How do you keep your aquarium plants alive?

Question:

I was wondering how you keep your plants alive in your tanks? Is it pretty much the same way you take care of your fish but without feeding? I use soft well water, fish conditioner, and have a filter in my tank. I'll be getting a heater next week. One of the two kinds of plant I have is Dracaena sanderiana. I'm not sure about the other one. It has big leaves, and reminds me of those plants you hang and they grow down like ivy.

Answers:

Edit: for a 5 gallon, you can get an anubias without any lights. They are very hardy and live forever.

first you need fluorescent lights,you can find those in any pet market,it has to be 3 to even 5 watts per gallon so do the math in your case you got a 5 gal tank so a 15watts lighttube should be good, but to do it the perfect way i would get two lighttubes one of sun-glo and a flora-glo thats a perfect combination the tube cost like 8$ each.second step you got buy fertilizer bottle and dose one or twise a week, those cost depend on the brand like 5$ to 10 $. Last step,apply co2 to the water ones a while, there is many ways to do it,google it. lights should be on 12 hours a day thats when they are doing fotosinteza, plants breath co2 and expell pure oxigen during the day when lights are on,at night they breath oxigen and expell co2 when lights a off. and thats how they work, more complicated than you imagine huu.

Good lighting and a CO2 system. One of the most important ingredients to a successful plant aquarium is strong lighting. As a general rule, 2-3 watts per gallon is sufficient for a well-planted aquarium.

By doing this, it will also promote the growth of algae.

You would need a pretty decent light. Keep it on for about 8 hours day. There is not much you need, although I would suggest this plant fertilizer liquid sort, they sell it at most pet stores.