# Good plants for a 20 gallon sorority?



## Roemgie (May 6, 2012)

Hey guys 

So in about 3 weeks I'll be moving to my summer dorm room and so I plan on bagging my sponge filter, gravel, plants, etc and moving them all and transporting it to my girls new twenty gallon long tank  

I defiantly know I don't have enough plants to fill a twenty gallon long tank so I've been in the search. I do have 3 pieces of driftwood that will do nicely and a few weeks ago I did go plant crazy BUT I have to admit I put the new plants in a cycling tank and so I lost a lot (possibly because I also didn't know how to care for them). 

I am in need of a top for my 20 gallon long tank so I will hopefully be getting that soon but in the mean time I will just say the top I would use would be hand made with no lighting but that from the sun that may come in ever so often. 

I will possibly have 10-11 girls in my 20 gallon and I would like to possibly have a few shrimp, maybe ghost shrimp to help with clean up? I do have my bladder snail too that I must account for (I'll probably be bringing my boy with me to college so my snail may just live with him). 

Now before I post a few plants I like I'll have to say that I am in college and 4 hours drive from home. Yes I'll be here for most of the summer but once summer school ends I'll have 3 weeks of vacation before I go back for the fall. So what ever plants I do get (or shrimp) I'll need to be able to prepare them for a 4 hour drive. I have been told to leave about 25% of the water in the tank and saran wrap so that none of the water spills. Is that ok or are baggies a better idea??


Also I only use gravel so I'm not sure if there are specific plants that wouldn't do well in gravel, or would. I plan on getting a lot of gravel so it'll be easy to bury the roots (unlike in my poor 5 gallon and some what the problem in my 10 gallon). Also I'm not rich lol so although it is all up to my green thumb I would really like fairly easy plants.


*One more question (I promise you're a saint for reading this!!)* am I suppose to use scissors to cut off dead leaves or can I just pull them off? I use to just lightly tug and they'd come right off but then I read that (at least before putting them into the tank) use scissors to cut off any dying or dead stems. 


Anywho here are some plants I would like to have:

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsb&1367803220

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsb&1367804407

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsb&1367803215

(I love the look of this one and I bought it before in the past but it died on me  of course it could have been the high ammonia or just the process of cycling but i would love to try again) http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsb&1367803213

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsb&1367803208

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsb&1367763004

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsb&1367676612

(if I got shrimp?) http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?driftwood&1367804401

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsr&1367556615

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsf&1367723194

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsf&1367450415

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsf&1367444322

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplantsr&1368546547


----------



## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Well gee, I guess I'm a saint! haha

Anywho, I'll just comment on each plant because I can 

Narrow Leaf Anacharis: I've never had the narrow leave variation but I've had regular anacharis. My experience with it hasn't been great, but I also haven't exactly treated it very well, I kept moving it from different tanks and it was not having any of that so it died on me. But otherwise it was growing great in my tanks before I moved it. It also competes for the nutrients that algae need beacuse it's such a fast grower so it's good for that.
It does need at least low light to grow, but soon you will have a forest of them. It propagates by growing a new stem out of the original stalk, when it's big enough and has roots you can pluck it off and plant it. You can also cut the stem if there are roots growing out the side and plant that in the gravel but the old stalk won't grow from that spot but will make a new shoot off the side.

Also, you can pluck dead things off with your fingers, sometimes I use scissors other times I just use my nails to slice the stem but I've never had problems with either of it. Just depends on what you want to do.

Ludwigia Repens: I love this stuff, I have it in my 10 gallon and it grows great. It does need high lighting to be red, otherwise it will just stay green. It normally grows out green and will turn red later on if provided with enough high lighting. I had a huge root system growing in mine with gravel so it's just fine there.
With stem plants like these you can chop off the top, strip a bit of the bottom (preferably if there are roots growing you'll do this and chop off under the roots) and then bury that in the gravel and it will grow. The old stem will either make a new growth to the side or continue to grow from where you cut like nothing ever happened.

Dwarf Baby Tears: I've never had it but I know it grows well with high lighting and will eventually carpet, it's good for shrimp and fry. You'll have to trim it if you want it to stay a carpet but otherwise it will just grow wherever it wants. (I don't particularly like this for sororities grow, I'll get to the DHG later)

Rotala Wallachii: Another I've never owned but from reading I know these will shed their needles sometimes so it depends on if you want to be picking up needles or not. Another one that needs high lighting to be red, otherwise will be green and may even die. I've never had luck with these kinds of plants but they can make good dividers when tall enough so you can make a kind of "wall" with them.

