hi I'm Irene with girl talks fish and i have a black thumb i dream of having a
beautiful planted tank like everybody else on Instagram and unfortunately kept killing
plants so in my desperation i decided to try to buy every beginner plant that is
supposedly bulletproof that i could get my hands on and here's what i found out
so let's start off with some plants you can find at your local pet store like PetSmart or Petco
and that would be the betta bulb and i imagine when buying this thing that many people think oh
i can just plop in the bulb into my betta fish bowl and it will grow well first of all they do
need substrate of some type and once they produce leaves i like them because most of them tend to
have very long wavy broad leaves because they're probably of the Aponogeton genus of some sort and
i love that man it just makes such a great centerpiece plant and for me this was the first
plant i ever got to flower as well however the cons are this plant gets very very very big and
also gravel may not be enough so if you used an inert substrate and not a nutrient-rich substrate
be aware they love to feed from their roots so you're going to have to give it lots and lots
of root tubs every time you see their plant the plant leaves start melting number two is another
plant that is commonly sold with betta fish tanks and that is the marimo moss balls i hear they're
starting to be slowly sold in the country again but very cute and compact doesn't require a lot of
care the cons are it is pretty much almost like a fake decoration just because they don't grow
very fast um you need to make sure to rotate it and clean it because it is fuzzy and tends to
collect mold and stuff and then for me mine started sending out green filamentous algae
strands everywhere and so i did not like that and ended up removing it ah the classic java fern that
is very commonly found in pet stores and fish stores they don't require substrate they only
need low light and then they have pretty tough leaves that can withstand things like goldfish
and African cichlids usually however i don't know about you but when i brought this thing home
it started getting brown and like holes everywhere and then that started growing algae
so i found out that this particular plant uh likes to eat a lot of potassium so if you have a pretty
large java fern like i do make sure to dose some extra potassium if you see these problems coming
another very popular beginner plant that just goes hand in hand with java fern would be
anubias very similar in terms of also only needs low light
doesn't require substrate and also has very tough leaves however i find that mine just tend to be
algae magnets especially like black beard or green spot algae which is really hard to get off and so
my little trick i found is i definitely need to pair it with some kind of floating plant or fast
growing plant that was that is above the anubius and will shade out the anubias so it doesn't get
as much light and also since they're fast growing they'll suck up a lot of the excess nutrients
hopefully starving out the algae that tends to grow in them amazon swords or any sword that
really has those big beautiful broad leaves such a statement piece in any aquarium and it
comes in many many varieties and color patterns however veterans often don't tell us beginners
that they're also known as tank busters because they get massive and they just take over all the
substrate and the leaves just go out everywhere in your aquarium i mean just huge huge plant probably
not going to be good for your little betta nano tank and then they are hungry hungry root feeders
meaning you definitely need some kind of nutrient-rich substrate or be prepared to be
constantly feeding this root tabs in order to keep it alive water sprite is another plant that is
commonly recommended to beginners just because it's so fast growing it really sucks up those
excess nitrate and other nitrogen compounds and then it's got kind of fluffy leaves which are
really good for raising up fry baby fish or small nano fish that need a place to hide i don't know
why but i was never able to successfully grow this thing in the substrate however
great plant as a floating plant i think it's just because the leaves are closer to the light it can
get carbon dioxide directly from the air and then i you know what i honestly think it's my favorite
floating plant now just because it's so big and really easy to remove if i've got too much of it
water wisteria which is often confused for water sprite is another fluffy plant that's
good for hiding fry and nano fish it also is fast growing and sucks up a lot of nitrogen compounds
i would just say the warning here for beginners is that a lot of times you'll see a picture
online and that is the submersed form of the plant which is what it looks like grown
underwater and then the plant you will receive is often the emersed form which is plant farms
are growing them above water they look very very different promise it's the same plant and you may
struggle with a lot of melting as it converts from emersed to submersed form so
something that i think all water wisteria needs a warning tag on hornwort is probably one of the
fastest growing aquatic plants there is it just sucks up tons of nutrients really gets very large
so i usually recommend it as a pond plant because if one day it decides it has run out of nutrients
it's going to shed these pine needle-like leaves all over your aquarium it's a huge mess
really annoying to clean up so i personally do not like keeping hornwort unless perhaps
i was keeping a pond Out of all the Cryptocoryne species i would say crypt wentii is probably the
most popular one just because it comes in so many different varieties like bronze red pink green has
those textured large leaves yet still stays kind of low and compact so i think it would do really
well as a carpeting plant for a larger aquarium and plus they can do well in low light but
my warning for this plant is it does like to melt anytime you change the water parameters
where whether it's the first time you get it and you're bringing it into your tank
or like me they were growing so big and beautiful and then i just changed the fertilization schedule
dosing amount a little bit and then it just went bananas and all the melted away
i still have some these tiny little dinky things over here they've never really fully recovered so
i kind of hold a grudge against them i prefer smaller crypts personally but hey give it a shot
if you want whenever people look online for easy carpeting plan meaning they want some kind of i
don't know grassy lawn covering their substrate dwarf sagittaria often comes up and i would just
say if you want them to stay nice and short like a grassy lawn you're definitely going to need a
bright light versus all of my tanks were low-tech tanks and so they were very tall kind of like a
background instead also they tend to be heavy root feeders so you definitely want some kind of
nutrient-rich substrate or you're going to be feeding a lot of root tabs i would say one of
the main reasons why i can now grow a lush green aquarium like this one is because i did go out and
buy almost every different kind of plant i could get my hands on and then i found out which ones
really flourish in my particular water and tank conditions so if you have a black thumb like i did
highly recommend that you check out these five things i wish i had known
when buying new aquarium plants take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see in the next video