Real Plants? Or Ornaments

Plants do have benefits to water quality -especially nitrate levels.  What do your test results indicate for nitrate in your tap and tank water? Is your tank over or under filtered? You will likely have to slightly increase the frequency of water changes in an unplanted tank, though this would be more the case if the plants were growing well.  Personally I'd be more than happy to help you get to the bottom of why your plants are not growing.  For example, are you dosing any plant nutrients? What substrate and lights do you have? By working though this we should be able to get you that planted tank look you are after.

You are welcome to use just aquarium safe decor and no plants should you wish but please be aware that you must check they are aquarium safe (look for videos on the vinegar test).

This is the thread Littlefish was thinking of https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/fish-tank-plant-advice/plant-suitability-by-water-hardness/


Some fish need the cover provided by plants, whether real or fake. For example, most south American fish come from rivers that have plants in them, and also land trees overhanging the river. This latter is another aspect as these fish also do much better with plants floating on the tank surface.

As Littlefish mentioned, I have plants attached to decor. This is because every plant that I've tried that roots in the substrate dies. I finally discovered that java fern thrives in my tanks. This plant has another advantage that fish don't like it so they don't eat it. At one time, I had nothing but java fern in my tanks, growing on both wood and plastic ornaments. But other people's tanks looked so much better than mine so I tried other plants.

Before you give up on plants completely, why not give this type of plant a try. They are slow growing plants which means they don't need intense light or added CO2. They just need a weekly dose of liquid fertiliser. I use Seachem Flourish, the one that has nothing else in the name. And I dose at half the strength the bottle says because I have slow growing plants rather than a rampant jungle.

Javae fern - I have both standard java fern and the prettier windelov variety
Anubias - I have several different species
Bolbitis heudeloti - a lovely fern like plant
Bucephalandra - there are several different species, I have B. maia
Hornwort. This doesn't attach itself but I loop the stems round branches of wood to anchor it. It can also be used as a floating plant.

I currently have water sprite floating on the surface among the strands of hornwort. I have tried other floating plants. Water lettuce and Amazon frogbit didn't last long. Salvinia natans was killed off during a heatwave. Even duck weed didn't last very long in my tanks  But so far, touch wood, the water sprite is doing well.


I have come to realise that I will never be able to have the plants that other fish keepers have; my tanks will never look as nice as theirs with the variety of plants they have. But my fish are quite happy with their slow growing plants on wood.
This type of planting does have another advantage. When cleaning the tank, you don't risk catching a plant and uprooting it. You just move the whole thing out of the way 

It's probably worth experimenting with some of your tanks ie rather than converting all four from live plants to silk plants or other hardware, just try making one free from live plants and see how you get on - maybe start off with silk plants only rather than buying other additional decor.

I do empathise with the situation, as I converted from a "silk plant only" tank to a "live plant" tank and I've gone through a lot of plants in the 13-14 months since doing so, find that the filter clogs up easily and it has made no difference to my water quality (I've been fortunate enough to have had low nitrate levels of <20ppm +/- live plants). However, I'm persevering for the foreseeable future as I'm determined to improve my very poor live plantkeeping skills. What I have found works is:
* plants grown on decor (for me, anubias has lasted well as has bucephalandra, but java fern and bolbitis haven't);
* thick-leaved plants (will add details of these tomorrow)
* root tabs (much better than the liquid fertiliser which makes negligible difference)