Plant Maintenance

[jfw]

I have some broader leafed plants in my tank I bought from petsmart. My question is do I need to clean the surface of them from time to time? They seem like they are getting a slight residue on them that I can see when I look at the right angle. I believe they were called gold ribbon, they are variegated. Thank you in advance.

[Littlebittyfish]

Ribbon plants are not aquatic plants and will rot in the tank eventually ...A nice alternative to the ribbon plant would be an anubias plant. They have big leaves and are great hardy plants. All they need is light with 6500K. (most daylight bulbs)
A plant fertilizer every now and then helps too.

[jfw]

well that is frustrating to say the least.... After checking around the net I found quite a few people in the same predicament.. I will be taking them back to see if I can get my money back unfortunately I went all out planting this tank so I have at about $15 into this particular plant

I bought two other types of plants the same day.. One is a grass but this actually seems to be doing very well I can see new growth on it.

I also bought a fern type plant .. Its not looking bad necessarily but its not looking like the grass either. I can't remember what exactly it was called.. will this one also start rotting eventually? I can probably figure out the name if you need that info.. Thanks again for the advice.

[jfw]

Also are there any suggestions on where to find ACTUAL aquatic plants? or will I just have to look around until I find a specifically aquarium store? I really liked these plants because they were already tall enough to reach the water level of the 5 gallon and had a nice effect with the flow from the power filter.

Will I just have to wait for them to grow I'm assuming they will be more expensive wherever I find them and I'm low on the fundulation.

FRUSTRATING!

[Micho]

Hrm, Big Al's? If you have that store, they should carry aquatic plants!

Also online will work, PetSmart has pretty good plants sometimes and they're cheap too.

[Silverfang]

onion plants grow tall and are fairly reasonably priced , and available at petsmart.
Anubis are my prefered plant, I let them float with my small boys and they really enjoy them, one will nest like mad under the leaves.

[jfw]

Originally Posted by Micho

Hrm, Big Al's? If you have that store, they should carry aquatic plants!

Also online will work, PetSmart has pretty good plants sometimes and they're cheap too.

These came from petsmart unfortunately.. Ill check online though.

[Micho]

Onion plants are high maintenance plants if I'm correct.

[jfw]

Any thoughts on the fern? Is it going to rott also?

[Kytkattin]

The petsmart near me labels them if they are only "semi-aquatic". My suggestion is to still use petsmart, just know what plants you want before you go in. Java fern is one they sell that works well for tanks. Anubias has already been suggested. Anarchis is another good one that can root or float (often sold where they have the fish, not in their pre-packaged plant section).