real vs fake plants
- Thread starter aj03
- Start date
live plants are what i prefer, but they can be pretty tricky (light, CO2, fertilizers, substrate, pruning). if you don't know how to take care of them, they start to rot and add to the nitrogen load in your tank. i like them because they help remove fishy waste products (ammonia, CO2). but, like i said, they're more things you have to take care of.
live is the way to go. you might have to spend some money to start up though. i would look for low light level plants and see how they turn out. if you like them you can go on from there.
some good low light, low maintenance plants are:
java fern, java moss, anubias (any species), cryptocorynes (most species), anachris, hornwort.
java fern, java moss, anubias (any species), cryptocorynes (most species), anachris, hornwort.
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i have never used fake plants in my life, and even with the trouble of real plants, i would never switch. real plants just make the tank so much prettier and natural. start out slow and do some research
I've been using fake plants for most of my time as an aquarist, and only recently decided to attempt live plants. Well, now that I have seen how good a planted tank can look, I will never buy anything "fake"for any of my tanks again. IMO, fake plants and decorations just look like what they are, fake.
Real plants, when taken care of properly do help with reducing the bioload in the tank. Sort of an additional biofilter. 