These plants only get .5 watts of light per gallon....
 

Some pictures of my live plants. Anyone want to explain why they are doing so well with only .5w/gal of lighting?

http://www.fishforum.com/userpix/825_frill1_2.jpg
http://www.fishforum.com/userpix/825_othersword1_2.jpg
http://www.fishforum.com/userpix/825_some_plants_2.jpg
http://www.fishforum.com/userpix/825_sword1_2.jpg

the amazon sword has been in there for over two years...mind you I prune it down fairly regularly or it would be much bigger. The other more scraggly lookin sword has been chillin in there for almost as long. The apono is only about 2 months old...and the frill plant started out about the size of the swords less than a month ago...same with the wisteria thats growing back next to it.

do you fert and/or use CO2?

they get some flourish added to the tank once or twice a week and every other week or so I fire up a DIY reactor to bubble the tank with co2 for a few hours...other than that...nothing...

Those are all low light plants. In low tech planted tanks you will have slower growth .This causes the plants to need less ferts.

The best thing about these tanks is that the longer they are running the nicer they will get.

This tank has about .70 wpg, non CO2, no ferts
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...n/litcorys.jpg

The plants look wonderfull! :D

They are all low light plants. As for the CO2, it's doing nothing for you. It will add a little CO2 to the water, but within a few minutes of removing it, all the CO2 will have left the tank. And if it's just going through an airstone into the tank, the bubbles just rise, and almost no CO2 is added to the water.

Ah but see I figured out how to make a diffuser to hold the co2 in the water column so in fact its not all leaving. And beyond that I find it hard to believe its doing nothing for me when every time I pump the co2 into my tank my plants all put on an inch by the next morning.