Jake’s Planted Aquarium Pages

How do you know what plants will work for you?

Besides trial and error, some plants just work better lighting that is of a certain intensity. Basically, there are your low, medium, and high light tanks, the definitions of which can be found on the lighting page. If you know how much lighting you have, you can then more easily find out what sort of plants you can keep, or how much more lighting you’ll need to keep the plants you want. The best, most comprehensive place I’ve found for figuring out how much light plants need is the Plant Guide on Plantgeek.net . With it, you can look up plants by lighting requirements. Granted, they are not concrete rules and are not meant to be, but they’ll give you a better idea anyway. It is also helpful in understanding what section of the tank the plants do best in. Some plants are short and stay that way and are best in the front of the tank, while others are very long and do better in the back of the tank. There are quite a few plants that fit somewhere in between there. For all the plants on the guide, there is a placement guide on the lefthand toolbar.

(more coming soon)

Examples of low light plants: (coming soon)

Examples of medium light plants: (coming soon)

Examples of high light plants: (coming soon)

You figured out what kind of plants you want to keep. Now what?

The best place to get plants is from other hobbyists. They are generally cheaper and in better condition then what you will find from your local fish store ( lfs ) or local chain store ( lcs). Also, you can get guidance on how to care for that plant more easily from someone that is obviously growing and caring for that plant. That’s like asking a butcher how to cut meats… it just makes sense. Why ask someone who gets plants in from a distributor and then ships them off to you or a lfs that gets plants and throws them in a tank hoping someone will buy them before they die? Not every petstore out there is like this, but I think most of us know the stores I’m talking about. You can find other hobbyists through local clubs, online forums, and so forth. Most online forums , such as Plantgeek.net, The Planted Tank, and others have a classified or swap meet section with numerous low-priced plants for sale by hobbyists. Many hobbyists will even just let you have trimmings from their plants which you can plant in your tank(s) for the price of postage and that’s it.