Dustin's Blog — Easy Plants

8 Facts about the banana plant (Nymphoides aquatica), a fun and easy grower sure to be a conversation-starting newcomer in your planted fish tank.  Read Time: 5 minutes 1. Funny enough, the 'bananas' really are food  What are the bananas on Nymphoides aquatica? They're actually uniquely modified storage organs (tubers) designed to build up nutrients for later use. We eat bananas for food. So does Nymphoides, in a way.  2. When we say they're easy to keep, they're easy in every way you can think of Like most aquarium plants, they're great in high-light/high-nutrient conditions, but aquatic banana plants can survive (even thrive) as a...

Read Time: 5.5 minutes Aquarium plants for cold water, crazy pH, giant tanks and nano tanks, evil fish, too little or too much light, and any other extreme you can throw at them Overall Tips for "EXTREME" Aquarium Plants (AKA the biggest piece of advice for planted tanks) The single most helpful tip we can give you on growing these plants, and any plants, really, is to study and imitate nature. If you're not sure if you can keep a plant in a certain tank environment (we're pretty awesome, but we can't list out every plant, here) look up where the...

Read Time: 5.5 minutes Plant Placement 101 Figured out you want to grow some live aquarium plants, taken the plunge and ordered some, and staring at a fistful of plants you don't know what to do with? Been there. Fortunately, most aquatic plants can be broken down into four categories of where to place them: foreground, midground, background, and floating plants. Some plants overlap into more than one category depending on how you want to grow and trim them, but generally, you can gauge where to put something based on how a species falls into these. If you ever hear...

Read Time: 6 minutes If we had to pick the easiest category of aquarium plants to grow, it'd be this one. Floating aquatic plants grow quickly, they propagate quickly, they come together quickly, they don't need a lot of work...you don't even have to plant them since you can just toss them into your tank. It doesn't get much better than that. Not sure which one you want? Welcome to Floating Plants 101. The Do's and Don'ts of Floating Aquarium Plants DO: --Imitate nature when trying to grow them. Most of these grow on or close to the surface of...

Read Time: 6 minutes How to Convert from Plastic Plants to Live Plants in an Aquarium Welcome to the second part of your guide to setting up an epic planted tank! Part 1 gave you the low down on starting a planted tank from scratch. This post will be for folks who realized how awesome aquariums were before they knew planted ones were a thing. We'll give you all the tips and tricks you need to convert an existing, non-planted setup to a tank with plants so nice you'll throw your plastic ones out.  It's easier than you think. Getting...