# "Best" floating plants?



## Tylt33 (Feb 14, 2010)

Hi all, I'm pretty new to this planted tank thing. I'm wondering, is there a clear "favorite" floating plant? I'm hoping to get hatchets and would like to provide them with some cover. I've read about duckbit and water hyacinth and a few others.

My tank:

75g
Low light/low tech (24w LED strip)
3 dKh 11 dGh
~78 degrees

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!!


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## lighter (May 24, 2005)

My favourite are frog bits . Duckweeds gets a little too messy due to their small size at times.


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## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

Depends on your conditions. 

Love frogbit for how reliable it is, big enough leaves to easily thin--but it's root growth tends to be less lux than I'd like, and the color is just okay. 

Red root floaters are amazing--so long as you've got high enough light to bring out their color. Otherwise, just okay. 

Lots of gorgeous salvinias, but they're banned in some areas as being invasive and don't do well with heavy flow. 

Asian watergrass develops amazing root structure, but I've had issues with leaves melting and it's oversized for most of my tanks. Pretty cool, though, when other floaters get caught up in it creating a sort of floater raft.


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## zoo minsi (Jan 1, 2006)

Knotyoureality said:


> Love frogbit for how reliable it is, big enough leaves to easily thin--but it's root growth tends to be less lux than I'd like, and the color is just okay.
> 
> Red root floaters are amazing--so long as you've got high enough light to bring out their color. Otherwise, just okay.


+1 to this
i love my red root floaters in one tank, there very red and lush in my other not so much. depends on your set up. so im taking the out and replacing with frogbit cause it grows like mad. watch for a raok, floaters seem to show up pretty frequently. maybe try a few out for cheap, just stay away from duckweed. you will learn to hate it.


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

Can't go wrong with dwarf water lettuce. It develops nice looking root systems.


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## hydrosparky (May 1, 2012)

Amazon frogbits for the hatchets may be better. Just my opinion.


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## greenman857 (Feb 25, 2012)

+1 on frogbit, it seems to adjust it's size depending on light levels, is easy to control (remove) and looks pretty cool.
Red Root Floaters : Can be hard to grow IMO
Duckweed: PITA
Salvinia: Pretty nice but comes in second for PITA
Asian Water Grass: Rhizo... I've just recently played around with this but it to can become a PITA mainly b/c it produces really long roots and runners
Stuff like Water Hyacinth and Water lettuce needs really high light or it fares pretty poorly..
I'm sure there's more and remember this is my 1/2 cents worth...
Also note Frogbit is one of the easiest to acquire, there's a reason for that.


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## AirstoND (Jun 17, 2011)

Forget duckweed for a 75gal, go with frogbit & dwarf water lettuce. Consider lilies, hyacinth, and lotus depending on what your light setup is. 

You do have a large tank, so I would go with the lilies, hyacinth, and lotus.


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## Miles (Sep 9, 2011)

If you want to provide big roots for cover for your fish, get some dwarf water lettuce. I have TONS with massive roots if you want some. I currently have a RAOK open with some of that up for grabs, frogbit is my favorite though just for its looks on the surface, it also has decent sized roots but not as good as dwarf water lettuce.


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## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

There's also nothing stopping you from having a variety of floaters in your tank. 

My main tanks have 4-6 types of floaters mixed together, really like the variety of texture and color it provides.


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## lighter (May 24, 2005)

Miles said:


> If you want to provide big roots for cover for your fish, get some dwarf water lettuce. I have TONS with massive roots if you want some. I currently have a RAOK open with some of that up for grabs, frogbit is my favorite though just for its looks on the surface, it also has decent sized roots but not as good as dwarf water lettuce.
> View attachment 56240


That's a big pool of it. Just want to ask if this will block the lights from reaching your aquatic plants in the tank?


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

lighter said:


> That's a big pool of it. Just want to ask if this will block the lights from reaching your aquatic plants in the tank?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


It will but it's easy to remove if you want to thin it out. Feed it to your herbivorous fishes or give it away.


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## mistahoo (Apr 25, 2012)

lighter said:


> That's a big pool of it. Just want to ask if this will block the lights from reaching your aquatic plants in the tank?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Definitely will inhibit light coming into the tank. I find the best way to keep floaters nice and tidy is by using air line tubing or fishing line. That way I can control how I want the floaters to look and allow light into the tank for the other plants.


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## biggerbang (Sep 16, 2012)

Is there anyway to prevent floating plants from going all over the place if I have a canister filter? No matter which way I pointed the outflow, my floating plants ended up getting blown underwater and slowly decaying...


