Plants for beginners

[SayraT]

I know that there are some fishy experts on here so I am hoping you can help.

I have a 60 litre tank with 6 wcmn, 1 cherry red shrimp and 1 nerite snail. The tank has a heater in it but only set at 18? (in case temp drops - it's sometimes on when I get up in the morning).

I would like to get some real plants but don't want anything too difficult, don't want to have to use CO2 or fertiliser if possible (although fertiliser wouldn't be too difficult!).

What would you recommend? I'd like a carpeting plant as well as some taller ones, at the moment I have a submarine ornament in my tank but I am going to get rid of that and change it for stones/wood.

Thank you in advance!

Ooh, I like your stocking list, it sounds pretty!

Java fern would work really well, it's tough as old boots and grows quite slowly so doesn't get out of hand that much. You can grow it on bogwood so you don't have to worry about fertilisers. You could also grow some java moss on the wood, the shrimp will love that.

Carpeting plants are tricky, most of them need high lighting and CO2 injection. You could go for some small cryptorcrynes, they spread like crazy in my tank so you can get a lot of coverage that way.

You can always stick some root tabs in around the new plants if you don't want to redo your whole tank with fertilising substrate.

Thanks Eau

I love watching my fish, they are such little characters, I've got gold and normal? wcmm I quite like having the two colours, my gold ones are beautifully coloured.

Something that is slow growing and tough would be perfect for me, I don't have a good track record with house plants! . I will get java moss as well, I've heard that shrimps like it. I also need to get more shrimps, I like them, I started with five and everything that I read said they would breed really easily - mine didn't!!

I will maybe leave the carpeting plants and see if I can avoid killing the java fern and java moss first.

Next question, I don't buy livestock from pets at home but do you know what they are like for plants? I have a good fish shop (Fishkeeper Scotland) where I buy livestock from but its not that near. Pets at home and Dobbies are much closer though if you think PAH won't be as good I'll persuade my OH to come a wee trip to the good shop. Last time we went I spent 2.5 hours just looking at the fish

They do have some good plants but also some that are not true aquatic plants- this is probably a supplier issue rather than a P@H issue, they probably just order a batch and that's what they're given. If it's not a true aquatic plant then it'll rot and die.

There are loads of good places online to order plants- ebay always has loads and it's quite cheap- and there are also specialist places if you need something a bit more unusual or if you want to get a bargain batch of plants. I ordered a mystery pack from here once and it was a really good deal, but you don't know what you're getting.

Too bad you're not in Cambs, I've got loads of cherry shrimps that I've been trying to shift.

I like the look of the link you sent me, they seem to have good bundles of plants. I'll look on there or go to the good shop, I'd rather travel a bit further and get decent plants than the wrong type. I wouldn't know an aquatic plant from and non-aquatic plant so will have to go on what the person in the shop told me.

I bought my shrimps from Kesgrave Tropicals, I will see if they do plants too as I was really happy with the service etc from them.

That is a shame....I'll be in Cambridge at a conference in April but you will probably have got rid of them by then. Or maybe you will have more babies!!

I'll probably have even more, they won't stop breeding! You're welcome to stop in for a cuppa and some free shrimps.

That is very kind of you. I will contact you nearer the time and see if you are free.