# Do I have enough plants?



## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

I'm planning on setting up a 10 gallon NPT. I have a 6.6g npt set up, but that was a bit hit-and-miss for the first few months (didn't have enough stem plants at first, still a bit of a learning curve.)

Anyway, I wanted to try some new plants in the 10 gallon. Do I have enough of the right kinds? I have a few java ferns from my other tanks I can add as well. Anything you would add?
Oh, I should mention, I would like to make this into a sorority tank with 5-6 females

Water Wisteria
Anacharis
Ludiwigia broad leaf
anubias nana
amazon sword
and some duckweed (I killed the frogbit from my first tank :-( )

Yes I've read the sticky , and I will be getting a 6500k light once I get the plants.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

That looks good to me  Are you doing the soil based substrate?
Later down the line for a sorority, I love using Water Sprite, it provides great cover for them and makes it harder for them to dart after each other all the time. The only downfall is that it does make the light a little harder to penetrate so what I did was use a suction cup for the airline tubing and a twisty tie. I made a loop around part of the plant to sort of anchor it down and then put low light plants underneath that and it worked out pretty well 

I found that Frogbit, well it took nearly 3 weeks to get used to my tank water, there was a lot of die off but now it's growing great!


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## Nicci Lu (Jan 7, 2013)

I only see two fast growing stem plants that will root on your list- ludwigia and water wisteria. Maybe it's just me, but I never could get my anacharis to root in my soil. I would get at least one more, like cabomba or a rotala. You never know what's going to flourish in your tank, so it's good to make sure that you'll have plenty of healthy plants by varying the varieties. 

The aim is to have at least 60% plant coverage, so make sure you have the right amounts of everything. Anubias and java fern don't really count as much when starting an NPT- they're more like 'extras'- because they are such slow growers and don't get their nutrients from the soil.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

My Anacharis did wonderful in my 33 but died when I had some of it in a 3 gallon. But it almost took over my 33, so it probably depends on substrate/fertilizers/lights and all that good stuff 

I do love Cabomda, it can sometimes be a pain to plant, or at least I do, but I love it and so do my girls who swim through it all the time  How about Hornwort too? I never felt like my Rotala was very fast growing? Maybe it's just me though.


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## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

Yes it will be a soil based tank

Oh, I also plan to add some naja grass (it just wasn't on the website I was "shopping" from, haha. 
I will look into some bacopa or cambomba
What about rotala??

If it makes a difference, this is where I plan on ordering (these are the stem plants available) I like to try and order from one place to save on shipping costs 
http://www.peabodysparadise.com/shop/7-stem-plants


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Have you looked at ThatPetPlace.com? They usually have some great deals on items and sometimes live things as well like plants  I also use bobstropicalplants.com for some cheap plants and stuff.

I never thought Rotala was very fast growing, medium at best but it's still a good plant to have and looks nice in bunches  I guess you'll have to take Nicci Lu's advice on that since I've only had my Rotala for maybe a month and a half now.


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## colorxmexravyne (May 8, 2012)

IME, these plants grow like wildfire:

STEM PLANTS:
Anacharis (the narrow leaf variety works better for me)
Hornwort (technically a floater)
Najas Grass/Guppy Grass (I also let this float)
Wisteria
WATER SPRITE! Goodness it grows so FAST.
Giant Hygro; it grows super fast too, but you have to be careful not to let the upper leaves shadow the lower leaves or it starts to look wonky.

Pennywort, Bacopa Monnieri (Moneywort) and/or Bacopa Caroliniana (Lemon Bacopa) are supposed to be really good, fast growing stems as well, but none of them fair well in my tanks. Of the three, I would suggest pennywort. I have one stem remaining from bundle of 8 and it's doing pretty well.

FLOATERS:
Amazon Frogbit, although it took a while for it to adjust.
GIANT! duckweed
Dwarf Water Lettuce
Salvinia Minima*

Common duckweed's supposed to be really good too, but it would always get sucked into my filter and just ended up being more of a headache than anything.

Also, there's an "*" by the salvinia because for a while I could *not* keep it alive. I did everything I could think of but it would still die off or just grow so incredibly slow. Then I switched my bulb from a 10watt (2wpg) to a 14 watt (2.8wpg) and man what a difference that made. In two weeks I went from having like two small plantlets to a tank full.


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## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

I'll have to check out ThatPetPlace, thanks!

I bought plants from Bob's Tropical Plants before and wasn't that impressed. They were a Christmas gift from my mom and he wasn't very good with communication with her; she had to email about 3 times to get an update.
When I got the plants, they didn't look that great- lots of leaves had fallen off, they didn't look that healthy, and there was a LOT of duckweed. 
I can understand having some duckweek if someone is just selling trimmings, but a legit business- not very professional IMO

The ones I got from Ebay (Lopez Aquatic) were sooo much nicer, and he threw in freebies! I'm trying to avoid Ebay because of the hassle of combining shipping is really confusing!

Anyway, I'm not as picky as I was for my first tank. I'll probably just end up buying a little bit of everything and see what I like


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Oh really? I never had problems with that, I must have gotten a lucky batch. I don't normally email people either unless there was an issue or something before hand. But either way, that's fine too 

That's kind of what I did with my tank as well, I'm absolutely in love with Water Sprite! It's legit, one of my favorites plants thus far lol and yes it does grow fast! I have a mother plant from my LFS that's about 3 feet long when uncurled (and he gave it to me for 8 bucks  That plant should have gone for 20!) So I get babies off it quite frequently to put in my other tanks


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## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

-I can't edit my old post-

It was wintertime and he was closed over Christmas, which is understandable. But she emailed after he opened again, and had to twice more before she got an update of when he was going to ship the plants out.

Wow!! That's huge! Love me some fast growing plants! I might just have to re-do my 6.6gallon with some of these new ones when I get them


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Ah okay, that makes senses, it still sucks and you are right, it is unprofessional.

I'll have to stretch that plant out one day and really measure it, take some pictures and whatnot haha. I love it and so do my girls


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

I just made a huge order with Planted Aquariums Central. When you get to the very end, just before you place your order and after you've been to PayPal, type Bettafish in the coupon section and you receive 10% off your order (excluding shipping).

http://www.shop.plantedaquariumscentral.com/Live-Aquarium-Plants_c6.htm


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