Ground Cover

[hforney]

Any suggestions on an easy to grow ground cover?

As an experiment I placed some babies from a household spider plant in my tank. After a week things seem to be ok. Did I do something stupid?

[hashbaz]

Algae!

Sorry for the useless comment, but I just could not help myself. As far as I can tell, almost all ground-covering plants need high light. I have a low-light aquarium and could not find any plants I thought would grow. If you have high light, someone else will have to help.

I'm curious about the baby spiders. Did you put them in as a tasty snack for the fishies?

[draX]

I was also looking for an easy to grow ground cover for a tank I'm putting together...I saw pictures of riccia, and glossostigma, and I really wanted them...but you're looking at high [acronym:b2710bf009="Watts Per Gallon"]wpg[/acronym:b2710bf009] and co2 injection. If you want something low light, why not try java moss? I read that it can make quite a nice ground cover. Haven't tried it though, you can't seem to get java moss in South Africa (where I live)...

[malkore]

dwarf sag. is the best non-high light foreground plant I've found. you'll need more than low light, but if you have 1wpg, you have a good chance of it staying alive. 1.5wpg and it should grow well.

[travis simonson]

I've had good luck with Marsilea spp. (AKA 'Water Clover) under any kind of light. It's a fairly slow-growing creeping fern plant that is often referred to as 'poor man's Glosso' because the submersed leaves look like large Glosso. It will take some time for it to grow into a carpet, but if you've got low lights it should work well. www.aqauriumplants.com carries a couple species of it. I like the M. quadrifolia variety the best. It usually has four-leaf clover looking leaves when you receive it - this is emersed growth and will die off when you submerse it, eventually to be replaced by single-lobed Glosso-looking leaves.

[Ulysses-31]

I have seen some fantastic aquariums with a carpet of Riccia fluitans. It looks great. But how do you keep the gravel clean. when you siphon the gravel you'll suck up the plants aswell.

[travis simonson]

Riccia is a liverwort/moss and you can't actually plant it in the substrate (at least I don't like the thought of trying to do it ) so you have to attach it to something. I put a thin layer of Riccia over the top of a rock, then place a hairnet snugly over the top of it, and secure it with a zip-tie. The Riccia will grow up through the hairnet and, with enough rocks, you can form a carpet with it. It grows readily enough, but you need to re-secure it about every four to six weeks or it will float free of the hairnets and make a bit of mess. Beautiful looking stuff when it starts to pearl though

It will require high light and [acronym:1dfb3cd523="Carbon dioxide"]CO2[/acronym:1dfb3cd523] supplementation to grow properly as a carpet. You can also grow it floating with less light.