29 Gallon Planted Tank Advice

[neontetraking]

Hi all, I've been away at boarding school for the last year, and I came home to a tank looking pretty rough. When I left, it was stocked with a school of bronze Corydoras, a couple Bristlenose Plecos, and a ton of miscelaneous guppies. It was sporadically maintained by my parents and siblings, but somehow when I came back, there were only two of the cories and the bristlenose plecos left. Most of the plants also died, sadly. When I got home, I got to work cleaning it and taking inventory of what was left. I got some more stem plants and an Amazon Sword, but it still looks pretty empty in terms of plants. If anyone has advice for some relatively easy plants that I could grow in this setup, it would be greatly appreciated.
Also, I am going to wait to get more fish until late July or Early August, as I am going to be in and out of town frequently until then. I am just going to let the plants grow while I am gone.

(Ignore the floating stem plants, they were dug up by the cories and I replanted them right after this photo.)

 

[Conchonius]

If there is no surface agitation, any kind of floater will happily cover the surface. I'd go with frogbit or water lettuce in that kind of tank, over time they will grow long root systems that look like a forest canopy. If the floaters go overboard the cories will have to search for an exposed spot to gulp air, but they won't drown or anything.

As for submersed plants, my go-tos are rotalas, guppy grass, crypts and water lilies. Rotalas detach easily when they're just starting out, so be sure to bury them deep, but once they get established cories won't be able to uproot them. They will also detach pieces of their stem to produce new plants, you can buy just a couple and propagate the rest yourself. Guppy grass grows everywhere with no input from you, and can get out of hand if you don't trim aggressively. Crypts are slow-growing but run rooters across the substrate like strawberries do, if you wait long enough they will cover the tank on their own (although that may take a year or more). Water lilies are a floater alternative, they don't compete well when there's something like duckweed covering the tank but produce nice big surface leaves otherwise. In a 29g I'd only plant one.

I've also heard good things about hornworts, elodea, and water hyacinth. Vallisneria is another option, although the large-growing "jungle vals" might cover too much of the tank, and I've never had any luck with the smaller cultivars. I've tried various other, fancier plants like Japanese cress (pretty, but incredibly sluggish to get established for a stem plant), Madagascar lace plant (likes to drop its leaves if you touch it, use the gravel vacuum near it, or otherwise mess with it), lilaeopsis (attracts black beard algae like flies to honey, needs heavy ferts to actually carpet instead of hanging around in one spot), assorted buces (loved by my plecos for some reason, who find it and dig it up no matter where I plant it), utricularia (is your tank a swamp? no? then utricularia hates your tank and you will have to work to make it grow) etc., but as you can see, they all come with their downsides. For now it's probably best to go with sturdier, faster-growing options.

 

[neontetraking]

If there is no surface agitation, any kind of floater will happily cover the surface. I'd go with frogbit or water lettuce in that kind of tank, over time they will grow long root systems that look like a forest canopy. If the floaters go overboard the cories will have to search for an exposed spot to gulp air, but they won't drown or anything.

As for submersed plants, my go-tos are rotalas, guppy grass, crypts and water lilies. Rotalas detach easily when they're just starting out, so be sure to bury them deep, but once they get established cories won't be able to uproot them. They will also detach pieces of their stem to produce new plants, you can buy just a couple and propagate the rest yourself. Guppy grass grows everywhere with no input from you, and can get out of hand if you don't trim aggressively. Crypts are slow-growing but run rooters across the substrate like strawberries do, if you wait long enough they will cover the tank on their own (although that may take a year or more). Water lilies are a floater alternative, they don't compete well when there's something like duckweed covering the tank but produce nice big surface leaves otherwise. In a 29g I'd only plant one.

I've also heard good things about hornworts, elodea, and water hyacinth. Vallisneria is another option, although the large-growing "jungle vals" might cover too much of the tank, and I've never had any luck with the smaller cultivars. I've tried various other, fancier plants like Japanese cress (pretty, but incredibly sluggish to get established for a stem plant), Madagascar lace plant (likes to drop its leaves if you touch it, use the gravel vacuum near it, or otherwise mess with it), lilaeopsis (attracts black beard algae like flies to honey, needs heavy ferts to actually carpet instead of hanging around in one spot), assorted buces (loved by my plecos for some reason, who find it and dig it up no matter where I plant it), utricularia (is your tank a swamp? no? then utricularia hates your tank and you will have to work to make it grow) etc., but as you can see, they all come with their downsides. For now it's probably best to go with sturdier, faster-growing options.

Thanks for the advice. Based on this and my own experience, I think I might go with Valisneria, water lettuce, and maybe some crypts or another amazon Sword. I really like the look of a somewhat overgrown planted tank where all of the fish can hide.
On a side note, does anyone have success with ordering from a website like Buceplant? I've never ordered anything alive online, but all of the plants on their website seem to have good reviews and they are also reasonably priced. My local LFS just closed down, and now the only options that I have within about an hour and a half are Petco and Petsmart, and both of those stores have a rather abysmal selection of plants.

 

[Conchonius]

I haven't ordered from them, but Buceplant is well-known and reliable. I wouldn't worry about shipping plants in general either, the process is streamlined by now. After all, the fish stores must also get them from somewhere.

But keep in mind that, if you buy from their in vitro selection, the plants will arrive in small agar cups and will need time to establish themselves (especially the roots, plants see no need to grow them when they're literally buried in nutrients). Tissue culture is a great way to get your hands on rare plants on the cheap, but you'll get them in tiny portions and have to go through the effort of growing them yourself.

 

[neontetraking]

I did a bit of a re-scape with the rocks in the tank, and then my Buceplant order arrived. I ended up with some water lettuce, jungle vals, wisteria, and another Amazon sword. Here is a picture of the tank as it looks now:

The Valisneria is a bit brown and wilted, but I'm hoping that now that it is planted, it will green up a bit and start growing.
I am going to let the plants grow for the next three or four weeks and then stock it with fish.
I might put some shrimp in in the meantime but not sure about that yet.

Preliminary stocking could include:
10-12 Bronze Cories (Already have 2)
Pair of Honey Gouramis
5-6 Otocinclus
Some sort of Neocardinia Shrimp
Either a pair of guppies to try to breed or a school of some sort of tetras

I am open to opinions and ideas on stocking though
not set on any of the above fish yet

 

[Cecropia]

Looking good. Only thing I'd say on the planting is I'd move that wisteria further back. Imhe, it gets tall and bushy rather quickly.