Easy plants aka low light plants that you can just plop in the tank and occasionally supplement with liquid flourish. These are water column feeders:
Root feeding plants require food at the roots so you have to do a dirted tank or place osmocote supplement tabs in the gravel and place them regularly. Some plants are more forgiving than others, some plants may feed from both leaves and roots if I remember correctly. With a dirted tank I never vacuumed the gravel
, fish poop was fertilizer. Like chicken poo for the garden. I used pea gravel from the hardware store, later switched to black diamond blasting sand for the dirt cap. Rinse thoroughly if you use one of these. Anyways.
Some root feeding plants that require medium light:
I've grown all these plants plus more I've probably forgotten under 5000k daylight spectrum LED lights at a depth of up to 18". Some people say you should search for lighting based on PAR ratings but I never could find cheap lights with a PAL rating listed lol. I've always just used work lamps or shop lights with bulbs at a rating of 5000-6500k.
If algae is a problem then nutrients or lighting is out of whack. Adjust one or the other. All new aquariums get the brown algae until the aquarium ages a bit and it balances out and goes away. But with plants... aim to help the plants thrive and if the plants thrive the algae is usually very minimal or taken care of with regular maintenance. A nerite snail is a decent addition to an aquarium just keep in mind that even it can fall victim to a male betta.
Also if you do plants I would definitely add a timer for the lights. A set schedule will really help your fish and plants. Some people do a timer schedule of 4 hours on, so the aquarium is lit up in the morning while they are at home. Then 2 hours off mid-day. And 4 hours on until off overnight.
For a low maintenance, small tank with a betta fish I'd recommend for water column plants: anubia and buce and java fern, for root feeding plants I'd go with mini dwarf hairgrass and crypts. The other plants may require regular trimming or outgrow a small tank very quickly.
Seachem is definitely a good brand. They also make fish meds.
- Anubia
- Subwassertang (type of slow growing algae)
- Buce aka bucephelandra (somewhat new plant on the market, grows like anubia, lots of beautiful varieties out there)
- java fern (windelov is the lacy variety)
- water sprite or wisteria
- frog bit (water surface plant, it's big 1-2" leaves) DO NOT GET DUCKWEED it's tiny and evil.
- mossimo moss balls
- java moss (it will need regular maintenance to control)
Root feeding plants require food at the roots so you have to do a dirted tank or place osmocote supplement tabs in the gravel and place them regularly. Some plants are more forgiving than others, some plants may feed from both leaves and roots if I remember correctly. With a dirted tank I never vacuumed the gravel
, fish poop was fertilizer. Like chicken poo for the garden. I used pea gravel from the hardware store, later switched to black diamond blasting sand for the dirt cap. Rinse thoroughly if you use one of these. Anyways.Some root feeding plants that require medium light:
- Jungle Val - grows 6ft you have to trim regularly I ain't lying
- Corkscrew Val grows to about 12" long
- Rotala rotundifolia (I like rotala h'ra it's reddish but there's lots of varieties of rotala)
- Blixa japonica - short plant requires high light but it's somewhat easier to do with a shallow tank.
- Cryptocoryne - few different varieties and shades
- Dwarf sagittaria
- Bacopa
- Mini dwarf hairgrass
- Banana plant
- Dwarf tiger lily
- Anacharis
- Hornwort
I've grown all these plants plus more I've probably forgotten under 5000k daylight spectrum LED lights at a depth of up to 18". Some people say you should search for lighting based on PAR ratings but I never could find cheap lights with a PAL rating listed lol. I've always just used work lamps or shop lights with bulbs at a rating of 5000-6500k.
If algae is a problem then nutrients or lighting is out of whack. Adjust one or the other. All new aquariums get the brown algae until the aquarium ages a bit and it balances out and goes away. But with plants... aim to help the plants thrive and if the plants thrive the algae is usually very minimal or taken care of with regular maintenance. A nerite snail is a decent addition to an aquarium just keep in mind that even it can fall victim to a male betta.
Also if you do plants I would definitely add a timer for the lights. A set schedule will really help your fish and plants. Some people do a timer schedule of 4 hours on, so the aquarium is lit up in the morning while they are at home. Then 2 hours off mid-day. And 4 hours on until off overnight.
For a low maintenance, small tank with a betta fish I'd recommend for water column plants: anubia and buce and java fern, for root feeding plants I'd go with mini dwarf hairgrass and crypts. The other plants may require regular trimming or outgrow a small tank very quickly.
Seachem is definitely a good brand. They also make fish meds.
