Opinions? Ideas?

[CuriousFins]

So the plants I'm considering are ambulia, dwarf sag, red tiger lotus, cryptocoryne wendtii, ludwigia, and water sprite(probably gonna float this). I'll probably get some cholla wood(planning on having some shrimp), and substrate will be black sand. It'll be a betta tank. Opinions on arrangement of stuff, choices of plants, etc?

 

[ClownLurch]

I would imagine the plant experts would probably need to know water hardness and ph etc plus tank temp before giving opinions.
I know next to nothing about plants and find it the most difficult aspect of the hobby tbh.
Best of luck.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

What size is the tank and what is the lighting like?

Ambulia - Pretty hardy, doesn't need bright light. Can get fairly big but can be kept trimmed back.

dwarf sag - Again pretty easy to grow, slightly high light demand but nothing major.

red tiger lotus - Would do better with higher light and ferts but is relative undemanding in my experience. The biggest issue I would say with this plant is that it can get REALLY big and doesn't take to well to being trimmed back. I would not keep this in a smaller tank.

cryptocoryne wendtii - Pretty hardy and easy going. Supposed to be a slow grower but under the right conditions it can get pretty big, pretty fast (have a look at the planted tank link in my sig to get an idea).

ludwigia - Does better with high light and CO2/Ferts, however it will grow without them, just likely wont have as much red colouring. Pretty fast grower and get get big but does fine with regularly trimming.

water sprite - Another good choice, easy to grow, undemanding and fast growing.

Generally good choices. As its a betta tank though I'm going to assume that it maybe isn't very big? If the tank is on the smaller size I would dump the tiger lotus and maybe one of the the larger "stem" plants. In my opinion/experience too many stem plants in a small tank doesn't look as good and one of them will always end up out competing the other which means a lot of maintenance to keep them balanced.

Sand substrate should be fine. If you get black sand make sure you rinse it REALLY well before you use it. I would highly recommend using some root tabs in the substrate for the plants. Again assuming that there isn't going to be a lot of bioload in a betta tank the extra ferts will help and root tabs are a pretty fuss free way of taking care of that. Don't forget the most root tabs are gone within around 6 months so you will need to add some more.

Edit: Regarding PH/temp, etc. If you are in parameters for a betta all of these plants will be just fine.

 

[CuriousFins]

What size is the tank and what is the lighting like?

Ambulia - Pretty hardy, doesn't need bright light. Can get fairly big but can be kept trimmed back.

dwarf sag - Again pretty easy to grow, slightly high light demand but nothing major.

red tiger lotus - Would do better with higher light and ferts but is relative undemanding in my experience. The biggest issue I would say with this plant is that it can get REALLY big and doesn't take to well to being trimmed back. I would not keep this in a smaller tank.

cryptocoryne wendtii - Pretty hardy and easy going. Supposed to be a slow grower but under the right conditions it can get pretty big, pretty fast (have a look at the planted tank link in my sig to get an idea).

ludwigia - Does better with high light and CO2/Ferts, however it will grow without them, just likely wont have as much red colouring. Pretty fast grower and get get big but does fine with regularly trimming.

water sprite - Another good choice, easy to grow, undemanding and fast growing.

Generally good choices. As its a betta tank though I'm going to assume that it maybe isn't very big? If the tank is on the smaller size I would dump the tiger lotus and maybe one of the the larger "stem" plants. In my opinion/experience too many stem plants in a small tank doesn't look as good and one of them will always end up out competing the other which means a lot of maintenance to keep them balanced.

Sand substrate should be fine. If you get black sand make sure you rinse it REALLY well before you use it. I would highly recommend using some root tabs in the substrate for the plants. Again assuming that there isn't going to be a lot of bioload in a betta tank the extra ferts will help and root tabs are a pretty fuss free way of taking care of that. Don't forget the most root tabs are gone within around 6 months so you will need to add some more.

Edit: Regarding PH/temp, etc. If you are in parameters for a betta all of these plants will be just fine.

Ok, so it's a 10G. I didn't really get a super special light, and I don't really know what a "bright" light is supposed to look like, so I'll post a picture. gimme a sec

 

[CuriousFins]

The first is with the room light off, the second is with it on. I'm pretty sure it's an Aquaneat light.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Can't really tell without the technical spec for the light unit. If you can find a make and model for it you can sometimes look it up.

I don't know the brand aquaneat but looking it up they seem to be putting out a full spectrum LED light. From the quick reviews I looked at it looks pretty for a "lower to middle" brightness which these plants should all probably do fine in.

The whole low/medium/high lighting bands is kind of hard to follow nowadays. Unfortunately I still think that way because when I got into it we was using T8 and T5 fluorescent tubes and you could roughly work out how "bright" it was by using Watts Per Gallon.

With LED lighting that doesn't work anymore and finding specific data on PAR of these units is normally impossible.

TL: DR That lights probably fine for these plants. If you find them struggling later on you can always add another cheapo LED unit to it.

 

[CuriousFins]

Can't really tell without the technical spec for the light unit. If you can find a make and model for it you can sometimes look it up.

I don't know the brand aquaneat but looking it up they seem to be putting out a full spectrum LED light. From the quick reviews I looked at it looks pretty for a "lower to middle" brightness which these plants should all probably do fine in.

The whole low/medium/high lighting bands is kind of hard to follow nowadays. Unfortunately I still think that way because when I got into it we was using T8 and T5 fluorescent tubes and you could roughly work out how "bright" it was by using Watts Per Gallon.

With LED lighting that doesn't work anymore and finding specific data on PAR of these units is normally impossible.

TL: DR That lights probably fine for these plants. If you find them struggling later on you can always add another cheapo LED unit to it.

Idk if it helps, but it's this light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T9Y7LQ4/?tag=ff0d01-20

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah apparently it's full spectrum so in theory at least it's putting out usable light. Doesn't tell you how much light though which is common for LEDs.

Honestly the budget led's are never going to be the best light ever but a lot of them will do the job just fine. With your plants choice I think you will be ok, just keep am eye on the LEDs as the build quality on these lights is sometimes a bit shoddy and you might lose some leds over time.