Nano aquarium plants: small, slow plants for 5 and 10 gallon tanks
Oct 4, 2026 · 4 min read
Plants for a nano or 10 gallon tank: small anubias and bucephalandra, Cryptocoryne parva, mosses and a few floaters, sorted by height and growth rate.
The best plants for a nano tank stay short, grow slowly and need neither CO₂ nor strong light: Anubias nana, Bucephalandra, small java fern forms, Cryptocoryne parva and Cryptocoryne lucens, aquarium mosses, and a few small floating plants.
What to look for in a nano plant
Each plant page in the catalog gives the height and growth rate its source reports, and both matter more in a small tank. A tank 20 × 10 × 12 inches holds about 10 US gallons, so it has roughly 30 cm of height to fill; the aquarium volume calculator works it out for your dimensions. The plants in this guide are recorded at 15 cm (6 in) or less, most are rated slow, so they need little trimming, and all except the floaters are rated for low to medium light with no added CO₂.
Plants for wood and rock
Rhizome plants tied to a small piece of wood or a stone give a nano tank height without filling the substrate.
- Bucephalandra ‘Black Pearl’: 4 to 8 cm, slow, dark leaves.
- Bolbitis heteroclita: 5 to 10 cm, slow, lacy fronds.
- Anubias nana: 8 to 13 cm, slow. Buce Plant also sells a smaller petite form that it describes as a miniature for nano tanks.
- Java fern ‘Windelov’ and Java fern ‘Narrow’: 8 to 13 cm, slow. The standard java fern grows taller.
Tie or glue them on rather than burying the rhizome; see how to plant aquarium plants.
Plants for the substrate
- Cryptocoryne parva: 5 to 10 cm, slow, low to medium light. Buce Plant describes it as extremely slow and unlikely to outgrow its spot.
- Cryptocoryne lucens: 8 to 13 cm, narrow leaves.
- Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Pink Flamingo’: 5 to 15 cm.
- Dwarf hairgrass: 3 to 5 cm, for a grassy foreground. See carpet plants without CO₂ for more low carpets.
Crypts feed through their roots, so give them a root tab in plain gravel or sand.
Mosses
Christmas moss is recorded at 3 to 8 cm, and the other aquarium mosses stay low and spread over wood, rock or mesh. All are rated easy, for low to medium light, no CO₂, and mostly slow. They also suit a shrimp tank.
Floating plants
Small floaters such as red root floater (recorded at 3 to 10 cm) and Salvinia natans give a nano tank shade and surface cover. Both are rated fast-growing, so in a small tank they need regular thinning to keep part of the surface open.
Plants to skip in a nano tank
- Tall background plants: water sprite and hornwort are recorded at 15 to 38 cm, and jungle val grows taller still.
- Carpets that need CO₂, such as dwarf baby tears, unless the tank runs CO₂ and strong light.
Frequently asked questions
How many plants does a 10 gallon tank need?
There is no fixed number. A practical start is one piece of wood with an anubias or bucephalandra on it, a few crypts in the substrate and some moss, then add more once you see how they grow.
Do nano plants need fertilizer?
Start low, as Aquarium Co-Op advises in its fertilizer guide: a liquid fertilizer at a low dose for the rhizome plants and mosses, and root tabs for crypts in gravel. See the fertilizer guide.