Easiest plants for min light and hard water

[Don Trinko]

I'm thinking of trying plans in one or 2 tanks. ( now all fake plants) What is the easiest plant to grow in low light ( 1 20w flourecent), hard water, ph=7.6, without any fertilizer or co2? (the fish will provide some nutrition)
Thanks; Don T.

[MSD]

Anubias Barteri var. Nana is the easiest plant that requires low light and can take the higher temps. You can attach them to driftwood, no gravel required or get them potted for tanks with gravel.

[Harriett]

Many swords and cryptocornes do well in this situation as well. Are you planting in a substrate or BB?
Harriett

[Don Trinko]

I have gravel. I have had plants before but not recently in all this high tech stuff. Thanks; Don T.

[senso]

Java fern a good option too - can attach to wood, rocks, etc, similar to anubias

[MSD]

One warning, watch out for snails.

[Apistomaster]

Anubias barteri, any small form,Java Fern, Bolbitis heudelotii and Java moss are all good for very low light plants.

Crypts are also good if given slightly more light. C. wendtii is by far the most widely sold species but there are many others just as good. Just research the species available to you because some Crypts need much more light than C. wendtii. C. undulatus, C. petchii and C. affinis are all good choices.

The Baensch Aquarium Atlas series are good sources of info, Vol one covers most of the easily found plant species.

[Don Trinko]

Watch out for snails!!! Yes in the past (1960's) every time you got plants you also got snails! This is one reason why I'm only doing it in one tank, Not a discus tank either! Thanks; Don T.

[Surferdave]

Are snails really that bad? I know snail population explosions are not a good thing, but is it best to eliminate them entirely from a discus tank?
D

[Apistomaster]

Snails aren't intrinsically bad unless they undergo a population explosion. Then they gan wreak havoc on you plants when they are hungry. I don't mind having Malayan Trumpet Snails(MTS) since they do help keep substrate aerated and eat the fish food that works into the substrate and being carnivorous, they never harm plants.

That said, I am anxious for a newly discovered snail that is only now beginning to be imported under the common name of the Assassin Snail, Anentome helena. As the common name implies, this is a snail eating snail. It resembles the MTS but is more colorful. It only lays one egg at a time unlike the prolific live bearing MTS. It should become a popular means of biological control for unwanted snails but they are rare although they have a wide range throughout most of SE Asia. They will eat other foods when snails can't be found. I seriously doubt this species would reach objectional population levels in an aquarium. They are currently sold for about $6 each and are still too new to the hobby for them to be easily found for sale.

I have seen some comments about concerns that snails may carry parasites but I do not think snails that have long lived in aquariums can carry parasites that can infect fish. All those fish parasites that have complex life cycles involving snails must have a third animal, most frequently a bird, in order for them to complete their life cycles.

[New to discus]

I have found that the best way to deal with unwanted snails is to just squish them against the glass. Fish quickly figure out that squished snails are a yummy treat. I had one tank that suffered a bit of a snail explosion and for several weeks I would spend about 15 minutes a day squishing them.... got rid of pretty much all of them. Kuhli loaches are good at taking care of the job for you.

[Palue]

I have the same wattage of light you do. The only thing I have found so far the works for me is Val. It is growing like mad in my tank. But I have never had Anubias as it is dear in price here and the plants are not that nice. I will definatley have to get some though as I love the look of this plant.

I don't have Co2 in my tank and do not fertilize either, fish do that for me.

Snails, oh my god how i hate them. I had a huge snail population and had to get a clownloach and wow he is doing an amazing job. Have a tough time eating the bigger ones but any eggs are gone. So what I do is scoop out the bigger ones and he eats the smaller ones and eggs between the two of us we should have this problem all solved real soon.

:angel:

[digthemlows]

Anytime I get a new plant I soak it in a tupperware containter with a small amount of bleach and water (1/10)..............When I lift the plant to rinse it there will be dead snails in the tupperware..........seems to work well! Of course I missed one when setting up my shrimp tank and I can't seem to ever get rid of all of the pond snails..........I can't add a loach because of all the baby shrimp so I just squish them and let the shrimp eat them. Still a pain though.

[Apistomaster]

A dilute bleach solution does make snails drop off but the damage done to the plants makes picking off the snails a safer option. It might be more worth the risks if bleach solution also killed snail eggs but a strong enough solution to do that will kill the plants. Bleach and Potassium permanganate both share similar problems. Strong oxidizers cause more damage than they are worth. I have seen Malayan Trumpet snails survive very strong bleach solutions. Apparently this snail can effectively seal out any noxious liquids for up to a couple hours.

Plants also have a wide range of varying sensitivity to bleach solutions. Anubias and Java Ferns are pretty resilient but most stemmed plants die if exposed to bleach and most rooted plants do not fare much better. Snails will remain a difficult animal to exclude until someone comes up with a safe and effective solution.

Anubias are one of the best of the low light plants. Sure, they are slow growing but they do eventually grow large enough to cut the rhizomes into sections that have 3 or four leaves and may be used to expand your numbers of those. If you are patient, an Anubias plant can grow to a pretty good size in a year. It always helps to have some plants that grow very fast so you still get to grow a lot of plants while waiting for the slower growing species to reach the size you desire.
It is odd how plants vary so much. I can't get any of the Java Ferns to do well for me and yet for others it grows really well. I finally gave up on them. I have tried most aquarium plants at one time or another. Whenever I find those that do well I propagate them and give up on those that don't do well for me.

[happygirl65]

Hygro works pretty well as a stem plant that doesn't require a ton of light but my favorite low light plant so far was the red crypt wendtii, easy to find and can get quite full and beautiful. :)