New to plants, suggestions?

[noelllll]

Here's a picture of what my tank looks like right now, it's 10 gallons. Thinking about putting some real plants in there to replace the fake ones I have now. Maybe even a small coat of grass on the floor? Now I have nooo idea about what plants would be good. I looked around a few websites but there are so many choices. Any suggestions for a few good plants to start with and where to buy them?

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

What's your lighting? Are you going to just stick with plain gravel as the substrate? Have any ideas on ferts, CO2 injection, or what? if you want a carpet on the bottom, you will need high light and a good plant substrate and CO2 injection is a must IMO for a nice carpet.

 

[noelllll]

What's your lighting? Are you going to just stick with plain gravel as the substrate? Have any ideas on ferts, CO2 injection, or what? if you want a carpet on the bottom, you will need high light and a good plant substrate and CO2 injection is a must IMO for a nice carpet.

My lighting is just the standard florescent light bulb that came with the hood. I don't plan on changing the gravel if possible. I have no idea anything about fertilizer or CO2 but I would like to know the options with or without if there are any?

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

My lighting is just the standard florescent light bulb that came with the hood. I don't plan on changing the gravel if possible. I have no idea anything about fertilizer or CO2 but I would like to know the options with or without if there are any?

Hmmm you would have to grow only low light plants, you probably wouldnt be able to grow a carpet like that though you need root tabs and dry ferts, I use aquariumplants.com's root tabs and dose PPS-Pro on my tanks. They also have pressurized CO2, but since you have low light you wouldn't need CO2, and Rivercats on here has an AMAZING 220g with awesome plants that she only doses glut (like excel or CO2 booster). Anubias, java fern, mosses, vals, swords, are a few I know are low light, but are heavy root feeders so root tabs are a must

 

[noelllll]

Hmmm you would have to grow only low light plants, you probably wouldnt be able to grow a carpet like that though you need root tabs and dry ferts, I use aquariumplants.com's root tabs and dose PPS-Pro on my tanks. They also have pressurized CO2, but since you have low light you wouldn't need CO2, and Rivercats on here has an AMAZING 220g with awesome plants that she only doses glut (like excel or CO2 booster). Anubias, java fern, mosses, vals, swords, are a few I know are low light, but are heavy root feeders so root tabs are a must

Alright that's fine for now, if I get a bigger tank I'll get better lighting for that. So if I stick with what I have now and only get root tabs I could get those plants you named? I looked at a few on aquariumplants.com and was thinking Mini Christmas Moss for the ground and maybe Dark Red Jungle Val for the back wall. Would that work?

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Alright that's fine for now, if I get a bigger tank I'll get better lighting for that. So if I stick with what I have now and only get root tabs I could get those plants you named? I looked at a few on aquariumplants.com and was thinking Mini Christmas Moss for the ground and maybe Dark Red Jungle Val for the back wall. Would that work?

Well, you would need root tabs, dry ferts, (PPS-Pro, EI, etc.) and some source of CO2 whether it be using Excel, Glut, etc. Christmas moss would work in you tank, but it would grow quite slow; the higher the light the faster moss grows. That's pretty much the rule on that and Dark Red Jungle Val would be best in a medium light tank due to its red color, you would need higher light for that deep red to come out. Regular jungle val is low light and grows a lot faster too.

 

[Coursair]

For a 10g you can get away with Flourish comprehensive liquid 1x weekly, Flourish Excel and you can buy root caps from Ghostshrimp in the Mart area of this site.

I'd say Java Ferns to start. Maybe s Moss Ball. You can try Crypts or Anubias.

You may need to swap out your bulb. Try to take a pic of the writing on your lightbulb so we know exactly what you have.

 

[noelllll]

For a 10g you can get away with Flourish comprehensive liquid 1x weekly, Flourish Excel and you can buy root caps from Ghostshrimp in the Mart area of this site.

I'd say Java Ferns to start. Maybe s Moss Ball. You can try Crypts or Anubias.

You may need to swap out your bulb. Try to take a pic of the writing on your lightbulb so we know exactly what you have.

Okay I attached a picture of the writing on my bulb.
So Flourish Excel and Root Caps and then I could start planting?
@DanTheGuppyMan what exactly do you mean by long? Like weeks? Months?
I'm thinking Christmas Moss for the ground, maybe a Moss Ball or two, and Jungle Val or Anubias for the back wall, yeah?

 

[Rivercats]

If you want a ground cover with those lights the only one that might actually work is Marsilea quadrifolia also called four leaf clover. Crypt Parva is another good forground plant that stays quite small. Crypts are going to be good for your tank as they are very low light tolerant. You could do Crypt Wendtii Red or Bronze for color and Crypt Lutea for a different leaf texture and color. Jungle Val or any Val IMO is too big for a 10g but you could use Dwarf Sag the same way as it can grow to 8" tall, ideal for a 10g. For DW you can attach anubia, java fern regular or wendilov, bolbutis, or java moss as that is the only moss that might grow in that low of light. All these plants are very easy. You would need to use root tabs for the crypts and possibly around the dwarf sag. Your gravel is rather large so stem plants such as dwarf sag have alittle harder time spreading. In such a tank you would only need to dose Seachem Flourish Comprehensive weekly after WC's and API Leaf Zone for potassium and iron as directed on the bottle.