The following are easy to grow plants that I have found grow well in my Planted relatively low tech aquariums. I must emphasise that all of the pictures below are of the ACTUAL PLANTS IN MY TANK, and the advice below is borne out of MY OWN EXPERIENCE. This is the spec of my tanks and below is a picture of one on the tanks.
Fetiliser: nitrate and general to reach 20 ppm nitrate.
generally the foreground mat growing plants are some of my the the hardest of the aquarium plants to cutivate. Glossostigma and hemianthus for example require high light levels and CO2 injection. However, there are some less demanding foreground plants that will fill the front of aquarium slot quite well.
This spreading plant is pretty foolproof. Growing to 10-15cm it spreads rapidly by rhizomes. Provides a good foreground to taller plants and provides a good contrast to tidier mat forming in plants such as hemianthus.
This attractive spreading plant grows to not munch more than 5cm in height and will spread slowly but reliably in an aquarium without high light intensity and CO2 .
An attractive delicate but extremely slow growing moss in my experience. It does grow reliably but in the tank that I have it in it has barely doubled in size in the last year !
This is technically a liverwort but has a somewhat superficially moss like appearance. It has a deep green colouration and forms mounds of coral like growth in the aquarium. I have found this to be very undemanding and will even grow at a steady but restrained rate even in the shadier parts of the aquarium.
This is an attractive and popular choice amongst aquascapers as it is used effectively to cloak stones and driftwood and can be trimmed into compact tidy mats of vegetation. I have found this one of the slower growing mosses but generally undemanding but requires patience in a low tech tank.
There is probably the greatest range of plants for this section of the tank. These are medium height plants between 15 and 25 cm. The plants that I have successfully used in my tank that are not fussy and grow reasonably fast are listed below.
This delicate stemmed plant has a feathery appearance. It is quick growing and will colour up with red hues with iron supplementation.
This delicate feathery plant grows up to 30cm . It is fast growing and undemanding. It can readily be propogated by cutting off lengths of stem and planting in substrate.
I find this pretty much bomb proof. It has attractive light green rounded leaves borne on stiff stems that have aerial roots growing from the leaf nodes. Fast growing but easy to control more plants can be rapidly generate by simply breaking off stems and planting in substrate.
This plant in some ways bears a resemblance to the Brazilian Pennywort described above but has a more delicate trailing habit and smaller, finer more scalloped leaves. This will grow at a reasonable rate and does not need to be rooted as it bears many ‘aerial’ roots.
These are one of the bread and butter aquarium plants. Widely recognised as foolproof with low light requirements and not in need of any specialist treatments. They are quite slow growing and propogate by small offset (baby plants) that can be removed from the parent plant. They are best tied to rocks or wood initially as the plants will decline if their roots are too deeply buried in substrate.
Java ferns are tough and are resistant to attack by most fish.
The same applies to this hardy group of Plants as applies to Java ferns, they are slow growing but tolerant of most conditions.