Easy plants to maintain for a beginner

[Tropical]

Hi everyone.

I have a 20 gallon long tank (30"x13"x13") that I would like to add a few small, simple plants to. I have black gravel and don't really want to get new substrate, so are there any plants I can get?


I currently have 6 silk plants, and lets just say you can tell they are fake

I have a Aquaeon Power Filter 30 (200gph).
Temp is 76
P.h is about 7.6-8

So can you recommend easy plants and give basic care instructions? Also, I don't have any good fish stores in my area, so do you know of a good place I can buy the plants online?

 

[mfdrookie516]

Does the tank just have stock lighting? What type and wattage?

 

[Tropical]

I'm not really sure what that means, but it is a 20 watt flourecent light. Do you need more info than that?

 

[fort384]

20W of florescent light over a 20g tank ought to be sufficient for some low light plants.

I would start with some anubias and java moss, maybe some java ferns. They require almost 0 maintenance.

Checkout this site:

PlantGeek.net - Your Aquatic Plant Resource

You can sort the plant list by lighting requirements. Anything under low light is a potential option for your tank.

 

[mfdrookie516]

Yep. You could probably do some anacharis as well, IME it grows well in low light.

 

[OhNeil1969]

Yep. You could probably do some anacharis as well, IME it grows well in low light.

+1 for anacharis.
I have a 29 gallon low light tank and the anacharis is growing like crazy. I did change my bulb for the flora-gro version (better light spectrum) and started adding Seachem Flourish. The anacharis has grown so much that I'm going to stop using the Flourish for awhile. As soon as I get enough money for good lighting on my 60 gallon tank I plan to use the 29 gallon as an anacharis farm (will never have to buy anacharis again).

 

[mfdrookie516]

I actually had some anacharis that was in a 10g with a 15w T-8 10,000k bulb... well, here's what happened with it...

 

[Tropical]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll definately look into these.