How low is too low?

[mrsjoannh13]

I have a 10 gallon quarantine tank set up right now for a new betta. Originally I was going to just have silk plants in the tank but I have added a couple of live plants and plan to add a couple more in the coming days. He'll be in the QT tank for 4-6 weeks so I want to make it as nice a temporary home as possible. The tank is a Marina brand - it's the Marina Glo tank that I originally got for my daughter's glo tetras. It has a lid with a built in light - one setting is blue light only (for the glow effect) and a second setting is a combo of blue and white lights.

I currently have a brazilian pennywort and red root floaters both floating in the tank as the little betta likes to rest in plants up top. I am planning to add some anubias nana and maybe a java fern.

I know these are all good low light plants (maybe not the red root floaters but it's what I had on hand at the time), but I'm wondering if the built in light on the tank's lid will be sufficient to keep the plants alive. I don't want to deal with dead, decaying plant matter in this tank. I plan to fertilize with Easy Green.

Any thoughts on whether or not the light will be sufficient? I'm not concerned so much about plant growth. I just want them to survive the 4-6 weeks of quarantine (and the fish, too, of course - lol). I don't really have the option to add a nano tank light without making a custom lid so the light can shine through. So hoping to avoid that extra work if possible.

Thanks!

 

[Utar]

I think that pretty much any type of lighting works well for growing plants. I believe where the problem comes into for growing aquarium plants is that some species need CO2 injection.

Light needs to penetrate water depth and cover a sufficient area of the bottom of the tank for plants. Judge for yourself on how bright the light is in the 10-gallon glo tank and the coverage area, if it looks good then you shouldn't have a problem.

On a side note, some plants are grown at the nurseries out of the water. So when a person places these plants in their aquarium, the plants will shed their leaves grown out of the water and grow new leaves needed for underwater.