Groundcover Plants?

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karen99

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Nov 21, 2005
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Does anyone have ideas for a groundcover that can grow in medium lighting (around 2-3.5 watts/g) with diy CO2 and is reasonably easy to grow? All I can seem to find is pygmy chain sword. I see some beautiful tanks with riccia, Glossostigma, ect. but from what I've found they need high light, high nutrients and are difficult. Are there any groundcovers suitable for beginners?
I'm trying to find plants to order when I set up my new tank.
 
dwarf hairgrass is pretty easy. Micro sword is also pretty easy.
 
I wouldn't call microsword (Lilaeopsis) easy, its more demanding and slow growing than dwarf hairgrass or pygmy chain sword (e. tenellus). If you have 3wpg or higher you can grow glosso and all of the above. YOu can grow riccia too but don't expect it to pearl like mad like in many pictures. At 3wpg, you're going to need to add ferts.

Alternative groundcover plants for a lower light setup are marsilea quadrifolia/minuta (aquatic clovers) and Hemianthus callitrichoides. Marsilea are very slow growing but can thrive in low light tanks, they look like a darker glosso when grown submersed. Hemianthus callitrichoides appears to have taken the crown away from glosso as the most popular foreground plant, its difficult to plant because it's a tiny plant (the leaves are much smaller than glosso), but is easy to maintain. Marsilea's a little hard to find but Hemianthus callitroides shows up in aquabid frequently.
 
I grow glosso and riccia in "medium" light ~2.8wpg and that's in a "deep" tank 24". I inject CO2 but as long as you have CO2, I think it's worth a shot. There is a "poor mans glosso"...Marsillea I think...that does better (suposedly, I've never had it) in lower light than glosso.
 
If your tank bottom becomes completely covered by a ground cover,how do you vac the gravel?Will you need to vac the gravel?
 
Dwarf sag tends to grow a little taller than the other listed plants, which is fine for a large tank but not so nice for smaller ones. It is easy to grow.

In heavily planted tanks where the substrate isn't showing, you don't gravel vac by pushing into the substrate. You hover the gravel vac closely over the planted area, occasionally brushing the plants to loosen up waste particles.
 
The hood I'm making is such that I can easily have it at anything from 2-3.5 watts/g. I was planning to add some fertilizers, probably some root tablets plus a liquid fertilizer. But I'm kind of afraid of going too bright or too heavy on fertilizers due to algae problems in the past. I'll have to look into some of the suggestions. I love the look of the Hemianthus, but can't find it sold anywhere.
 
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