This chart puts Tropica’s own light, CO2, difficulty and growth ratings for 18 common aquascaping plants in one place, each row linked to the Tropica page it comes from. 13 of the 18 are rated easy and 13 have a low CO2 demand. Sort any column, or filter to the plants that suit your tank.
How to read the ratings
Every rating is Tropica’s, on Tropica’s scale: light and CO2 demand are low, medium or high, difficulty is easy, medium or advanced, and growth is slow, medium or fast. They are categories rather than measurements, and this table keeps them that way. Where Tropica rates a named cultivar rather than the species, the plant’s own page says which.
Tropica leaves some fields blank. Those cells read “Not rated” and name the second source AquaLexicon uses instead, such as Aquasabi for Cryptocoryne wendtii.
What the chart shows
CO2 is the dividing line. Only Dwarf baby tears (HC Cuba) and Glossostigma are rated high for CO2, and every one of them is a carpet plant. If you run a tank without CO2 injection, filtering to low CO2 leaves you most of the list, including one carpet: dwarf hairgrass.
The rhizome plants, Anubias, Java fern and Bucephalandra, are all rated easy and slow-growing, which is why they suit a low-light, low-maintenance layout like the Walstad method. The mosses split: Java moss is easy, Christmas moss medium. The carpet plants guide explains why the 4 carpets here spread so widely from easy to advanced.
Using this chart
You’re welcome to cite or link to this chart. Each rating links to its Tropica source, and the table is rebuilt from AquaLexicon’s reference file whenever a rating is re-checked, so the date under it tells you how current it is.
Aquarium plant chart questions
Which aquarium plants don’t need CO2?
13 of the 18 plants in this chart have a low CO2 demand in Tropica’s ratings, including Java fern, Java moss, Vallisneria, dwarf hairgrass and Amazon sword. Filter the CO2 column to low to see them all.
What are the easiest aquarium plants?
Tropica rates 13 of the 18 plants here easy. Java fern, Bucephalandra, Java moss, Vallisneria, Amazon sword and dwarf hairgrass are among them, and all six have a low light demand too.
Where do these plant ratings come from?
From Tropica, the Danish grower, whose plant pages rate each plant for light demand, CO2 demand, difficulty and growth. Each row links to the page it was read from. Where Tropica leaves a field blank, the cell names the second source used instead.
Sources: Tropica plant pages, linked in each row; Aquasabi, Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Green’.