mhaynes01...
Depends a lot on how much light you have on the tank. I've got a couple of 10 gallon tanks. One came with the standard 15w fluorescent light...the other had 2 X 7 watt incandescent. I replaced the incandescent bulbs with two of the 10 watt screw-in fluorescents. The tank with the 15w fluorescent grows Java Fern (
Microsorium),
Bolbitis Fern and
Vallisneria quite nicely. The tank with 2X10w fluorescents is growing Water Sprite (
Ceratopteris),
Bolbitis,
Aponogeton and
Microsorium. I've noticed significantly better growth in the tank that has a total of 20 watts (2
wpg) over the one with 1.5
wpg.
Here's the 10 gallon with the 2 screw-in fluorescents. This picture is about two weeks old. The plants have grown phenomenally. The
Aponogeton in the right foreground now has leaves that are sprawled across the surface of the tank and the Water Sprite has taken over about half of the entire back of the tank. I had to prune the Java Fern and
Bolbitis Fern to remove some nasty algae that hitchhiked in on them.
If you have the standard fluorescent hood then you could also consider some of the smaller varieties of
Cryptocoryne and some stem plants like Hornwort (
Ceratopyllum) or
Anachris. Most of the 'grassy' plants require pretty high light levels. You might be able to use one of the dwarf
Sagittaria species or a small
Vallisneria type as a foreground plant.
Of course...all this gets tossed out the window if you decide to splurge and get one of the fancy compact fluorescent light fixtures. Then your choices will only be limited by the size of the plants.
