Want To Get Live Plants...a Few Questions

[Bluesand1313]

So, I want to get live plants for my betta's fish tanks, but I'm i've got a few questions and concerns.
 
Well, one is that I know plants need their caring for too. Since my 5gal doesn't have a light currently, and it might be quite a while until I get one for it, will this affect the plants in any way?
Two, Once again about caring for the plants. I know that some need more caring then others. Which ones can kind of care for themselves, and what do I need for the ones who need a little boosting?
Three, I'm worried about snails. We have a java fern in our 10gal, and with it came annoying tiny snails. I can't seem to avoid them. They are even in my 5gal, I have no idea how! I don't have any live plants in there and it's a new-ish tank! Anyways, I have a mystery snail in that tank, and I'm afraid if I get live plants along will come the annoying little snails and they will kill my mystery snail like they did last time with my girl in the 10gal. Not sure what I'm looking for here, maybe some advice? xD
Four, will my snail/oto's eat my moss ball if I were to get one? Or will they leave it alone just like any other plant in the tank?
 
Thank you

 

[the_lock_man]

(1) All plants need light. End of. If you don't have one on the tank, don't get plants.
(2) Easy care plants - Amazon Swords, cryptocorynes, java ferns, anubias. Other plants need varying degrees of care, depending upon how much light you have in the tank.
(3) Very often plants come with free snails. If you get hordes and hordes of them, it's a sign that you're doing something wrong. Pick out the snails that you see, and don't feed the tank so much.
(4) No they won't eat it.

 

[Donya]

Since my 5gal doesn't have a light currently, and it might be quite a while until I get one for it, will this affect the plants in any way?

 
Is the tank getting any source of natural light right now via a window or skylight? If so, it might support some plants if it gets a lot of sunlight every day, assuming the tank remains thermally stable; usually it's bad to put tanks right up against a window for that reason. In other words, if the room gets enough sunlight to support moderately demanding potted houseplants then the tank might support some aquatic plants. However, if it gets anything less than a normal day's worth of natural sunlight then you'd still need a fixture to pick up the slack. Some terrestrial plants can to survive in the very dim conditions and are common in homes and offices as a result, but a planted aquarium won't work under the same conditions.

 

[snazy]

All plants without exception need:
 
1. Light
2. CO2(carbon)
3. Trace elements(micro nitritients) and macro nutritients. As the name suggests, plants consume the macro nutritients in larger amounts. The most common ones are nitrate, phosphate, potassium, but they'll happily uptake ammonia and nitrIte too, hence why plants are good for any tank.
 
It very much depends on the tank, amount of plants, amount of fish, whether the nutritients produced naturally by fish food and waste are going to be enough to accomodate happy plants. Same applies to CO2, it's normally very low in a low tech tank and the lack of it causes algae oubreaks.   The higher the light, the more CO2 the plants would require, so keep the light low(when you purchase it) if you are not going to supplement any CO2 to the tank. If you do, then you'd need to add extra nutritients as well, as in most scenarios, fish waste isn't enough, or at least can't provide all of the required nutritients.
 
Some plants are hardier and more adaptable and survive and grow well without too much fuss.
Examples are certain hydrophila species, most anubias species(not all), java fern, some moss plants, some of the echinodorus species and some of the cryptocoryne species. Some bulb plants grow well in low tech tanks too, like lotuses or some aponogeton species.
 
The snails or ottos won't eat moss balls.

 

[Bluesand1313]

Since my 5gal doesn't have a light currently, and it might be quite a while until I get one for it, will this affect the plants in any way?

 
Is the tank getting any source of natural light right now via a window or skylight? 

 
The tank is placed where it half the tank gets sunlight and the other half does not on a *usually* regular basis, of course unless it's winter. But by the time it's winter, I think I'll be able to afford a 5gal hood.
 
 
 
 

(3) Very often plants come with free snails. If you get hordes and hordes of them, it's a sign that you're doing something wrong. Pick out the snails that you see, and don't feed the tank so much.

 
This... just made my life a whole lot easier. Now that I know the cause of them to over-breed, well, I can stop. I tend to overfeed sometimes :s

 

[Donya]

The tank is placed where it half the tank gets sunlight and the other half does not on a *usually* regular basis, of course unless it's winter. But by the time it's winter, I think I'll be able to afford a 5gal hood.

 
I would hold off on live plants then until you have a light. I've had tanks in partially-lit situations like this and they always required supplemental light to support plants well. Otherwise, you could get a bunch of plants and have them slowly decay on you and pollute the tank if the lighting turns out to be insufficient. Keep an eye out for used equipment if money is scarce. A used hood with a working fixture would be fine and would just require a new bulb while usually being much cheaper than buying the whole thing new.
 
Also, have you considered something like a grow light from a hardware or garden store? They are meant to help grow plants indoors and I've found them a very cheap and useful thing for undemanding aquatic plants (won't work with anything more demanding that that though). You won't get crazy growth with those, but you can definitely keep a few hardy plants that way in a shallow tank. You can also put bulbs of that variety into any fixture accepting the same type of bulb if you already have a suitable fixture lying around. If you would be happy to stick to low-light stuff like hornwort, java fern, java moss, etc. then you could use one of those lights and, depending on what the fixture looks like, possibly without a hood if the fixture doesn't leave the bulb exposed. 

 

[Bluesand1313]

Wow, what luck!
 
Just found a hood that'll fill in for the other half of the tank that doesn't get light. Do you think that'll work? Half-natural light and half-artificial? I could put the ones with a higher-demanding.. light demand on the artificial side since it's brighter, and the low-light ones on the natural light side! Or would that not work?
 
If it does work, that's awesome! Cause, well, I turned it on and the light glitched, exploded (inside the light bulb) and then went out. So... I need a new one, but it takes Christmas Bulbs! How lucky is that? xD

 

[Donya]

You can do half-lit tanks, but you may end up with only half-planted because of that. To start you would want to try just on the most-lit side with something really hardy to make sure it's alright. You'd want to see growth from plants there before trying anything on the lower-lit side. Always better to go slowly and safely! 
 
What kind of fixture is the one you have now (incandescent, fluorescent, etc.)? I don't know what a Christmas bulb is since I've seen several different types/sizes that go on chains of lights. 

 

[Bluesand1313]

Like a small light bulb.
 
Okay, so it would work? I'll probably just start with that half.
 
It's not florescent.. It's a low yellow light.

 

[Donya]

I presume it's an incandescent bulb then? You may be able to grow very hardy, low-light things like just some java fern/moss with not much else. I have grown those with the tiny, single LED lamps from IKEA. Give one of those a try with the light but don't buy a bunch of it - just try a small bunch of one plant and wait to see what happens. If you see growth, then you can try for more.

 

[Bluesand1313]

Okay, thanks for the information and advice! I'll hopefully let you know if there's any growth.