Is Guppy Grass A Good Auxiliary Plant?

[Thibault Drake]

Hi! I’m setting up a 55 gallon and while going through tropicas website I noticed they had an article on auxiliary plants to put in a new tank to help stop algae from overtaking slow growing plants! So I had some guppy grass and I was wondering if that would do the trick? It’s a fast growing plant that absorbs nutrients so I’m assuming yes. I just wanted to know if I was correct in my assumption. Thanks!

 

[midnightwhale]

It should work! What I've found helpful is having a few different types of auxiliary plants and floaters.
Diana Walstad recommends this to deal with the alleopathy and different conditions in each tank.
Anyways, to answer your question, Guppy Grass fits the bill for an auxiliary plant.

 

[Thibault Drake]

It should work! What I've found helpful is having a few different types of auxiliary plants and floaters.
Diana Walstad recommends this to deal with the alleopathy and different conditions in each tank.
Anyways, to answer your question, Guppy Grass fits the bill for an auxiliary plant.

Ok! What other plants would you reccokend for this!

 

[tnrsmomma]

I've never heard the term "auxiliary plant" before. What does that mean?

 

[Thibault Drake]

I've never heard the term "auxiliary plant" before. What does that mean?

My knowledge is limited, but I think it’s a plant fast growing plant that you put in a new aquarium to suck up all the excess nutrients in the water. You keep it until all of the slower growing plants have had time to get big enough to consume nutrients. It’s actually really interesting, here’s a link to the tropica page explaining it:

 

[tnrsmomma]

My knowledge is limited, but I think it’s a plant fast growing plant that you put in a new aquarium to suck up all the excess nutrients in the water. You keep it until all of the slower growing plants have had time to get big enough to consume nutrients. It’s actually really interesting, here’s a link to the tropica page explaining it:

Thank you! I was guessing it was something like that but wasnt sure. Makes sense. I will check put the article. Live plants are such a fascinating (and awesome) addition to the balancing act of these little mini manmade ecosystems we create in our tanks. Always more to learn! I think I'm as obsessed with the plants as I am with the fish. Lol

 

[Donovan Jones]

Guppy grass is like herpes in aquariums. Extremely brittle stems in some plants and very hard to eradicate. I'd go with hornwort or dwarf water lettuce, maybe elodea

 

[midnightwhale]

Ok! What other plants would you reccokend for this!

What Donovan Jones recommend is good. Large floaters like Frogbit and Dwarf Water lettuce as well as some of the larger salvinias such as natans or cucullata are easy to remove and take out a lot of nutrients. Hygrophila Difformis, polysperma (illegal to sell or buy but if you have it, it works wonderfully), corymbosa are all nice plants to grow. Pearlweed, I'm not too sure on the actually scientific name of it, but it grows really well. Definitely look around on the BSTF on this forum and other forums, people usually sell the trimmings of their fast growing plants for free.
Just one note hornwort is a really nice plant but it can get messy if it gets unhappy, I've seen a betta rip his fins on unhappy hornwort hardening and it's a mess when it sheds it's needles.

 

[Katie993]

I bought Pearlweed for that purpose but I can't get mine to grow. Everything else in the tank is growing but its been in there for about a month and nothing.

 

[Pariah]

Guppy grass is like herpes in aquariums.

Not to hijack, but I just put fist sized chunk in my tank today. Did I just make a big mistake?

 

[Wrench]

Rush.(house plant)
Water lettuce.
Umbrella Cyperus.(house plant)

 

[midnightwhale]

I bought Pearlweed for that purpose but I can't get mine to grow. Everything else in the tank is growing but its been in there for about a month and nothing.

It's so weird. I bought pearlweed off of a website and expected a fast growing nitrate stem plant but I think I ended up with Monte Carlo. I ended up with a beautiful carpet instead of a midground plant. I later got a stem of what I thought was pearlweed from a guy selling Cherry Shrimp but that hasn't really flourished. I'm not sure if it can't compete with pre-established plants or it's just not having it for me. I've heard of other people having good success with it though.

 

[JettsPapa]

I bought Pearlweed for that purpose but I can't get mine to grow. Everything else in the tank is growing but its been in there for about a month and nothing.

It's so weird. I bought pearlweed off of a website and expected a fast growing nitrate stem plant but I think I ended up with Monte Carlo. I ended up with a beautiful carpet instead of a midground plant. I later got a stem of what I thought was pearlweed from a guy selling Cherry Shrimp but that hasn't really flourished. I'm not sure if it can't compete with pre-established plants or it's just not having it for me. I've heard of other people having good success with it though.

Plants are funny. I see some people say that guppy grass gets out of hand, but mine doesn't do much. My pearl weed, on the other hand, does fine and is making a dense mass.

It's not unusual for me to get significant differences in plant growth from one tank to another, all with the same water and similar lighting, or even from one side of the tank to the other. I have rotala in on the left side of my 65 that's almost reached the top of the tank. I planted some at the same time on the right side and it just sat there. I finally took it out last week.

 

[Katie993]

This was sold as a floating plant and the dwarf lettuce I bought was a mess when it showed up so I just let them pearlweed float. maybe that's part of it but my shrimp and fry sure do love it. I'm probably not fertilizing enough to have that much excess nutrients in the water either. I need to get better about that lol I bought a pack of trimmings of Colorata, Rotundifolia, and a bunch of other stem plants. The left side is doing great and I have to trim it almost weekly. The right, on the other hand, I haven't had to trim it at all. It's been weird.