Floating plants

angelcraze said:

I didn't see the pic of your tank, but there's a floating plant I love to use that often gets forgotten. It's Brazilian pennywort. I usually tie it with fishing line to stay along the front or back so it doesn't block light, but I keep it floating and it makes a nice canopy quickly. It grows like a long vine, so doesn't move all over. It will grow emersed on tall driftwood or the edge of the tank.

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I do like the look of that and that it can grow up the driftwood too.
Might try source some of that to try once this lockdown is eased alittle

Thanks!

PheonixKingZ said:

I find that Salvinia is a super good, fast growing floater. I really like the look of it.

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Yeh I liked the look of it and it grows super quick like you say so that's why I initially decided on it, plus the roots aren't super long which is good for my shallow tank.
I was just so sick of it getting battered about, so until I can source some way to stop it going everywhere I've decided to get rid of most of what was dying/looking unhealthy. I tried some air tubing but I don't think my piece was long enough as it didn't do much good haha

Cromid said:

Yeh I liked the look of it and it grows super quick like you say so that's why I initially decided on it, plus the roots aren't super long which is good for my shallow tank.
I was just so sick of it getting battered about, so until I can source some way to stop it going everywhere I've decided to get rid of most of what was dying/looking unhealthy. I tried some air tubing but I don't think my piece was long enough as it didn't do much good haha

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The roots will grow quite long, if given the chance. The roots of my Salvinia in my betta tank are at least 2 inches long so far.

How long did you leave your light for? Also, was there a lot of flow in the tank? If so, it is hard for them to grow in those conditions.

PheonixKingZ said:

The roots will grow quite long, if given the chance. The roots of my Salvinia in my betta tank are at least 2 inches long so far.

How long did you leave your light for? Also, was there a lot of flow in the tank? If so, it is hard for them to grow in those conditions.

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The lights on a 24 hour timer with dusk and dawn settings, but the bright light is from around 11am-3pm and then it'll start getting dim.
The flow is probably alittle more than I wanted, but being a long tank I had to get a more powerful filter to reach the full length of the tank, but not so powerful that the fish don't like it. Having the Betta means I can't have it too powerful anyway so I'm wary of that. But tbh I do think the flow might have been the issue, pushing the sal under the water and then making it difficult to grow

The roots never got more than maybe a couple of cm tbh, before they split up into smaller plants and then turned brown or fell into the water column.

Amazon frogbit. Make sure you get Limnobium laevigatum and not some of the other species that are sometimes sold as frogbit.

See below . Physically constrained to half the tank.

Retired Viking said:

I have several types of floating plants in my tanks but have not tried pennywort does it need any special care? I like the "canopy" does the roots hang down much? I just ordered 2 frogbite to try out.

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Not special, but it does enjoy high lighting, especially if using to wrap around driftwood @Cromid. I had it wrapping around driftwood in my 46g at one point, it did well as long as it wasn't shaded. It grows much faster for me floating though. The most trouble it causes is pruning out any bare vine parts. Or moving/speading the bushy areas so they don't block light.

It will grow roots about 1 inch maybe? About 5 or 6 little roots per leaf. But I think my fish might nibble at it? It smells like an herb or spice when you break a vine when propagating. I have it currently floating in the background of my 120g. Maybe this pic helps?

Thank you, you have given me another plant to think about adding to my tank.

Pennywort is indeed a nice floating plant. I find it does very well, then takes a slowdown and all but disappears, then it can rebound. Here is what a tank with the surface covered with Brazilian Pennywort looks like.