with the old school method, I just used to prune older leaves with lots of algae.

 

[Noahs ark6]

Many mosses will do fine such as java, willow, christmas even fissiden will grow without Co2 but maybe even slower. Elodea, parrots feather, Java fern, Amazon swords, crypts, tiger lotus and anubis are all growing in my tanks without Co2 or even added ferts. I have a few other plants that are growing like mad but their names escape me at the moment.

i find that hard to believe if im honest as anubis require a moderate amount of c02, they can survive without it but only with a good strong high dose of ferts every week. and as for your amazon swords, how long have you had them for because they need alot of iron otherwise they yellow and die very quickly, how can your plants be growing liuke mad without co2 or ferts?

Your response is flawed, as Mike said anubias can go fine without CO2 and i've also kept amazon sword in non-dosed tank and they did fine

 

[DrRob]

I suppose we may be talking at cross purposes though, by CO2 we generally mean CO2 supplementation, whilst it is indeed true that plants all required CO2 in general.

 

[deftuch]

Many mosses will do fine such as java, willow, christmas even fissiden will grow without Co2 but maybe even slower. Elodea, parrots feather, Java fern, Amazon swords, crypts, tiger lotus and anubis are all growing in my tanks without Co2 or even added ferts. I have a few other plants that are growing like mad but their names escape me at the moment.

i find that hard to believe if im honest as anubis require a moderate amount of c02, they can survive without it but only with a good strong high dose of ferts every week. and as for your amazon swords, how long have you had them for because they need alot of iron otherwise they yellow and die very quickly, how can your plants be growing liuke mad without co2 or ferts?

Your response is flawed, as Mike said anubias can go fine without CO2 and i've also kept amazon sword in non-dosed tank and they did fine

amazon swords will not grow in an undosed tank unless they are the only plant in there. there demand for iron is too high. its possibl;e they will live but not before half the leaves yellow and die, im speaking from experience

 

[mossonthemoon]

amazon swords will not grow in an undosed tank unless they are the only plant in there. there demand for iron is too high. its possibl;e they will live but not before half the leaves yellow and die, im speaking from experience

But... They will. I had an an Amazon sword in with stacks of other plants: mosses, wysteria (if I remember correctly), cabomba, Java fern, some type of crypts (I now know from looking on this site), and others that I couldn't name. My sword thrived and grew enormous with the most impressive root system I have seen. I had it for roughly six years until my lights died while I was on holiday. (Actually the entire hood cracked in half, but that is another story.) The only thing that really didn't do well was the cabomba. I never have much luck with that stuff and don't bother anymore. Having only light from my window, where the curtains were left slighly open for three weeks was the downfall of the sword, and most of the other plants. It still lived after that, but it did decline and was never the massive jungle of growth it had been before. I don't know how long they are supposed to live so I guess it could have been reaching its end anyway. I got a number of off-cuts from it that thrived as well.

I forgot that the most important part was that I only used fertiliser two or three times in all of those years because the stuff I could get was horrible - it left a powder on things (I don't know what it was now), and it put me off. I also decided it wasn't necessary since my plants were doing okay.

 

[fluttermoth]

All these plants grow well in my tanks; I don't use any added CO2, or fertilizers;

Amazon swords, Java fern, Indian fern, various cryptocorynes, bolbitus, anubias, vallis, dwarf sag, Christmas moss, weeping moss, creeping moss, fissidens.

 

[mike455555]

my amazon sword is doing fine in my undoesed low light no co2 tank

 

[deftuch]

amazon swords will not grow in an undosed tank unless they are the only plant in there. there demand for iron is too high. its possibl;e they will live but not before half the leaves yellow and die, im speaking from experience

But... They will. I had an an Amazon sword in with stacks of other plants: mosses, wysteria (if I remember correctly), cabomba, Java fern, some type of crypts (I now know from looking on this site), and others that I couldn't name. My sword thrived and grew enormous with the most impressive root system I have seen. I had it for roughly six years until my lights died while I was on holiday. (Actually the entire hood cracked in half, but that is another story.) The only thing that really didn't do well was the cabomba. I never have much luck with that stuff and don't bother anymore. Having only light from my window, where the curtains were left slighly open for three weeks was the downfall of the sword, and most of the other plants. It still lived after that, but it did decline and was never the massive jungle of growth it had been before. I don't know how long they are supposed to live so I guess it could have been reaching its end anyway. I got a number of off-cuts from it that thrived as well.

I forgot that the most important part was that I only used fertiliser two or three times in all of those years because the stuff I could get was horrible - it left a powder on things (I don't know what it was now), and it put me off. I also decided it wasn't necessary since my plants were doing okay.

im going by experience. i cant keep amazon swords healthy and i did my research to find out why. ive tried many different types of ferts but i am now adding seachem flourish/excel and a cheap co2 system. i have 2 t5 lights. i can keep most red leaved plants alive also. i understand there may be excdeptions but as a generall rule amazon swords need iron ( this can come from the tap water or in some selected fish foods anubias need co2 ( this can come from tap water also ) i guess i was wrong to say its impossible for them to survive without them as clearly im wrong but as a generall heads up amazon swords will yellow and die without enough iron and anubus will struggle to grow and weaken without enough co2.

 

[mike455555]

i couldent disagree more with you deftuch. okay yes the plants do need it to survive but the amounts are so small that it comes from the water. amazon swords i agree do need iron but that can be in the form of a root tab. anubis doesnt need co2 injection its classed as 1 of the easyist plants to grow along with java fern. a plant which does need co2 is HC cuba. that wont grow without it. anubias will. okay the growth will be faster if co2 is added but thats all.

 

[Baccus]

Just one of my tanks with anubis growing very happily, Amazon swords that are now HUGE and Java fern that is now ready for dividing as well as Tiger lotus.


Below one of my Anubis with a peppered cory getting into the shot.

Amazon sword, thinks its called Marble Queen

And Marble Queen at the surface of my tank

Normal/ common Java fern

Needle Java fern

Types of Echinodorus -Ozelot

And Tiger Lotus

Fissiden

 

[coolie]

Nice. Are they spread across several tanks? I'm asking because I wonder if that's why you can get away without CO2, having not too much demand for co2?