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I have a 20 gallon with play sand with water sprite, java fern, java moss and gymnocoronis. I too just got live plants for the first time and chose these because I heard they were hardy low light plants. The gymnocoronis is a stem plant and it's growing like crazy and I've had it less than a week! I just plunked the cutting down into the sand - it didn't even have roots. The java moss I have tied to my drift wood and expect it will take hold into the wood pretty soon if it hasn't already - but I've heard that it will grow on playsand too, you just have to hold it down with something or give it something to hang onto. The java fern is easy too - I just pt the rhizome (I think it's a rhizome and not a root - directly in the sand. Did the same with the water sprite. Nothing's died (except some fish) and I haven't done anything special.
 
thanks for the info, ill probably buy a few of them, and make like a little bush of them in the corner of the tank
 
oh by the way, what about plant tablets? would they help with plant growth? and if use them will it change my parameters in any way?
 
I don't use them. I use Flourish and everything seems to like it. Most of the low light plants like java fern and moss, anubias and such get their nutrients from the water not the substrate. The few plants that actually are in the substrate use the fish waste as a fert so unless you go heavily planted I don't think they are needed.
 
CO2 doesn't become a necessity until you get into the high light where without it, you will be growing a lot of algae. Snoopy suggested a lot of good plants for 1 WPG, go with those.
 
DAVIDFBT said:
CO2 doesn't become a necessity until you get into the high light where without it, you will be growing a lot of algae. Snoopy suggested a lot of good plants for 1 WPG, go with those.
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yea, im going to start out with low level plants and if I like the whole natural look ill invest in getting a better lighting system and a CO2 kit.
for the lighting, all i have to do is just get another bulb thats for high light plants right?
 
You can just save a bunch of money and instead of buying the CO2 kit, make your own. Just get an empty 2 liter soda bottle, put in 1.5 cups of sugar, 1/4 tsp of yeast, and fill the rest with warm water up until the bottle starts curving to the top. Shake it around to make sure everything is well dissolved. Then, attach an airline tube to the cap. I do this by drilling out a hole that's a little smaller than the airline tube and pulling it through with a pair of pliers. Run that tube either to a fine limewood airstone or to the intake of a filter to better dissolve the bubbles. If you did it right, there will be CO2 bubbles within 24 hours and last you up to 3 weeks where it has to be replaced.
 
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