Hello.
The aquascape in my 20 gallon freshwater aquarium is in transition. My health took a bad turn, and I wasn’t able to keep up with some plant maintenance. Anubius rot ran rampant and I lost a lot of plants. I think I need to replace some high maintenance plants with lower maintenance plants, anyway. I have mostly low maintenance plants: Crypts, Java ferns, Anubias, Bucephalandra, Frogbit. But I can’t keep up with all the runners that Dwarf Sagittaria puts out. I like that it forms a wall to hide the back of the aquarium, but it puts out runners too fast and is really too tall. I clip the leaves so they don’t shade the whole tank, but I think the clipped leaves look ugly.
There’s 12 inches of water column height for a “background” plant to use in this aquarium. Any suggestions on what would make a nice background wall of plant but less work to maintain? Something I could just chop the top off of when it grows to the surface?
I planted tissue culture star grass on the left side a couple weeks ago, and it isn’t thriving like I thought it would. The whole package was clearly roughly handled during shipping, and possibly even frozen. Everything arrived damaged or dead, and the tissue culture gel for the star grass looked like scrambled eggs. Part of the problem for the star grass, though, is my Pleco keeps uprooting it. I’ve scattered rocks around them hoping to deter her, and I’m trying different “Pleco caves” in hopes she’ll stop digging. She used to have a great hiding place “Bonsai tree” made of Anubias tied to a resin tree that she could burrow under, but I had to remove it, and have been trying to find a replacement she likes for the past month. But that’s not the focus of this post. My main question for this post is: what plant do you recommend that either gets about 12 inches tall, and is less work to maintain than Dwarf Sagitarria?
I would like to grow a nice plant wall to cover the back of the aquarium like the Dwarf Sagittaria does.
i have attached a picture of the aquarium as it is today. I would also like to add a pop of color with a big red or brown middle height plant in that open space on the left. 8-10 inches tall. I welcome suggestions for that. I was thinking Scarlet Temple or red dwarf aquarium lily, but I think the lily would get too tall and be high maintenance like the dwarf Sag.
I’m hoping the star grass will adapt and start growing. I’m envisioning it being the background plant for that empty space on the left side. But if it doesn’t make it, I’ll just use more of whatever I’m going to replace the Dwarf Sag with.
tank deets:
-20 gallon standard
-Aquaclear 30 filter with disposable prefilter pad, bio sponge, 2 bags of ceramic bioballs, and Purigen
-I use paintball CO2 at a pretty low rate, a little under 1 bubble per second, so that the canister will last longer, and because I don’t think I have any plants in here that require more. My hope had been that CO2 might help the plants compete with algae, but no. That hasn’t happened.
-Fluval 3.0 Plant LED light
-Fluval Stratum for substrate
-I add two pumps of Thrive fertilizer Wednesday and Saturday
-I change 50% water once a week
-Fish: bristlenose pleco, 2 siamese algae eaters, 1 bumblebee goby, 4 pea puffers.