# Plants for driftwood or inert substrate



## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to expand the variety of plants in my tank past just mosses, but I'm a complete beginner when it comes to plants. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for me. 

I have regular inert gravel as substrate, no CO2 or ferts, and low lighting conditions and would ideally like to keep things low maintenance and beginner friendly. I may be getting some driftwood in the future so if there are plants that can thrive on driftwood instead of inert gravel then that's an option as well.

Looking forward to any suggestions you guys have  thanks!


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## ksimdjembe (Nov 11, 2006)

Hi. Welcome to plants. To keep it simple, try anacharis, java fern (can be tied to driftwood), anubias (can be tied to driftwood) barteri or nana, floating frogbit, and crypt wendtii


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Thanks for the welcome 

I've been doing some research and some of those (frogbit, anubias, java fern) were suggested as well so that just further confirms that they may be suitable for my tank. But also some plants in there I haven't heard of before so I'm interested in looking them up.

Thanks again for the suggestions! I might ask more questions as I get closer to putting them into my tank.


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## alstare2000 (Feb 16, 2013)

I"m in the same boat as you, I noticed that with plants the overall water quality started to be better. I'm a total plant newb.

Just an idea (which I still have to test) putting some rooted plants in pots with different substrate in the pot itself.

I know Michel's sells some small nice looking glass pots etc.

I have tahitian moon sand and from what I researched nothing grows in that.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

anacharis. This stuff grows so easily its crazy. I had it in a tank that took sunlight for 3-4 hrs a day. That's it. Took over. In my high light tank, it was growing too fast and shrouded my other plants so i had to take it out. Now i have so much left over with it just in my spare tank.


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## jimmyjam (Nov 6, 2007)

jungle vals, java/philline ferns will all work very well. Some crypts like crypt tropica might be good too, but might need to adjustments to your tank. Riccia will crow slowly, as kimchi says, anarchis will grow great. Good luck, and take lots of pictures.


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Thanks for more replies 

I was interested in anacharis actually, but couldn't find anyone selling it on here  Also, there don't seem to be roots or anything. What are the different ways to keep it in your tank (free floating, tied to rocks, tucked into substrate, etc)?

That actually sounds like a good idea putting plants into pots with different substrate. Seems a bit less messy than tearing out the whole tank to add new substrate for a few plants. Does this method work?


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## jimmyjam (Nov 6, 2007)

iner gravel is totally fine for low/moderate plants. I would just add some root tabs/ferts to the substrate. If you want to pot them, that is good too, just do some gravel bottom pots, with some soil, then cover with sand /gravel again.


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Great  thanks for the advice! I really hadn't thought about keeping them in pots, but it seems doable.


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