beginer plants

[Taltos]

Hello all
I am new to the organization - and new to aquarium life.  I have started with a 10 gallon tank, and have 5 platy's right now - the water is cycled and everything is going great! My question is this - I'd like to get involved with live plants - any suggestions as to what to purchase for a small tank?
Eventually, when I can save enough - I'd like to go big, and the knowledge will come in handy
Thanks for the help

[Laura]

Hi Taltos,
Welcome.
I suspect your thread will get moved to the plants section where there is a thread on low light plants which would be good starters for you.  Check out this link http://ovas.ca/index.php?topic=21724.0

Unfortunately you just missed our meeting where you can get some great plants at very reasonable prices.  You should post what you want in the classifieds or come to the next auction in November.

If you want to jump in with both feet and get lots of info on planted tanks, come to the presentation on planted tanks this weekend - see the home page notice on Karen Randall for more info.....

[BigDaddy]

The big question is:  What kind of light do you have over your 10 gallon?  The kinds of plants you keep will depend highly on that answer.

[Taltos]

Well, good question - I never really thought of it - I got the light with the starter tank.  It is two long bulbs over the tank.....is this standard???
Wow...lots to learn I guess.
What light should I have?

[Toss]

If you manage to get some natural light on your tank, you don't need to spend a lot of money on buying speciality bulb.

[sas]

Well here's another scenario for you lol, as if all of this isn't confusing enough. I am running a 10gal. cheap version  ,  housing  various snails, cherry shrimp, the odd fishy that needs tlc, swordplants, java moss, java fern, (although not doing as well as in my other tanks), hornwort, and giant duckweed. I'm using 2, 15 watt bulbs and gravel. :red:

[Vizerdrix]

Taltos, I'm assuming that the tubes you have in that canopy are regular "cool white" ones.  These are not that good for plants, not enough of a broad spectrum.  There are two things you can do to ameliorate the quality of light if this is the case: replace one of the tubes with a "warm" tube, which is a more blueish light, or replace both with standard "daylight" or "growlight" tubes.  You can get the fluorescent tubes for much cheaper at a place like Home Depot or Rona than in a specialty aquarium store.

The combination "cool" and "warm" is what I use in my greenhouse, where I put all my plants over the winter, and also used when I was starting seedlings.  Hope this is of some use to you!

[dan2x38]

So your blubs screw into 2 sockets right? You jazz things up cheaply. How deep is your gravel? What size pepples in the gravel like 1mm, 2mm, 3mm, etc. Any decorations in there? These things will help determine amount of space, what type of plant, and whether you can tie some plant to something. Plants are fun and great decoration plus help balance your tank, they don't have to be expensive or hard.

[Taltos]

I was at big al's today - I purchased a java plant, and an anubius (?)hope i got that right.  The gentleman also sold me two new bulbs for my tank - 25v crystal-lux bulbs....I have two windows in the room - gives off a bit of natural light, but not a whole lot.......with regards to decorations - there is minimal - my gravel is about 1 1/2 inches deep red.
Hope I made the right decision in plants - I had help from the salesman!
Is there anything else - I thought that i'd see if these two plants work out in the tank

[dan2x38]

Good choices... BA is a great LFS... have fun... OH they are slow growers so don't except huge plants over night... if you want right away I got at least 1 bunch of amazon sword & some spiral val you can have they grow well and look nice... Google them to see if you like them...

[BigDaddy]

I was at big al's today - I purchased a java plant, and an anubius (?)hope i got that right.  The gentleman also sold me two new bulbs for my tank - 25v crystal-lux bulbs....I have two windows in the room - gives off a bit of natural light, but not a whole lot.......with regards to decorations - there is minimal - my gravel is about 1 1/2 inches deep red.
Hope I made the right decision in plants - I had help from the salesman!
Is there anything else - I thought that i'd see if these two plants work out in the tank

Those are incandescent bulbs.  Your choices for plants are fine, java and anubias are both low light plants and should do well under that lighting. 

With both of those plants, don't bury them in the gravel.  They should be tied down to rock or wood.  The rhizome (the part the leaves grow out of) can't be buried or it will rot and the plant will die.

Otherwise.. the only thing you might watch out with is the temperature of the tank.  Incandescent bulbs are hot and could heat up your tank quite a bit.