Floating plants

[Chris.d514]

I would like to get some floating plants for both mine and my daughters tank. I was thinking maybe dwarf water lettuce for hers but want something with a little color as well. She has a 10 gallon tank with 2 25watt 6500 bulbs. For my tank I'm not sure what would work very well I have 2 15 watt bulbs that came with the tank. In my tank I have some bronze crypts and mondo grass. Any recommendations or know where I can find some floating plants?

[Totenkampf]

EK has been playing around with them lately. Be aware that they can choke the light off in smaller tanks pretty quickly. i had azolla and dwarf lillies in my 75 and the maintenance got to be a pain.

[decal]

Hard to go wrong with frog's bit. Pretty hardy, moderate growth rate making it easy to manage, and nice roots. There's also Hygroryza aristata. I just bought some online, I'll let you know my impression of it once it comes in. Stay the heck away from duckweed, it's a scourge.

Btw mondo grass is not a true aquatic plant. It may last a while but ultimately it'll die off. My mother has a lot of it in her garden, lol. Get some dwarf sagittaria subulata or chain sword if you want something like that.

[pedropete]

agreed - stay away from duckweed. i got a small amount of frogbit roughly a month ago, and i'm ready to give away all the new ones that i've grown. i have red root floaters (not sure of name), but not enough yet to give away. let me know if you are interested in frogbit, anyone! :)

[davemonkey]

Riccia is a natural floater that often gets overlooked as a floater because it tends to look so nice underwater. It will form a nice wad of carpet as a flaoter and it's easy to trim it to the size you want...just cut or tear it to the desired size as often as you wish.

Recommendations on where to get some floating plants...any lake or large pond locally is bound to have some type of floating plant (even if it's just Salvinia). A group of us are going to the San Marcos River in 3 weeks and you can find some there as well. (Check out the HAAPS section for more details on that...just click on the name in my signature.)

[Tiapan]

I would love some frogbit. i have had floating before, had some duckweed hitchhike on the plants i got at the auction. no worries though, i can feed excess to my cichlids.