should i put plants in my tank

Question
i have a three gallon plastic tank with two small chinese algae eaters a small house thing for them to hide in some fake grass and gravel. is my aquarium too small for real plants? do i need real plants? what do they do for fish? what kind of gravel or stuff do i need on the bottom of the tank?
thank you

Answer
Aquatic plants might work the only thing is they grow rapidly so I would suggest a bigger tank. You would have to leave the aquarium light on more which would produce more food for the algae eatersso that would work. You don't really need real plants as they take away the oxygen algae needs to grow in the tank and that could actually hurt your algae eaters more than help unless you feed them algae tablets. Some fish feed off of plants, but algae eaters rarely do. You could use normal gravel as long as you don't plan on changing it as the plants root if you change it and uproot them it is likely that they won't make it. I hope this helps!