Ready to add live plants to your aquarium? Here are a few plants that are hardy and easy to grow — perfect for beginners!
- Hornwort — a stem plant with spiraling forked leaves. It looks more delicate than it actually is! This plant is difficult to kill and grows very quickly — this helps slow algae growth in your tank.
- Amazon sword — a tall plant with very large leaves! This plant needs more sunlight than some of the others on the list, but the plant’s height helps it get the sun it needs. Because these plants are larger than others, they may need more nutrients than other plants. You may need to use fertilizer sticks in the substrate to keep your Amazon sword happy.
- Java fern — a hardy aquarium plant with fernlike fronds. This is an aquarium specialty plant that grows attached to rock or driftwood.
- Java moss — another aquarium specialty plant that attaches to solid objects in the tank. This plant forms tangled, branched strands.
- Dwarf anubias — a plant that can grow on solid objects or rooted in the substrate. It grows more slowly than some of the other plants on this list, but does occasionally flower. Some fish really like to eat the anubias flowers!
- Dwarf hygrophilia — a fast-growing stem plant that herbivorous fish like to nibble. Fortunately, this plant grows fast enough that it can easily recover from the damage. “Dwarf” is perhaps not the most accurate name, as this plant can grow more than a foot tall!
- Anacharis elodia — a stem plant that can grow rooted in the substrate or floating. This plant does well in tanks with hard water and cooler temperatures. Goldfish enjoy eating elodia.
- Thai onion plant — a very tall plant with straight leaves. Without pruning, this plant can reach the surface and form a tangled mat that blocks light!
There are plenty of interesting plants available for your aquarium tank, but the above plants are both hardy and easy to care for. If you are just starting out, you might want to stick to affordable and fast-growing plants and get the hang of keeping live plants in your aquarium before moving on to more delicate and more expensive plants.