New to plants, need suggestions

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Aquarium guy person

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Hi all, Iā€™m completely new to plants and Iā€™ve never had any before, I have a 40 gallon breeder and I want some floating plant and some sort of hardy plant for the middle column. My lfs finally has a red wolf fish and they are holding it till My tank is ready. I donā€™t want my artificial plants scratching it up. Also for the plants I donā€™t want to need co2 or anything too special. Any suggestions would be helpful, floating plants and plants for random places in the tank
 
What kind of light do you have? LED, flourescent, color temperature, wattage, etc? That will help.

Floating plants typically have low light requirements because they're pretty much directly under the light anyway. Frogbit, salvinia, water sprite, etc are common choices. All help greatly with water quality, which will be useful for you having a large fish in a relatively small tank. It's generally recommended to stay away from duckweed because it grows really fast, makes a mess whenever you have to go into the tank/during regular maintenance, and is almost impossible to get rid of when hyou get tired of it.

As far as other plants go, Java Fern and Anubias are usually recommended as hardy low light plants. They are attached to rock or driftwood instead of planting, and they have minimal light requirements. I've personally found Vallisneria to be hardy and do well with moderate lighting, makes a nice grassy background wall of the tank. Some Crypts are okay with low to moderate light as well. Java moss is pretty if you attach it to driftwood or rocks.
 
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I'm not the most knowledgeable about lighting - everything I know has been gathered cumulatively from members of this site - but I believe that light would be fine for low/moderate light plants. That means you have plenty of options. Since you want to keep things low tech, I'd still probably go for the lower maintenance plants. If you google "low to moderate light plants" you'll find plenty of them, along with info about their care. For the most part, root tabs (usually replaced every 6months) and weekly fertilizers are pretty standard for anything beyond floating plants and java fern/anubias.
 
That's a pretty decent light. I found it too bright so I bought the separate controller / timer and run it at around 65%.
 
In my experience, some GREAT lowlight plants that are very easy to take care up are hornwort, duckweed, jungle val, and jave fern. In particular, hornwort grows very fast and gives a lot of bang for its buck. It is a stem plant so it absorbs a lot of ammonia and nitrates from the water column. I'm including a picture of my tank that has all four of these!
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Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that itā€™s just gravel, nothing but gravel. So if any of those need a special dirt or sand, I canā€™t do that lol
 
There's way too much blue light in that colour spectrum chart. Plants need equal amounts of red and blue light, and if there's green and yellow that's even better. But you want equal amounts of red and blue light for plants grown on this planet.
 
Ok, so far Iā€™m looking at Java fern on driftwood, jungle Val, Amazon Frogbit, and hornwort. Those seem to be hardy from what Iā€™ve heard and researched and donā€™t need much maintenance except just removing excess plant material, how do I plant these? Is there like a specific way or do I just let the Frogbit float? Also how do I plant the others I canā€™t seem to find anything saying how to do it. Also where can I get these plants online?
 
I agree that the light isn't ideal for freshwater plants as it has too much blue light. But lots of members here use the Nicrew LEDS successfully, which only have white and blue lights, and at least this one has some red and green.


The frogbit is floating, just place it on the surface. You can attempt to corral it with airline tubing, or make frogbit-free holes on the surface by making airline tubing rings, if you want. Or you can just leave it be. Keep in mind that the rest of your plants will need some light to be able to get through.

Jungle val should go on the back and/or sides of the aquarium as it gets tall. It will send out runners and spread quickly in the right conditions. You want to plant the roots but make sure the plant itself is not below the substrate or it will rot. You will want root tabs for the Jungle Val, it really makes a huge difference. They only need to be replaced every several months so it's easy enough.

Hornwort can be planted or floating. It may or may not come with roots; you can plant the stem and roots, or if it is a bare stem, just plant the stem. Make sure you plant bare stem only; pick off any leaves as again, they can rot if under the substrate.

For java fern, IMO the easiest way to attach it to driftwood is with black thread. I've used glue but it's messy and a pain and can look bad when it dries. Just secure it enough that it stays in place but don't damage the plant. It will eventually secure itself to the wood as it grows.

There are many sites to get plants online. I've had luck with AquaBid, but be wary of the seller you choose. I've also used ModerAquarium, and DustinsFishTanks is a great source. If you just Google "aquarium plants online" you'll see a lot comes up. Those are just sites I've ordered from with success.
 

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