Specifically I am wondering about these plants: water sprite, hornwort, java moss, jungle val and duckweed. (Or any other plants that would be easy to keep alive.)
I have a ten gallon tank that will soon be a sorority tank and I've been interested in live plants for awhile but they seem too hard to keep alive I'm not going to do a full on NPT right now. The hood I have right now had incandescent lights but I think (?) I can put different lights in it I also have regular aquarium gravel from Walmart and a lot of silk plants.
So far, I have read many threads on live plant care and have even posted previous threads but I am still absolutely lost. I've never been much of a plant fanatic I am confused about the specific care of plants... Lighting and nutrient needs and such. I've heard that there are many low light plants that need little care and then I hear that these "easy to care for" plants are dying and turning brown and causing ammonia spikes and all this other stuff that is really making me want to stick to silk plants for the rest of my life, lol.
Specifically... What do I need to do for lighting? I can buy different bulbs for the tank good that would be good for plants, right? (Lol). Amount of light needed? Number of plants needed to keep them all healthy? (Like, I can't just stick a floater or two in the tank and expect them to live?) Any specific additives I need to add for the plants (using gravel substrate)? Will these plants (or other suggested plants) need to be trimmed often? Can I trim them and use the parts trimmed off in other tanks? How would you trim a plant, lol? I've also heard that some plant roots can grow into the sides of the tank and make holes in the sides 0_0 (that doesn't sound great to me!)
I'm sorry these are probably kind of stupid questions and there are a lot of them. I don't want to do a full on NPT at this point and I also don't want to get plants and have them die and cause problems and make me wish I never even thought about live plants
I have a ten gallon tank that will soon be a sorority tank and I've been interested in live plants for awhile but they seem too hard to keep alive I'm not going to do a full on NPT right now. The hood I have right now had incandescent lights but I think (?) I can put different lights in it I also have regular aquarium gravel from Walmart and a lot of silk plants.
So far, I have read many threads on live plant care and have even posted previous threads but I am still absolutely lost. I've never been much of a plant fanatic I am confused about the specific care of plants... Lighting and nutrient needs and such. I've heard that there are many low light plants that need little care and then I hear that these "easy to care for" plants are dying and turning brown and causing ammonia spikes and all this other stuff that is really making me want to stick to silk plants for the rest of my life, lol.
Specifically... What do I need to do for lighting? I can buy different bulbs for the tank good that would be good for plants, right? (Lol). Amount of light needed? Number of plants needed to keep them all healthy? (Like, I can't just stick a floater or two in the tank and expect them to live?) Any specific additives I need to add for the plants (using gravel substrate)? Will these plants (or other suggested plants) need to be trimmed often? Can I trim them and use the parts trimmed off in other tanks? How would you trim a plant, lol? I've also heard that some plant roots can grow into the sides of the tank and make holes in the sides 0_0 (that doesn't sound great to me!)
I'm sorry these are probably kind of stupid questions and there are a lot of them. I don't want to do a full on NPT at this point and I also don't want to get plants and have them die and cause problems and make me wish I never even thought about live plants