In the photo to the left you can see how the large plants took over my 54 L aquarium:-) They have lots of roots hanging down under, providing hiding places for baby fish. In the photo to the right you can see roots hanging from a baby plant.
This plants, Ceratopteris pteridoides, is the broad-leaved water fern, or water sprite.
These plants usually grows fast, and they are light green, which I think look good. It also produces lots of baby plants :-)
It grows like a fern, the new leave lies rolled up in the middle, and straightens itself out from its rolled up position just like in any fern. So we call it a floating fern, since they like to float. I found out on the Internet that the Ceratopteris ferns are used for research. The largest plants I have are actually too large for my aquarium :-)
The biggest is about 40 cm across, and keeps growing. I don't know how big they can get but they definitely want a bigger aquarium than they have. I have lots of baby plants everywhere, in all of my aquaria.
In the photo to the left you can see how the large plants took over my 54 L aquarium:-) They have lots of roots hanging down under, providing hiding places for baby fish. In the photo to the right you can see roots hanging from a baby plant.
I tried to plant this one, but that didn't work.
I can get the feeling that this plant has a mind of its own, here it looks like it is trying to get out from its aquarium :-)
This is the fine-leaved water fern, and it grows well if planted. It can grow up to 60 cm high, if I am not misinformed, mine have already about 30 cm long leaves... All leaves comes from the bottom, since it is a fern :-)
To the right you can see a photo of two baby plants, one C. thalictroides and one C.
pteridoides.
This plant likes to float but can grow almost just as well when planted, unlike the bload-leaved fern. It is supposed to not grow as big as the other two. The plant in the photo to the right is well planted in the bottom of the tank.
Copyright: Eva Johansson.
Last update: 25th of September 2007.