Any no maintenance plants?

Holly9937

Holly9937

AC Members
Jan 20, 2005
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Do any exist? I'll admit to not doing any research :o , but I hear alot about special lights and CO2 and it all sounds a little intimidating and like more work than I can take on right now!! Anything that you can just put in the tank and let it grow with no special care, other than pruning and/or removing dead parts??
 
Anubias and java fern are both very easy to take care of and don't need any special care. Anacharis, too. Just make sure to get enough light (1.5 WPG should be sufficient for those plants).
 
I think I have at least 3 watts per gallon, I had always read 3-5, so I would think I at least have the minimum. I'll have to do some research on those. Honestly I wouldn't even mind if my fish snacked on them, as long as they weren't too expensive!! Thanks
 
anacharis is great since you can float it, basically you never have to worry about uprooting it with a gravel vac, or your fish uprooting it. it also looks nice if you have a huge ammount floating around, or atleast i think it looks nice :cool:
 
Holly9937 said:
Do any exist? I'll admit to not doing any research :o , but I hear alot about special lights and CO2 and it all sounds a little intimidating and like more work than I can take on right now!! Anything that you can just put in the tank and let it grow with no special care, other than pruning and/or removing dead parts??
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I am relatively new at plants (about 6 weeks now)...but I've had really good luck with hornwort (grows fast and doesn't shed like cabomba did), water sprite, and wendtii (a cryptocorne). I tried anacharis, as I love the way it looks but my fish thought it was too yummy and within 2 days it was always a bunch of bare twigs. I also like anubias and bacopa. I've seen the fish nibbling at all of our plants, but they don't devour them so they have a chance to grow. My guess is that it depends on the kind of fish you have as well. Some fish will dig up the plants. I deliberately picked low light plants because our lighting isn't that great (yet...that's the next thing we're upgrading). So far so good.
 
If you don't want to do any work, get plastic plants and you're in business.
Anything that lives requires some maintenance.
You can keep the amount of work to a minimum with a low light/low tech tank, but you're not going to find many plants that will require no maintenance.
As I've said on many occasions, we can't furnish responsible feedback unless we know exactly what the stats are on your tank.
Vague questions will get vague replies.

Len
 
Well, I basically just wanted a few suggestions as to low maintenance plants, that didn't need any special equipment, etc. Which I got!! Thanks guys!! I just needed a place to start my research. I realize that "no maintenance" ANYTHING on tanks does not exist :) , I guess I could have made a point of that, sorry!!
 
I should have posted this too:

Aquariumplants.com is a good source for information because they categorize their plants (low light, easy, bunched, potted, etc). Also, I like plantgeek.com. Have fun! :)
 
Once my java fern started to grow in, I just have to cut the occasional leaf out to make sure it is not too densly packed into my tank. I have 2.8 wpg of light and occasionally add some fertilizer if I do a larger water change. Broad leafed plants do get some algae growth on them. Mine isn't extreme so I don't really care much about it, but if you are looking for plants that stay super clean looking then you will probably want something that grows much faster and needs more pruning. IME slow growers gather more moss (or algae as the case may be).
 
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