Mystic54

I have one amazon sword in a 20 gallon high
Then, in my 5.5 gallon betta tank I have an anubias nana on one side and java moss on the other.

Borisbbadd

I keep thinking that I want to try live plants, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I think I have a complete lack of courage on the subject...........

Or maybe I'm just too lazy...........

dee34

live plnts in with the discis tank but no plants with the bps and oscar ....

10gallonmadness

Yes, I keep them in my 10 gallon. In fact I'm running to my LFS in the next couple weeks to get some more .

kloseo

i agree with 11yan im too lazy or not enough hrs in the day for live plants

snakestorm526

The majority of my plants are silk, but I do have a lot of guppy grass and java moss in there also.

akamel

I have fake plants in my 30 gallom cichlid tank. I tried some java fern but they just wiped it out ! Planning on get more and bigger tanks in future and will do some live plants with the proper substrate and co2. But confused about what plants to get.

PetiteTank

I have amazon sword, moneywort and a couple more (will post pics later). I've tried cabomba and I just detest them and red ludwigas? forget about them. Those require too much light. Before you know it, your tank is green from algae growth.

Tom

That's all I keep, even my q-tank has live plants.
Tom

aspects

indeed. i refuse to use any fake plants. (though some of the silk plants these days are looking a lot more realistic).

Tom

They might look real, but they still won't ever replace a good live plant, especially if you forget to feed your fish on a regular basis.
Tom

Nick G

All my tanks have live plants except the 90gal. I have tryed them in there,(it has a great lighting system), but within a day or so Brute just destroys them. I'm certainly no expert with plants though, I just buy ones I like the look of and bury them in the substrate. If they die I buy different ones. I'm good at growing Java Moss though!

aspects

indeed. i ctotally agree. thats just one of many reasons i dont use fake plants. live plants provide a lot to your tank.

cwb141

I have tons of java moss and crypto spiralis in a 29 gallon. I bought 2 lotus bulbs from petsmart and they guarantee growth in 30 days. It's been almost 3 weeks and no signs of growth yet, but we'll see...

Edit: Roughly 3-4 weeks after planting there are finally shoots from one lotus bulb, no signs from the other

Edit 2: A couple days after first signs of growth there are leaves and stalks reaching 2 inches high.

Jaysee

My tanks - 2x55, 45, 35, 30, 4x29, 20L, 20, 4x10, 2x5, 2x2.5

I have 1 live plant in my 2.5 cherry shrimp tank. Couldn't even tell you what it is, but it's still alive so that's a victory in my book.

ldbrown3138

If all else fails, I always use water sprite. It seems to grow anywhere. I have anubias, val, crypts, java fern, java moss, hornwort and one very resilient swordplant. My water sprite grows from the bottom to the top and emmerse in my 55. My lighting levels are not extremely high and I don't use CO2. I don't have a huge algae problem except in the tank without plants. I can't seem to keep plants with the african cichlids, maybe it's the pH, maybe it's the fish. Can't wait for spring so I get the pond going and get the pond plants going again.

JustinF

Wow I was suprised at how many people have plants, I wish I could get them to grow but I don't have enough money for the lighting that I think is needed.

ppate1977

Once I got one plant, a week later I had no fake plants left. I have 9 diff plants and the only thing I ever have to do is trim them. That's it.

catsma_97504

Guess my answer is both yes and no! I have two tanks and have started live plants in one of them. Fighting algae, but will eventually figure out the balance needed.

EmmanuelJB

Yes! Its called algae.

Elodea

Actually, algae isn't a plant, it's an autotrophic protist.

swalker13

just started with plants as well, kept fish several years ago but now taking on the hobby full tilt

allibobs

We have 10 tanks and they all but 1 have some live plants in even if it just java moss.The one tank that does not have plants will have by tomorrow!

JRDroid

I just got my first live plant today! Its in my 5.5 gallon

LC

i just started the hobby last month (i've been researching it since last year though) and i decided i really wanted to go the natural way...coming from a person that managed to kill an orchid in 2 weeks and never able to keep any live plants it was a huge thing. my sister had a ten gallon with amazon sword that i didn't manage to keep alive and it really put a damper on my dreams for my own tank...but none the less, i decided to try it.

at first i only had watersprite and anarchis and after two weeks the watersprite was getting brown so i tried injecting c02 and what do you know it works! since then i bought the nutrafin c02 system bc i like the look and feel of it (for only $33 it didn't kill me) now my watersprite is 3 times the original size i bought it for! my anarchis i've already had to cut in half! (its only been a month!) and i've gotten some java moss. my moneywort died on me though, i guess it was more sensetive. but all in all, if i can do it....trust me, anyone can!

mirday

I have a few, but it was looking bare so I got some tall fake ones for the back. I'm working on slowly getting rid of them as the live ones grow.

Jahjah440

No live plants. This whole cycling thing is enough for me now

lea

Laziness is no excuse people! i have 2 'planted' (no fakes) and i've had little trouble. Got some algae once but just shortened the photoperiod and dose with Flourish excel (a great recommendation from this site!) and no problem since.

I cheat with mine though, i have no special lighting, so i get hardy low light ones that dont need special substrate (or primarily ones that can have free floating roots eg javafern, lacefern etc) like crypt, ludwigia, hygro, lacefern, anubis, java moss and javafern etc, wrap roots in filter wool, put in a fert tab for some (like my dwarf amazon sword) and pop them in a pot with a bit of substrate on top. All thrive and i can rearrange them at will, plus they look fantastic and the fish love them. They also are pretty cheap and you can separate new stems often, so a lot cheaper than plastic inthe long term!!

I've got terracotta & bondsai pots & sake cups, which are cheap to buy and they look great. Just a bit tied to driftwood makes a great low maintanence feature also .

I actually had more trouble constantly pulling out my old plastic ones to clean them all the time and weighting them down in the substratte again - my tank is actually more low maintnance with real plants... oh, and it helps buffer the nitrates too. Bonus .

Edit: I found the flourish excel circumvents the need for extra CO2 as it provides the carbon intermediates they need without the injector $ and hassle and also wont interfere with pH as CO2 sometimes can. I cant believe how quick my algae prob disappeared once i started using it, and my plants are growing really well.

I've found it a great product and recommend it to other beginners with plants like me!

Edit: my tanks are below, hope some of you like them

Attached Images

	Betta river garden 15g 2.jpg (353.3 KB, 35 views)
	zen betta garden 2.jpg (108.7 KB, 34 views)

Nate McFin

Nice looking tanks Lea.

lea

Thanks nate