New to planted aquarium

[Gavin Mayers]

As a complete novice to planted aquarium I am going to start with a low tech, no CO2, planted aquarium. My tank is 60cm x 40cm x 35cm. My question is what are the best plants for this sort of set up? And approximately how many plants would I need?
All help gratefully received.
Thanks

 

[Martin in Holland]

Anubias sp.
Aponogeton natans/crispus
Bolbitis heudelotii
Ceratopteris sp.
Cryptocoryne sp.
Echinodorus sp. inctenellus
Egeria densa
Fontinalis antipyretica
Hygrophilia sp.
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis/novae-zelandiae
Ludwigia repens/natans
Microsorium pteropus.var.
Pistia stratiotes
Salvinia auriculata
Sagittaria sp.
Vallisneria sp.
Vesicularia dubyana
and of course moss

Plant as many plants as you can afford.

 

[Gavin Mayers]

Martin
Thanks for the plant list, very helpful.

 

[alto]

Tropica's Inspiration Gallery can be quite useful
If you go to their youtube channel & select "videos" there are also several that highlight various plants, showing plant preparation & use in a layout & growth for 90days (or so) under listed conditions for that tank.
Look at as many journals as you can, try to sort out what you like (& what level of daily maintenance), take your time choosing substrates, hardscape, lighting, plants.

I recently set up a low tech with Tropica substrate & sand "cap", it's very easy to plant in sand, there's been no apparent "leakage" of organics from the substrate, crypts are doing awesome with virtually no "melt" & no clouding when plants are moved/removed. I usually include some "fast growing" stem plants to help mop up nutrients in the early stages, then may remove them as the tank (& you) settles in.

If you have very hard water, take note of plants that do well under these conditions.

 

[Gavin Mayers]

Alto
thanks for the info, I live in London and have hard water, but I can get de-ionised water to "soften" the tap water.
I will look at the youtube video when I get time.

 

[PARAGUAY]

Crypts and Hygrophilla Polysperma, and/or Vallisneria with using Tropica Fertiliser is a good starting point, look up George Farmer for hard water planting

 

[ian_m]

I live in London and have hard water

Fantastic great water then, plants don't care about water hardness. My water is even harder than London water, fish reproduce madly, plants grow madly. Why make things hard, a lot lot lot lot easier using the water you have. Just dechlorinate and good to go. Done.

 

[Rasbo]

Your tank is tricky to scape in proportion and is not really deep enough for stem plants. I've had a go - take a look at http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/first-time-aquascape.35466/

It is shallow and as a consequence you will have better light than many but the biggest issue is depth of view, there is no room for foreground middle and back so I have gone for really small leaves to offset this. I used in-vitro plants Hemianthus cuba, echinodorus tenellus, Pogostemon Helferi, Staurogyne Porto Velho, Micranthus Micromoides dwarf hairgrass plus anubia nana, weeping moss, christmas moss. The tank has a soil layer under Tesco cat litter ( which is a bit light for good rooting IMO). I used a dry start which I would recommend.
I found one portion of 4 types was more than enough to scape the tank and cuttings have already started another tank of the same size.

I'm in South East London and have 8 tanks on the go all planted to some extent. I would say that easy plants are anubias, cryptocoryne, christmas moss, echinodorus, vallisnera, especially if you have nutrient in the substrate.

I've tried most on Martin's list and lost a lot through not feeding but some tanks are better than others. I have one where vallis, crypt pontederia and anubia run rampant with no intervention and two others where crypts and anubias get by happily enough.

If I were you I would look very carefully at scale, many plants are going to be too big or get too tall.

Have fun!