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## driftwoodhunter (Jul 1, 2011)

No one has mentioned it, but I use Brazillian pennywort as a floater. It happened by accident - I had some planted in my dirt low tech (no Co2, low light) 125g tank, and it grew so thick & fast it hit the surface in a month or two. In the meantime it also branched out densely. I replanted some in the substrate, but the bunches I let float look great. 1" long clusters of roots at every node, sparse enough for light dappled light to penetrate (which my crypts love). The bulk of mine floats in front of a Marineland Emperor 400 and doesn't mind the turbulence (I keep the water level low enough to create a slight waterfall effect). Just another option.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

biggerbang said:


> Is there anyway to prevent floating plants from going all over the place if I have a canister filter? No matter which way I pointed the outflow, my floating plants ended up getting blown underwater and slowly decaying...


Have you tried rounding them up in a circle of airline tubing or fencing off a section of your tank?


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## Tylt33 (Feb 14, 2010)

driftwoodhunter said:


> No one has mentioned it, but I use Brazillian pennywort as a floater. It happened by accident - I had some planted in my dirt low tech (no Co2, low light) 125g tank, and it grew so thick & fast it hit the surface in a month or two. In the meantime it also branched out densely. I replanted some in the substrate, but the bunches I let float look great. 1" long clusters of roots at every node, sparse enough for light dappled light to penetrate (which my crypts love). The bulk of mine floats in front of a Marineland Emperor 400 and doesn't mind the turbulence (I keep the water level low enough to create a slight waterfall effect). Just another option.


That sounds really cool; I just purchased some DWL and Frogbit, I'll have to add that to the mix!!!


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

RRF in my experience hasn't done well with more prolific species like DWL and salvinia, which overgrow it in constricted waters. Leave it as part of a dense layer while you're on vacation and you may return to a substrate clogged with dead RRF leaves. 

It's easily blown to the bottom in high flow too.

Azolla is a novelty but too small individually to be interesting. 

Duckweed isn't called aquatic herpes for nothing.

My favorites are AF and DWL for their root structures which my shrimp love. Gets them moving throughout the water column.


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## sessionthree (Aug 24, 2012)

driftwoodhunter said:


> No one has mentioned it, but I use Brazillian pennywort as a floater.


+1, I have some in my 120g and it is really attractive. I even have a branch that is growing out the back of the tank and up... I told my wife I was just going to let it grow up and over the wall into the kitchen.  The roots at each leaf node look really cool.


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## driftwoodhunter (Jul 1, 2011)

sessionthree said:


> +1, I have some in my 120g and it is really attractive. I even have a branch that is growing out the back of the tank and up... I told my wife I was just going to let it grow up and over the wall into the kitchen.  The roots at each leaf node look really cool.


Yes, it surprised me how good it looks, and it's too big to get choked up in the filtration - now I'm going to use starts of it in my other tanks...


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## Barbgirl (Feb 24, 2012)

Hygroryza aristata!

Its really unique looking and I find it easier to work with rather than duckweed and DWL. Kinda like floating corn


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## driftwoodhunter (Jul 1, 2011)

Barbgirl said:


> Hygroryza aristata!
> 
> Its really unique looking and I find it easier to work with rather than duckweed and DWL. Kinda like floating corn


I don't know what I do wrong with that - I've been sent it twice and I've killed it twice. Pretty darned quickly, too. What's the secret?


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

Yeah Barbgirl, tell us your secret to growing Hygroryza aristata lol. The one's you shipped to me are slowly putting out new leaves. It's in it's own tank with macros, micros, and cfl lighting. However, a piece I had before was growing much faster in nutrient deficient water.


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## digitallinh (Jun 22, 2011)

I float water sprite


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## greenman857 (Feb 25, 2012)

Azolla: watch out IME its worse than duckweed
RRF: I have only success in my tub out in my greenhouse with really high light and other floaters do seem to crowd it.
Broad Leaf Water Sprite is a great floater I think with larger and smaller plants appearing.
Hygroryza aristata: I've had good luck with this in high light and nothing special, it does grow really long roots which shrimp seem to love. It does produce long runners which can get submerged and rot though.
I've had Salvinia and Riccia and Frogbit all growing together that have really nice mixed look, but as with all floaters expect regular removal or you'll end up densely over-crowded.


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## Tylt33 (Feb 14, 2010)

I'm going with a combo of DWL, Frogbit, and Brazilian Pennywort... Hopefully it works out!


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## driftwoodhunter (Jul 1, 2011)

Tylt33 said:


> I'm going with a combo of DWL, Frogbit, and Brazilian Pennywort... Hopefully it works out!


let us know how you like it!


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## Barbgirl (Feb 24, 2012)

Haha honestly my secret is absurdly high like (which makes my tank an hair algae farm) and complete neglect :] I does micros when I remember and have never dosed macros cause I'm a poor college kid who is slowly saving for them. I am constantly finding shrimplets and baby endlers hiding in their roots.


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