All thumbs and none are green.

[motuterry]

I've often marvel at those wonderfully and professionally planted aquariums I see pics of posted online. I can't quite seem to master any of it though. Currently, and sadly, my humble 30 ga tank is "planted" with plastic. I wouldn't want to live in a plastic world and don't want to force my fish to do so either.

I took a shot at live plants when I first set up my tank. Spent about $80 and all died quickly. Later while shopping at the ultimate plastic center, Walmart, I spied some bulb plants "guaranteed to sprout and fill my tank with beauty." They never did anything but rot and foul my tank.

What I need is an EASY and SIMPLE plant that will grow and thrive without tons of attention from me. My tank is a basic community. All levels are fine and I check all weekly. I do the water change thing weekly as well, have two quality filters running and I keep all clean and well maintained. The tank is not over crowded and my fish appear healthy and active.

Please steer me in the right direction. (There has to be dandelion in the aquarium plant world. :))

Thank you

[Bk718]

Hello and welcome to AC
First what is your tank size and what kind of lighting do you have?
There may be many reasons why your plants have died.. but im thinking it has something to do with your lighting.. Most of the time to be on the safe side with plants, its best to have atleast 2watts per gallon of water.
Some easy plants are java moss, java fern, water sprite.. the list goes on.. But the first thing you need to get right is your lighting..

[livingword26]

How many watts of light do you have in your 30 gallon tank? Low light plants that seem to survive easily are, Java Moss, Java Fern, Anacharis, Wisteria, Hornwort, and some Anubias.

[motuterry]

Thank you for your reply. I have a 20 watt running about 8 hrs daily. Sounds like that may be too little.

[motuterry]

Thank you for your help. 20 watts. Liekely too little?

[Bk718]

you would need to triple that wattage to get some good results..

[motuterry]

Thank you all. I'll improve my lighting and add the suggested plants to my shopping list. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with a bit of green on one of these thumbs afterall.
Thanks again!

[gmh]

For a standard sized tank 1.5 - 2 watts of lighting per gallon is a good rule of thumb for keeping low to moderate care plants with no CO2 or ferts added. much less than that and you need to stick with java moss, floating hornwart, anacharis. java fern and a few others.
www.plantgeek.com is a good basic reference for aquarium plants.

[soobie]

Java fern is pretty indestructible, and does well in low light. I have several clumps in tanks with 1 wpg.

[motuterry]

Thank you all again. I greatly appreciate all who took the time to respond and set me in the right direction. I'll shop for some java moss/java fern and upgrade me lighting.