Live plant beginner experiment - CO2 booster question

Hey MFK, I am a live plant beginner. I decided to do some research and landed upon the infamous Anubias Nana and Java Fern as my test subjects.

From the information I gathered, these two are pretty hardy, low maintenance plants (exactly what I wanted to spark a new direction in the hobby).

I have a 55 gallon, standard lighting, gravel substrate, 2 Emperor 400's hob filters and a powerhead (meant for a 50 gallon). Now I know gravel isn't the ideal substrate for live plants, so I am hoping for the best with what I have.

I do not have co2 injection because of financial reasons, so I am not expecting optimum growth. I am dosing with Seachem Flourish twice a week and using root tabs periodically.

My experiment consists of both attaching half of each species of plants to some driftwood, and half planting them in the substrate (not burying the rhizome of course) to see which method produces the best results.

Now my questions are should I buy a liquid co2 booster from my lps since I cannot afford the co2 injection mechanism?
Will this induce growth at all, or is a co2 mechanism a must?
Any other advice, comments, or hate messages encouraged Muchos Gracias in advance

brich999 said:

2 species you mentioned growing fine with liquid co2 daily and once weekly flourish comprehensive
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Okay, awesome.

yeah I bought it later this afternoon and questioned my decision..

thanks for the input

Pbaff said:

If you have standard aquarium lighting you should not need to add CO2. As you increase your lighting and move to less hardy plants it will help, but probably still won't be necessary. Anubias and java fern are both good choices for starter plants. I am curious though, why would you not bury the rhizome?

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The rhizome will rot which will lead to some species melting.

HybridHerp said:

Yah, just be sure to add some sort of fertilizer (all plants need some amount of macro and micro elements to sustain their growth) and you should be fine with both species

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is flourish and root tabs sufficient?