Live Plants for Your First Tank?

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nomadman2003

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 5, 2012
Messages
32
Location
California
Are live plants difficult enough that I should avoid them on my first tank? I'm intimidated by them and wanted to know people's thoughts on how difficult they are in addition to starting a new hobby.

Anyone do live plants on their first tanks?
 
Really depends on what plants you get. Annubis is a good one, Java Moss, and Java Ferns are good starter plants. One you start you wont stop.. :p
 
Guess I should just start reading up on it and decide if I want to take it on along with being new to keeping an aquarium.

When in doubt read.
 
nomadman2003 said:
Guess I should just start reading up on it and decide if I want to take it on along with being new to keeping an aquarium.

When in doubt read.

I wish I had started with live plants with my first tank. Fake plants were so much more expensive and gave me so much less satisfaction!

With using just regular old gravel and the light that comes with a standard hood, java fern, java moss, anubias, and especially water wisteria have grown very well for me. Water wisteria will live through just about anything I think ;)
So it's definitely doable!

Maybe if you're unsure you can buy Half fake and half live? That way you still provide cover for your fish with fake ones but you still try your hand at live ones ;)
 
Not a bad idea using half and half. I'd like to use live. I'm just worried I'll kill a plant and make my tank toxic. Reading should quell my fears.

Thanks for the advice.
 
I started with free plastic plants. They were ok, so then I tried java moss and java fern. I really didn't like cleaning the extra pieces of moss floating all over my tank, so I took it all out. Java fern was ok, so I may use some of the slower growing plants in the future. My fish is known to uproot plants, so I needed to consider that fact. For now I'm hooked onto silk plants. I have some silk Amazon sword and Hygrophila. They move like real and look very realistic. I don't care if my fish uproots them because they have weighted bottoms.

I can't completely get away from plants since they improve water quality. If you do thorough research about planted tanks, then you'll end up have a pretty easy time with your first tank being planted.
 
I did it for my first tank but if you have some types of plecos they will dig them up and some snails will eat them I learned that. Learn before buy!! It does look good and isn't that hard so I would suggest it. It also helps your tank in many ways!! Many pros and cons though !
 
I have low light plants in my first tank. It's just been a little bit of experimentation. The only one that didn't work well was hornwort because it's leaves fell off and got very messy. I'm still learning about making them thrive. But they're not hard to keep alive.
 
Live plants are a must-have for a thriving tank. Do tons of research so you can have some knowledge and feel comfortable about getting into it.

The thing that plagues many beginners into the planted world is not enough, or not the right kind of light.
 
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