Frustrated with floating plants

[fishywoo]

Hey all, I've got frog bit in a 5 gallon shrimp tank, water lettuce in a 10 gallon Betta tank. I use to have hornwort and do miss it, but all of these plants are frustrating me.

They suck up most of the nutrients and left unchecked take over the top of the tank and I have to remove handfuls of them.

I also have tiger Lily? In the ten gallon. It grew a lot at first covering the water surface, but since I cut it back it's stayed as a little underwater lily bush.

Are there better options? How do you manage your tank with substrate plants and floating plants?

Maybe I'm just lazy, but it'd be nice to not have to disturb the tanks so much when it's overgrown and happens so quickly.

 

[umiz00mi]

I'm not understanding what the issue is here

 

[Fishfur]

It is possible that you’re a tad lazy . You wouldn’t be the only one .

It is the nature of most floating plants to fill up the space & require thinning. It’s not something that’s avoidable if you use real plants. That they suck up nitrates is equally unavoidable & usually a big benefit so that aspect of what you’re saying makes no sense to me.

Floating plastic plants need no thinning but for me they definitely lack the esthetic appeal of the real ones.

Tiger lotus prefers to send up floating leaves which certainly can provide shade as other floaters do. It’s said to be a very heavy feeder especially when it has lots of floating leaves because those leaves can take carbon from air so it’s not limited for carbon.

So either you’re periodically trimming off those leaves to control how dense the shade is, or you decide to keep it totally submerged & in that case it’s necessary to trim off every leaf that shoots for the surface. If they are removed as soon as they show up, the plant will produce more submersed leaves.

Every healthy leaf that’s removed can be planted as a cutting & will produce new lily sprouts. Best to trim the petiole to just a few inches in length if you choose to plant them.

Bottom line - live plants need nutrition though not necessarily supplemental nutrition and because they grow they are never going to be maintenance free.

So I fear the only solution if you don’t want to trim or thin out plants or feed them is to have no living plants.

 

[3Fishnight]

Hi fishywoo. I can relate with your problem of not feeling like getting your hands wet. Although, even the laziest of us ( i am the foremost ), can dip our hands in and trim/ grab overgrowth/floaters. If i can you certainly can. Of course you have the choice to just leave it and let it become a glass box with plants and algae instead of a fish tank.

 

[Leeman75]

Hi fishywoo. I can relate with your problem of not feeling like getting your hands wet. Although, even the laziest of us ( i am the foremost ), can dip our hands in and trim/ grab overgrowth/floaters. If i can you certainly can. Of course you have the choice to just leave it and let it become a glass box with plants and algae instead of a fish tank.

That pic is making me miss my old 5 gallon tank. It didn't look too far off that in it's hay day. Best I've ever done with crazy plant growth! Kinda thinking of finding some way to revisit that...

 

[3Fishnight]

That pic is making me miss my old 5 gallon tank. It didn't look too far off that in it's hay day. Best I've ever done with crazy plant growth! Kinda thinking of finding some way to revisit that...

Thats the i gave up on fighting hair algae tank. Some gnarley brazillian pennywort growth tho!

 

[fishywoo]

Yeah I guess I'm getting lazy. Haha

Love the wild look. =) I wanted stem plants to over grow and shadow the top, but I kept messing them up.

Not sure if I'm just looking for something different to do too. Everytime my floaters over grow I resent them. Lol

 

[BlackOsprey]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Overgrowth is just a part of floating plants if they're doing well. I harvest them from my tanks regularly. I'm not too bothered by this, since I use the plants to feed my isopods. Nutrient-rich plants get converted into nice isopod compost.

If they annoy you so much, just remove em. Or use the harvests for something useful, like feeding them to other animals or chopping them up to grow infusoria.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

I feed it to the goldfish But good to know it's good infusoria chow too. I tend to just toss everything not duckweed into the gardens.
I want to get some azolla at some point for one of the ponds. I like the look of it.

 

[ProudPapa]

You might give pearl weed or guppy grass a try. They are less likely to cover the surface than traditional floating plants.

 

[Fishfur]

I feed it to the goldfish But good to know it's good infusoria chow too. I tend to just toss everything not duckweed into the gardens.
I want to get some azolla at some point for one of the ponds. I like the look of it.

Azolla can be very attractive but can be just as big a nuisance as duckweeds.

I wish it hadn’t been banned here.

 

[BPSabelhaus]

Azolla can be very attractive but can be just as big a nuisance as duckweeds.

I wish it hadn’t been banned here.

I just want it for a couple of the outdoor tubs. I grow plenty of duckweed in the Endler tanks to feed them There's one tub that the birds don't use for bathing/ drinking mainly because it's hard to access. A solid surface of azolla would look cool and the purplish underside when disturbed matches the violets surrounding it.
Sidenote observation. The outdoor tubs that have solid scud populations also don't grow duckweed well. Water lettuce, spangles etc... do fine, weather permitting. I bet the scuds are munching on the duckweed growth.

 

[Fishfur]

When I had it years ago it grew like weeds & would pile up on itself if not ruthlessly thinned.

Images show it in my tanks, one where it’s starting to turn red with more intense lighting & one with the green you get with less intense lighting.

 

[FishDin]

Along with regularly removing some you could corral them to keep them in a designated area of the surface to keep the surface clear over the underwater plants. Use low-light plants in the area below the floaters.

If you search online for something like "aquarium floating plant corral" you'll find plenty of products and DIY ideas as well.

 

[fishywoo]

Along with regularly removing some you could corral them to keep them in a designated area of the surface to keep the surface clear over the underwater plants. Use low-light plants in the area below the floaters.

If you search online for something like "aquarium floating plant corral" you'll find plenty of products and DIY ideas as well.

I actually do have those and maybe should use them again in the 10 gallon, but it didn't work well in the 5 gallon. It's a marine land portrait tank so not as much surface space. That's probably why it feels like such a pain.

Maybe I need to at least try something different for that tank. Just have my shrimp and mts in there, but wanted to block some of the light and they seem to really like the underside. It's also nerve racking though when I take the over growth out. I'm always worried a shrimp gets stuck here or there. I do shake and dip them before taking them out, but then that also disturbs them. =\

I'm also worried about taking the floating plants out completely because I fear I'll regret it then not have it anymore. Lol I guess I should get over it. The frog bit may be sacrificed.