What are your favorite aquarium plants under a foot tall?

Red tiger lotus!!! So fucking beautiful, I have one as a centerpiece in my 15g dwarf cichlid planted tank

Most of it is under a foot but it will put out lillypads that rise to water surface level

Anubia Nana petite, mosses such as mini pellia, subwassertang, marimo moss balls, I'll look at my tank and get ideas. I built a whole tank on this concept. Mini fissiden's, fuck Java moss and duckweed it's like cancer. Amazon swords are nice and easy if your tank is balanced or any slow grower will get algea.

Edit: Everyone seems to be mentioning loads of slow growing plants which won't solve your issue but cost a lot of money and headache/time.

You need plant growth enough to keep your nitrates as close to zero as possible, then light then nutrients. You can have 100 slow growing plants and your tank will still struggle to function cohesively. Balance, light, nutrients, and plant growth based on livestock count. I run high light tanks and low. Took a lot of learning and money when really it just took education. Followed by the hard path of trial and error to learn. Many people try to combat algea with eaters...

People don't realize how algea works with minimal or excessive nutrient count paired with light. That is a losing battle and the shrimp or fish you bought to eat only fuel the algea growth. I now grow co2 plants in a non co2 tank because I have found the Goldilocks zone for air flow, water flow and balanced the water. All of this is a shrimp tank, with bladder snails, hills-tream loach, assassin snails.

You won't know the nutrient profile of your tank until you start setting a base standard. Light needs a timer be strict ish start at 8 hours and set it to when you can watch the tank, that sets a base line, then nitrates to zero with a single rapid growth plant that's easy to manage, I like floating some hornwort super easy to manage blocks a bit of light to the slow growers and algeas small floaters plants get everywhere when you take some out, then watch for what plant deficiencies pop up as it might not be what you expect in your slow growers as whatever you think you know generally scrap it lol. Adjust slow a little nutrients is alot, more is not better. The smaller the tank the harder to manage consistently as parameters fluctuate so much faster.

I love crypts, java ferns, and valisneria, although val can grow more than a foot tall if you let it. Anything fast-growing can help control nitrates.

Another thing you can do is reduce your light brightness or have your light on for fewer hours a day. I usually keep my lights on eight hours a day and that, along with a good population of cherry shrimp and ramshorn snails keeps the algae under control.

I really like Bucephalandra. They are kind of slow growing but super hardy and even put out little flowers. And it stays relatively small while still spreading, I started with it on a piece of driftwood and it filled that up and then continued to spread off the log and started rooting into the substrate.

I really love Cryptocoryne when it starts to "carpet". It looks great and stays short. Also if you are having trouble with algae lowering the light intensity or leaving them on less is the best way to control it IMO.

I'd also like to hear opinions. I just set up a 10 gallon planted tank with Java ferns, a cryptocoryne, a dwarf water lily bulb, and some dwarf hair grass.

The dwarf hair grass is not doing well, turning white in many places. Not enough CO2? That would be a bummer, I'm not setting up an expensive CO2 infuser for a 10 gallon tank.

The others seem to be doing fine. Half on the java ferns are producing plantlets, the crypt sprouted a new leaf, and the lily is growing new sprouts every day.

What's that twisty plant you have there?

red root floater