# Plants Successfully Grown 'El Natural'



## Crispino Ramos (Mar 21, 2008)

What plants can be successfully grown in the 'El Natural' set up?

Thank you.


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## redchigh (Jul 10, 2010)

As walstead mentions in her book, there's quite a bit of variety due to allelopathy (chemicals that plants release to inhibit other plants.)

In my experiance however, pretty much any low to medium light plant will grow wonderfully.
Crypts and swords seem to love the encriched substrate, but be sure to balance then with some hardy stem plants.

Once the tank is established, you can try some of the more 'sensitive' and slow-growing species. For your first selections, choose plants with large root systems (like ecninodorus species) and plants that grow fast (stem plants like hygro difformis, rotala indica, ludwigea repens). I'd stay away from the bright red plants in the beginning too.


Takes a bit of trial and error. I typically just buy small amounts of several species and see what works. Some will likely die, but the others will grow explosively.


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## Marconis (Mar 17, 2011)

redchigh said:


> As walstead mentions in her book, there's quite a bit of variety due to allelopathy (chemicals that plants release to inhibit other plants.)
> 
> In my experiance however, pretty much any low to medium light plant will grow wonderfully.
> Crypts and swords seem to love the encriched substrate, but be sure to balance then with some hardy stem plants.
> ...


I think that's what makes low light so fun. What works for some people may not work for you, and what works for you may not work for others. I enjoy ordering plant species on a hunch and taking a risk to see if it will survive. Of course, I do obviously stay away from the higher light species and stick to the low-medium.


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## redchigh (Jul 10, 2010)

indeed. I agree.

My favorite plant company even lets me order 'half bunches' of stem plants when I'm just experimenting with a new tank.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

It may be easier to say which plants will not be successful in a Walstad tank. If you go to the Plantfinder, and eliminate all the plants with a hardiness rating of "difficult" or "very difficult" and a light requirement of "high" or "very high", you will probably have a pretty good list. Then elminate any that have an absolute requirement for pressurized CO2 supplementation.


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## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

Michael said:


> It may be easier to say which plants will not be successful in a Walstad tank. If you go to the Plantfinder, and eliminate all the plants with a hardiness rating of "difficult" or "very difficult" and a light requirement of "high" or "very high", you will probably have a pretty good list. Then elminate any that have an absolute requirement for pressurized CO2 supplementation.


No offense, but the purpose of this thread to is remove the generalizations that limit ourselves to and actually see which plants will grow in a soil substrate w/out CO2 or additional fertilization.

Off the top of my head, here are some plants that did well for me:

Rotala rotundifolia - I grew the 'green' variant and the regular species. The regular species got a nice light orange color to it - just nothing intense like in a high tech tank.

Rotala wallichii - This grew really well for me (although it did always look 'fuzzy' from catching dirt particles in the water column... lol). I got it to get a nice pink coloration (never red, though).

Rotala sp. 'Nanjenshan' - This grew well for me, achieving a nice yellow coloration.

Sagittaria subulata - I love this plant. It always grew well for me, producing lots of runners and lots of flowers.

Staurogyne stolonifera - This plant will not die w/out CO2, but it's not really growing either. I think this genus in general will grow well in a soil substrate, but needs CO2 to actually grow. (S. sp. 'Bihar' is actually doing really well for me in one of my low tech tanks, however).

Cryptocoryne - I've grown lots of different crypts and they usually grew well. In fact, many of them grow so well, that keeping them a manageable size is usually the problem. I've grown C. crispatula retrospiralis, C. wendtii (a couple of types - only the 'Mi oya' one didn't grow well), C. lutea (grows too well, actually - i had it take over a 29 gallon tank... lol), c. parva (doesn't stay short in my experience - may be it's a light issue more than anything).

Limnophilia aromatica - This plant grows very well for me. I have it in two different tanks right now and in one tank, it's lime green and in another tank, it's more yellow / orange in color.

Hemianthus glomeratus - This plant always did well for me.

Heteranthera zosterifolia - This plant always did well for me as well.

If I think of anything else, I'll update my list.


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## redchigh (Jul 10, 2010)

JeffyFunk said:


> Off the top of my head, here are some plants that did well for me:
> 
> Rotala rotundifolia - I grew the 'green' variant and the regular species. The regular species got a nice light orange color to it - just nothing intense like in a high tech tank.
> 
> ...


These are definately worth trying, but as I mentioned earlier, it's not guaranteed, due to allelopathic chemicals.

I grew Rotala indica, and it grew extremely slowly. (although in a friends tank, it was explosive.)
I grew rotala wallichi, and it grew extremely slowly... and spontaneously died one day.
My stargrass (Heteranthera zosterifolia) indeed was explosive, and one of my favorites. There really is a bit of trial-and-error involved.


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## LVKSPlantlady (Oct 4, 2009)

my 1st soil substrate tank serviced as my Let's see what I can grow tank. Just a 10 gal with over 20 diff species growin in it... I'll list them
Anachris
ELEOCHARIS ACICULARIS, Dwarf hair grass (short and tall)
LEMNA MINOR, small and large duck weed
Red melon sword
green melon sword ( This on grew MUCH larger than the red melon and was 1 of the reason I took the tank apart)
Apongeton crispus 
Apongeton Sp. Unknow
CRYPTOCORYNE WENDTII, Green, bronze and red 
Hydrocotyle leucocephala, penny wort
Hygrophila polysperma 
Lagarosiphon major( grew best after I'd thin all the other floaters and could get more light)
Rotala macrandra 'Green Narrow Leaf'
Rotala mexicana
SAGITTARIA SUBULATA, dwarf sag ( Anther motivator in taking the tank apart!)
SAGITTARIA platyphylla, Broad leaf sag
Taxiphyllum barbieri, Java moss
Ceratophyllum demersum, hornwort
Vallisneria spiralis var. tortissima

I think there were more but like a dumby I thought they would all be ok in a newly set up tank... wrong so I lost a lot and can just go count what I have now...


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## mthom211 (Sep 3, 2010)

I'm growing
subwassertang
xmas moss ect.
blyxa
staurogyne tropica
nardoo
E. vesuvius 
lotus and many others like swords and crypts, don't feel like listing individual names.


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