Are you ready for more than just fish? Whether you’re new to keeping an aquarium or you’ve had a great fish tank for a while, introducing live plants to your tank’s ecosystem is a whole new challenge.

With some guidelines, you can learn how to care for aquarium plants so that you can grow a beautiful habitat for your fish. These plants provide cover for the fish and help keep them healthy.

Here’s how you can get started with your own aquatic plants and create a great fish tank!

Select the Right Plants and Substrate

You want to create biodiversity in your tank. It helps keep algae at bay and all the plants and fish to thrive.

Live phytoplankton can help you achieve this, especially if you put multiple varieties in the tank together. You may also want plants like lilaeposis, ludwigia, bolbitis, or anubis.

Different types of aquarium plants need different substrates, too. Select the substrate, or soil base, that your specific plants need to survive. Don’t use straight soil because that can breed bacteria that are bad for your tank’s ecosystem.

Many kinds of aquatic plants can grow in laterite, so it’s a good basic substrate to start with. It’s rich in iron and aluminum, so make sure the plants you choose are ones that will do well with those nutrients (more on that below). You should have around 2-3 inches of substrate, and then another inch of larger gravel.

You should also fertilize your plants to help them grow. Make sure your fertilizer is fish-friendly.

How to Care for Aquarium Plants: Food

Just like your fish, the aquarium plants need nutrients to survive. Feed your plants using an iron-based fertilizer. New substrate comes with nutrients in it, but you may want to supplement it, especially after you’ve had it awhile.

The best aquarium plants also need light to grow. Some of the light can be natural, shining into the top or the sides of the tank. However, chances are you’ll need artificial light to help them out.

You’ll want an output color temperature of at least 6500K, and up to 8000K. You can use fluorescent lights or LED, but if you choose LED lights be careful about their rating. Many aquatic plants let you know how many watts per gallon they need.

Yet LED lights use so much less energy that they achieve the same lumens without the same wattage. That means you could kill your plants with too strong a light. Instead, measure with lumens or photosynthetic measurements like PAR or PUR.

Care for Bulbs

Aquarium plant care means watching through the plant seasons and caring for them in the offseason. For example, some bulbs have to be taken out of the water and allowed to dry so that they will keep producing.

You’ll also need to trim plants if they grow too much. You don’t want them taking over the tank or blocking the natural light.

A Beautiful System

When you learn how to care for aquarium plants, you’ll be able to cultivate a beautiful underwater ecosystem that’s also beneficial to your fish. Use the tips above to select the right plant varieties, substrate, and food to help your plants thrive.

Be sure you also care for the plants with regular pruning and off-season care.

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