How to Plant Aquarium Plants: Stems, Rosettes, Carpets and Epiphytes

A step-by-step guide to planting each plant type correctly, including the one rule that saves epiphytes from rotting.

Prepare before you plant

Tropica suggests filling the tank to about 2 cm above the substrate so plants stay damp but you can still work, pouring water over a saucer so you do not stir up the bottom, and misting plants while you work. Remove the pot and the rock/stone wool from the roots, then trim the roots back to roughly 4 cm on all plant types.

Stem plants

Remove any ceramic ring holding the bundle together and strip the lowest leaves. Plant the stems one by one, spaced slightly apart, in a group using tweezers — planting them individually rather than as a clump gives each stem room to root.

Rosette plants (crypts, swords)

Separate a pot into single rosettes, discard the oldest outer leaves, and plant each crown alone or in a group. Bury the roots but keep the crown (where leaves meet roots) at the substrate surface.

Epiphytes: never bury the rhizome

Carpet and foreground plants

Divide a single pot into 4-10 small portions and space them evenly across the foreground; a roughly 2 cm chunk of mineral wool left on each portion helps anchor it. The gaps fill in as the plants spread. Bulbs such as Crinum sit with about half the bulb above the substrate.

Sources: Tropica Plant Guide, Planting in the aquarium (tropica.com); The 2Hr Aquarist, Guide to buying/planting tissue cultures (www.2hraquarist.com).