I have got good plants from sellers her on tpt, aqua bid, and Jacobs aquarium. I ordered amazon frogbit on eba* and it arrived all moldy and disgusting, but I ordered Vallisneria on eba* and it arrived very healthy snd lots of extras. So on eba*, or anywhere, I guess it depends on the seller.

 

Aquarium co-op has the most consistently healthy plants that I've found. Buce plant also has some good ones but it is more hit or miss.

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Came to mention aquarium co-op, used them countless of times and have always gotten super healthy plants that do great. Just keep in mind if you do go with aquarium co op you could get snails hitchhiking on the plants but I've always welcomed them as they help keep tanks clean. But from what I understand the only way to 100 percent avoid this is tissue cultured plants

 

There are sometimes good options at big box stores like petco and petsmart. Check out their selection of tissue culture plants. As long as they are not melted or brown they do pretty well. I've got some really nice anubias and surprisingly a few good sword plants. It helps if you can find out what day their plant shipments come in and get there before they get picked clean. No pests is a big plus...

 

Thanks. Next time I go into Petco, I will ask about shipment day. Should I stay away from the "tube" plants?

 

Aquatic farmer tissue cultures are pretty widely available for online ordering and do very well (mine came through modern aquarium).

 

My first go-to: For Sale section here on the forum. Then the Want To Buy section if I think someone may have what I'm looking for but hasn't posted it.

Then I hit up tried and true sites like Green Leaf Aquariums and Aqua Forest Aquarium. They both always have a ton of tissue culture varieties and are good at shipping in hot and cold temperatures.

Glass Aqua is also a source for tissue cultures.

I don't want to get into vendor reviews but Aquarium Plants dot com also has some good options on occasion.

Once you get into the hobby a bit more, you'll find that hobbyists almost always have the best stuff.

Also have to second what @Griznatch suggested. I've routinely found great tissue culture options at Petco and PetSmart. Even the occasional tubed Anubias or Fern that's in good shape. It's hit-or-miss but always worth a look or two to see what's available if you're already there.

 

Almost ready to set up my first low tech tank! I have everything I need to get started except for.....the plants! My lfs has a horrible selection of snail infested crap and my local Petco isn't much better. Does anyone here order online? Looking for the go to places with good quality, healthy plants and the ones to stay away from. Not looking for anything special, just healthy and easy to grow beginner plants. Thanks in advance!

I‘ve bought some great tissue culture plants from both PetCo and PetSmart. No snails and healthy.

 

Embrace the snails! 🐌🐌🐌

 

A few of the vendors being mentioned here - including one mentioned as being hit-or-miss - are banned from the forum for participating in the illegal collection and smuggling of Bucephalandra and other species in Borneo. I've edited a couple posts to remove mention of two of those vendors. One actually served jail time as a result of their nonsense and they're back at it again. The forum staff had to participate with APHIS in the US and Canadian customs officials to help isolate some of the problems.

So if anyone cares about ecology, ethics of the hobby and respecting the natural environment so it exists for future generations? Think twice about the kind of operations you're supporting. If you buy Buces, please don't do it blindly just because they're popular. Entire habitats and swaths of others have been obliterated just to collect them for aquarists who won't even be in the hobby a couple years from now.

Some of these drop shipper outlets look all pretty on Instragram and YouTube but their realities are a little more dark.

 

My personal experience in order of pref:

marcusfishtank
dustinfishtank
aquariumplants
aquariumplantsfactor
aquarium-cop
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In my experience all vendors have snail or snail eggs unless you buy tissue...

But in what fashion can we easily identify good vendors from illegal vendors? Is there a list kept somewhere ?

 

But in what fashion can we easily identify good vendors from illegal vendors? Is there a list kept somewhere ?

Generally, buyers should exercise common sense and do their own due diligence.

Is the vendor involved in the hobby? Do people post about them being hit-or-miss? Are they just Instagram hypers with a drop shipper account and outsourced ZenDesk customer support?

But when it comes to Buces, it's deeper. Buyers should put in the effort to understand where what they're buying has been sourced. If some smaller vender is selling Buces? They were probably obtained via unethical and illegal/borderline illegal means. If they're tissue-cultured? Not problematic. Do they claim they're farm-grown? If they don't provide evidence, that's probably not based in reality. Are they cheap and in bulk like with some Facebook sellers? Likely smuggled out of their native land, mislabeled and treated as "aquarium decorations" on customs paperwork with bogus or no phytosanitary documentation.

 

Karen Randall gave a talk to GSAS on the aquatic plants of Borneo. She said that if bucephalandra is not coming from a hobbyist you personally know, or from tissue culture, you should assume it is poached from the wild. Apparently even with "farmed" buce, what they're actually doing is wild harvesting plants then just letting them sit in water in a "farm" in Indonesia for a couple weeks before shipping to the US.

I have only ever bought TC buce because I don't want to support those ecologically destructive practices. The truth is that any aquatic plant vendor selling non-TC buce is probably getting buce of wild-collected provenance whether they like it or not. It's one of the reasons I am a fan of Aquarium Co-op, they don't sell bucephalandra or bolbitis because of the ethical implications of doing so.