no plants for me?

[sadielu]

:shake: After a lot of reading up on this and other plant forums, I've concluded that it was just impractical for me to even think about starting plants in my 58g. I have lots of silk plants, and they look really nice, but it's just not the same, right?
I only have one 30W florecent; it lights up the tank pretty well, but I know it would do nothing for a plant. Research seems to show that even for just the lowest-light plants I'd need about 120W for 11-12 hrs a day. Problem is I really don't want to give up the strip light that came w/my tank (Oceanic Systems 58g in washed oak) since it "matches." But I suppose for some big bucks I could order a new size strip...which brings up another problem!
I'm really not looking to do a "heavily planted" tank so having a lot of wattage for long periods of time with only a few plants would only give me algae, right?
Could I just maybe do a floating plant? Just for asthetics (sp?) and maybe something good for the fish?
Oh, and another problem...I have 2 silver dollars.
Time to give up, right?
BTW, just gravel; Fluval 404 and AC500; lots of fish!

[JesseJ]

Most plants like to have a lot of light but some will be allright without much light. Water Sprite will grow in almost anything. It can float on the top of the tank and absorb the straight output from the bulb. Your silver dollars will eat it but it grows like a weed. When I had some in my 50 G I had to take half a garbage bag of it out every week to my LFS because it kept growing until it was 3 inches deep over the entire surface of the tank. I had a SAE get stuck in it and die.

[TKOS]

Both Java Fern and Java Moss will gorw (although slowly) in the light you have and they look nice. You can mix them in with the silk plants. And most floating plants will gorw fine as well, though they tend to look best in open top tanks IMO.

[RTR]

But not with silver dollars.

[djlen]

Right, you're probably better off sticking with the fake plants.

Len

[Mark_b]

If you keep your SDs well fed and supplement their diet with lettuce, peas or cucumber then certain plants can work. I think it depends on your fishes personality though. Mine will not touch my java ferns and they keep my java moss trimmed nicely on my driftwood when a bit grows out instead of along. They will eat the tips of the new leaves growing on my swords but if you feed them well till the sword is established eventually they wont be able to get down to the new leaves. They wont touch my hydrocotyle despite it looking very tasty.
I have noticed that my SDs seem to go after new plants when i put them in - maybe thinking im feeding them. If you keep the plant alive though they then seem to get bored of it and leave it alone.
My tank is by no means heavily planted, i like having the live plants though! It keeps the tank changing constantly, plus i'm sure it helps the diet of the SDs on top of the obvious water quality benefits!