# A few questions



## Logicaly (Sep 28, 2008)

I don't want to post a seperate thread for each of my questions, so im going to combine it all into one. Their simple questions, but im new to keeping plants.

To start with, I recently bought what used to be as far as I could tell, very healthy plants, which got put into my 5 gallon tank. About two weeks later, they might as well be dead. Okay, so they still have some green, but its quite obvious they will not be living much longer. My friend has the same problems, we bought our plants at the same time, same place, same kind, his are dead too. I'm assuming their dead because of lack of light and lack of nutrients, at least thats what I gather from reading various posts.

1. What low light plants would you suggest for a 5 gallon tank. At the moment, its only a betta in there, but I may or may not be adding ghost or cherry shrimp to it in the future.

2. I have some what better lighting for my 10 gallon tank. However the lights I would prefer to only have on during the time I am home and awake. What plants would you suggest for low, to moderate lighting for a 10 gallon tank. In that tank is a betta, cory cats, platys.

3. I obviously already have gravel in my tank. I have no desire to remove the fish, and redo my entire gravel, etc. I've been reading up on substrate, etc. I have black with a very, very slight amount of dark brown coloring gravel in the 10g tank, and a dark blue in the 5g tank. Is there anything I can add on the top of those, that will blend well, and provide the needed nourishments for the plants?

4. On top of my previous questions, is there something that im missing here? I don't want to have to buy plants every two weeks. I would like my current plants to actually grow.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

if you put in the right kind of lighting( 2 watts per gallon) you can grow several types of plants. Small vals, small swords, anubias and java ferns.
javas and anubias grow in low light. Put the light on a timer and let it do its thing.make sure you have a grow light.
Get some liquid fetrs from the fish store and follow instructions. Join the planted tank forums too. Lots of info out there.
Sometimes when plants are first added to the tank they go into shock. Also some plants that are sold in places like Petsmart are not true aquatic plants so they die underwater.
I currently am having an aweful time with my vals that I transfered here from another town.
They took exception to the move from soft water to hard and are busy disintegrating after a whole month. hopefully they will take very soon- usually my vals grow so rapidly that I have to toss them out.


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