What type of aquarium plants are perfect for 20 gallon tropical tanks?

Question

current 10 gallon contains guppies, platies, neon tetras and soon to upgrade to twenty gallons to allow addition of swordtails and plants.

Answer 1

A lot depends on how much light they will get. The Java Fern is a good suggestion so too would be Java moss(looks like a slightly better behaved kind of algae).There is a family of plants called Anubias,Anubias Nana,A. Barterii,and one or two others. All of the plants I have mentioned do not get their roots stuck in the gravel. They get gently attached to rocks or driftwood. Driftwood works best for me. I use a band of nylon stocking cut from the foot area to hold the plants to the wood,it doesn't cut into the roots like a rubber band does. It may take a month or more for the roots to attach,usually by the time they get well attached the nylon is so overgrown that it's not noticeable and I just leave it there. All of these plants will do OK in low light,a twelve hour light period is enough.Keep the glass in the cover clean. Prune the plants back before they overtake the tank and give them to other aquarists.None of the plants like warm water 74 degrees is about as warm as they will tolerate. The other plant mentioned in another answer is called Madagascar Laceplant, they grow from a bulb and are really striking if you can meet their conditions,but I'd wait awhile before attempting a $20.00 plant.Oh yeah, The Anubias grow real slow so don't give up on them too soon.Good luck.PeeTee

Answer 2

Stick with cheaper plants for the most part because ypur fish will nibble at them. If you want something sort of fancy there is a plant that has leaves that look like mesh. I cannot remember the name of it but it is around $20. It kind of comes and goes but i have had mine for 2 years and every time i think i have killed it it comes back again. The leaves are strong enough to not be destroyed by small fish.

Javav ferns are also very fish resistant. They are around $5. Rather than their roots imbedding in the gravel, the will wrap their roots areound rocks or drift wood.

Stay away from that liquid plant food you can add t o your water. Your pants get a growth spurt but so does the floating algae in your water making your water green.

When transferring your fish into the new tank, use atleast a third of the water from your old tank or your fish will not survive.

Good luck. Hope this helps

Answer 3

Dwarf Hairgrass
This is one of the most resilient and easy to keep carpet plants you can find. I had it in a tank that was left totally neglected for several months, with no water changes, fertilization or CO2. Obviously in these conditions it doesn't spread or form carpets, but on the day I finally decided to give the tank some maintenance, under the thick layer of cianobacteria I found this heroic little plant surviving who knows how, and as soon as the setup was in order it began to happily spread again. Under optimal conditions it forms a beautiful carpet, dense and 'hairy', thus the common name Hairgrass. Maintenance of this carpet is quite easy since, with a natural size of only about 5 cm and good rooting in the substrate, it doesn't require regular pruning or reattaching as some other carpets, only that you keep an eye on where it's spreading to since it will easily enter even the most shaded regions of the tank. When I bought this plant (Enrico's carpet above was born out of my own shootings which I sent to friends) it was labelled as E. minima, but after some research I concluded that it should be E. parvula.



My Brazilian Micros came in a little potted plant package. Once I unrolled the clump from the wool, I planted it in my 150 L with 100% flourite (DIY CO2- 28ppm, 6.8 pH). I found out that it was hard to put the whole plant into the gravel without one end or the other floating in the water column. I then cut the sword into 3-4 strands per plant. It was more manageable to plant them into the gravel this way. Also by doing this, they will spread out faster with more runners (even though they still are slow growers). But most important is that they won't clump up as easy and allow detritus and BBA to grow and spread through the tips and between the strands. After three weeks it managed to only put out 2-3 runners per plant, while the tips accumulate small amonut of BBA. So I trim the tips to get rid of the algae. But other than this, it's a nice grass-like plant that will grow slow without the required trimmings that my stem plants require weekly.

Answer 4

Not all fish will eat your plants. Some nice looking aqua-plants are Amazon swords and java ferns. Really good looking plants. As far as I know, none of your fish eat plants.

Answer 5

Grasses, swords, duckweed, crystal wort, clovers, ivy and hydra.

The fish you have are not plant eaters, if they nibble a little, its not enough to kill the plant. You don't have goldfish or cichlids.

Be sure to use an aquarium fertilizer and proper lighting.

Good luck.