Plant Glossary

You can put plants in right from the start but....
Some plants are affected by the 3 ppm ammonia used to cycle a tank, so use 2 ppm instead and stock a bit less than all the fish on your wish list when the cycle finishes. If you decide on any fish that need a mature tank, you'll have to leave those till later anyway.
Plants also use ammonia as plants fertiliser, so the cycle probably won't progress as for a plantless cycle. For example, you might not see any nitrite, or only a smaller amount than expected.


I use this site for looking up plants http://tropica.com/en/ They don't have every plant listed, just the ones they sell, but they do divide them into easy, medium and advanced.

If you're planning to keep shrimps or ornamental snails be careful where you source your plants. There are lots of shops online which sell plants imported directly from Asia and these might have been treated for pests before shipping (and pests include crustaceans).

Unfortunately, some of those treatments stay on the plants for a long time and can kill all your shrimps. You can ask the shop if the plants are safe for shrimp.

Tropica plants are usually ok. They're grown in Europe and the company doesn't use those chemicals, as far as I know.

My favourite shop for sourcing plants is Aquarium Gardens. No shrimp ever died after introducing plants from them.

@Dominika I am very lucky to live within driving distance of Aquarium Gardens, which I only realised after I'd ordered online for delivery a couple of times.
It's a lovely little place, and the owner is very knowledgeable and helpful.
Strange as it sounds, they have a deep tray of sand (approx 80cm square) on a tank stand, so that people can try the different types of wood and rocks that they have, and decide which pieces will make the display that they want. One of the funniest things I've seen when visiting is grown men getting very into arranging the wood in the try. They were so into it that the only thing that stopped me from laughing was knowing that I would be just as bad.

@Dominika I am very lucky to live within driving distance of Aquarium Gardens, which I only realised after I'd ordered online for delivery a couple of times.
It's a lovely little place, and the owner is very knowledgeable and helpful.
Strange as it sounds, they have a deep tray of sand (approx 80cm square) on a tank stand, so that people can try the different types of wood and rocks that they have, and decide which pieces will make the display that they want. One of the funniest things I've seen when visiting is grown men getting very into arranging the wood in the try. They were so into it that the only thing that stopped me from laughing was knowing that I would be just as bad.

That's a great story, Littlefish. It made my day. Thank you for sharing