I'm going to starting a new aquarium here in a week or a bit more and wanted to know what kinds of plants are the most helpful to the tank environment. I'm also considering putting a live plant in my pre-existing tank. In both cases they would get a good amount of light. The current tank is about 4 feet from a window receiving indirect light for a good part of the day. The new tank would be a bit more shaded being next to a window that also has indirect light and would penetrate the tank on one side only. I hope that makes sense. Any input helps, even if it's that in those conditions live plants might now be the way to go. Thanks!

Good morning Cover...

If you don't get into the more demanding plants, all you need is 1 to 2 watts of light per gallon of tank size and you can grow most aquatic plants.

I have several 55 G tanks and use 6500 K, 32 Watt, T8s. You can get these at the local hardware store pretty cheaply. This information should be enough to get you started.

Please let me know if you need information on specific plants. I can tell you about the ones I have.

B

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Low Tech Water Building Keeper

Never tried it, but I think you could have difficulty trying to grow plants from sunlight. Should be okay with low light plants I would guess. Do you have any type of light?

I've been growing my java fern like mad using just indirect sunlight, but unless I only use treated water, and no tank water, algae also grows like mad.

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

For that critical initial conditioning I use fast growing anacharis, and vals. With anacharis doing most of the work.

For longer term stabilibty I use small potted typs and a few amazon swords.

that should work fine for your tank.

my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

what he said

and let's not forget about Westeria. STUPID easy to grow plant, and it grows very fast, and once it takes off you can trim it and bunch several stems together to make it a nice "bushy" plant

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

If you have moderate lighting,amazon sword will love you.They get kinda large though.I like chain sword.The original chain sword,E Tenellus.It grows very fast(be aware,people will mis label it,mine was labeled as microsword)If its not illegal in your state then Hygrophilia Polysperma is a nice fast grower(Sunset Hygro)and the brighter your light the redder the leaves will get.Water wisteria,as mentioned is great as well.The leaves are variegated and look very nice.

Most any stem plant will do good in moderate lighting and they are great to suck in extra nutrients.Rosettes,like swords,will appreciate a root tab as they feed heavily from the roots.Floaters,like duckweed does a great job of keeping the protein slime off the top and helps to give fish shade and also a nesting spot for bubblenesters.
However,with most any plant,save java fern and java moss,will need a good stable lighting period,usually more than the sunlight.You will need to invest in a light for the tanks.You can go cheap with shop lights,or expensive ,on up to the metal halides.

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