Cabomda: one of my two boys's favorite plants. Remmy loves to swim around his plants, the Cabomda especially. It's another great one for making walls and of the such. A fast grower, pretty easy to reproduce, it will give off new shoots time to time on the sides, this also needs high lighting. Does fine in both sand and gravel and will have a large root system.

Dwarf Hairgrass: one of my favorites for carpeting! It also grows up to 4 inches so you can leave it or you can "mow" it to be like a lawn. Shrimp and other fish love to swim through it when it's taller, I vote this for a sorority definitely.

Dwarf Pennywort: I don't know much about this plant since I've never been interested in it, sorry ><

Driftwood covered in moss: oooo I like this lots! Looks great in a tank and of course your shrimp will love it! This one gets my vote!

Nyphnoides: looks pretty cool, I've never had it, but looks like it'd be great when it gets tall so that your girls can rest on those leaves and such. The shrimp would like that as well.

Frogbit: I have this in my 33 but I haven't had luck growing it....I'm not sure why. But instead of frogbit or other floating plants like that, I suggest getting some large Water Sprite, it grows fast and it works wonderfully to break up the surface, my Betta's also love to sleep in it since it is close to the surface. The only problem with any floating plant is that it may block too much light for plants that need higher lighting under them.
So what I did was take a few pieces, some extra suction cups and a twisty tie, I make a loose loop so that the water sprite wouldn't get choked but would keep it more to the side or wherever I wanted it, and suction cupped that to the side so it wouldn't float away. This gives the higher light plants some chance where the water sprite isn't covering and then the low light plants would go underneath the water sprite.

And I don't know anyting about the Marselia Minuta either sorry.

Some other plants I suggest are larger Amazon Swords, although those are heavy root feeders so you'll need some root tabs to help them grow healthy. Also Water Wisteria (not the hygrophila difformis though) is a fast grower and will do well in any light setting.

Also java ferns are great for the lower plants as well as any smaller Anubias, both low light and will take care of breaking up the territory on the bottom half as well.

You can also use liquid fertilizers but do some research on those before you get them, some of the Seachem stuff can be really confusing. 

Anyway....I think that's it.....yeah....I think so lol, sorry for the long post XD


----------



## Roemgie (May 6, 2012)

I never did tell you, you are AMAZING!! Thank you so much for all your help with everything!! I apologize for being so self absorbed!


----------



## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Aww that's quite alright Roemgie! I'm really glad that I could help with everything! And I generally learn new things as I go as well when I help people (like I look things up when I don't know) so it's also furthering my education and knowledge :-D

And don't worry, you were exciting and perhaps a tad overwhelmed with the whole sorority thing. It's easy to get that way, heck I'm still excited about my sorority and it's been set up 5 months now! haha It's very understandable so no worries ^_^


----------



## Roemgie (May 6, 2012)

lilnaugrim said:


> Aww that's quite alright Roemgie! I'm really glad that I could help with everything! And I generally learn new things as I go as well when I help people (like I look things up when I don't know) so it's also furthering my education and knowledge :-D
> 
> And don't worry, you were exciting and perhaps a tad overwhelmed with the whole sorority thing. It's easy to get that way, heck I'm still excited about my sorority and it's been set up 5 months now! haha It's very understandable so no worries ^_^


Yeah that's why I usually like helping but I feel like I'm just a noob LOL but i have to say there are some things that you just don't learn well or enough of unless you've experienced it! 

Yeah I feel like I've had it all up and going (not including taking down and moving) for 2-3 months now? Of course it became a whole new thing when I added all the new ladies so lol (and of course Ms turned to Mr for Maximus  )


----------



## darkangel (Jun 11, 2013)

I second cabomda, I have them in my tank too and they are great. if you can find red ones they are sooo pretty in a tank with other greener plants.

I also highly recommend you try wisteria, its very pretty and not too hard to care for. I have some in my tank too.

other one you might want to consider is dwarf hygro, it my holy grail plant. this stuff just grows like its nobodies business. Its very hardy and it absorbs ammonia really well too. It has very thin pretty green leaves, sometimes they turn red if they are super close to the light source.


----------

