Tips on keeping live plants?

[ravenwinds]

The plant on the left looks like an anubias coffeeofolia (sp? Probably too many letters :)
Gorgeous plant that will DIE in your gravel!
All anubias, java ferns, MUST be above gravel substrate....roots cannot be buried/planted .....must tie to a rock or a piece of driftwood....even to your decoration already in there....tie with thread or fishing line....I have one tied to a cup handle!
The overhead fluorescent desk lamp....assuming it is above desk, maybe at top of corkboard message holder?....will be too high to do much good!
Remove soft white light bulb and replace with abovementioned compact fluorescent bulb...even you don't have a Walmart or Lowe's, etc....pet stores like Petco carry these...look in light section or reptiles...get the one that says "daylight!" ....it will cost about 10$...but will actually penetrate water to plants. Put it in brass gooseneck lamp and put that so it shines into water for about 10hrs a day!
If you can't tie the anubias...you can let it float free!

[OrangeAugust]

Tip on lighting: LED's! Ok, I don't mean those dim ones that tanks use for like different-colored special effects or whatever. I mean good bright ones. I found an LED desk lamp in Target for about $30 that's super bright and is awesome for my plants. My floating Fanwort even started sprouting roots when I started using that light. The lighting in my tank looks nicer, too. I just had trouble finding CFL that were higher than 2700K. I don't know the K rating on this LED lamp, but it works great. You won't be able to use your hood, though, but what I did was cut some of that almost-see-through craft mesh to size, cut a bunch of the holes so they're bigger so more light can get through, and taped it to the top of the tank. Now I can put the LED desk lamp directly over the top of the tank.
One plant I had success with when I had bad lighting (2700K CFL) was a rosette sword. It's the only plant besides hornwort and my moss ball that survived that bad lighting. It's really nice looking, too.

[bethyMT]

Originally Posted by ravenwinds

The plant on the left looks like an anubias coffeeofolia (sp? Probably too many letters :)
Gorgeous plant that will DIE in your gravel!
All anubias, java ferns, MUST be above gravel substrate....roots cannot be buried/planted .....must tie to a rock or a piece of driftwood....even to your decoration already in there....tie with thread or fishing line....I have one tied to a cup handle!

Yes!
I just tie my plants to rocks or driftwood. Easy peasy. However, you can bury the anubias roots, just NOT the rhizome where the leaves shoot up from. This is from my own experience, and what I have read. You can get away with stuff in gravel that you can't in dirt or sand. I'd be a little worred about that sword, as they do need a root tablet. But just one, and you can't really mess the with gravel too much around the plant. IME the anubias don't really care about that. Also, since you are introducing plants and maybe some ferts, you might get some algae. Before you freak out about it (just about everybody does at first), just remember that *some* is natural. It is a part of a healthy aquatic ecosystem. Now a lot is bad, though, and you'd have to cut back on your lights in that case.

I have a 10gallon that has plant substrate, which I have completely scaped in anubias, java fern ( I love windelov), and java moss. It's low light. Although it's still settling down, it's really pretty, and easy. I think your adventures into plants will be really fun, and your fish will thank you!

[fgradowski]

I knew that about the anubias, but I just completely spaced it when I put everything in the tank. I took it out of the gravel. I was just all excited to add to the tank. Algernon absolutely loves his plants! Eventually I'd like to plant Vardaman's tank...maybe with a soil bottom too. But I will definitely need to be getting a good light for his tank.