Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fishtank Filtration and Cycling => Topic started by: Fiona on March 20, 2016, 09:21:28 PM
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This might seem a silly question but I have to ask.
I've just added some amazonian frogbit to my intended shrimpery in an attempt to reduce the nitrates. In the past I haven't had much luck growing this plant because of the surface agitation required to improve oxygenation for the fish.
So my question is this. Do I need the filter agitating the surface or can I rely on the plants that are growing to oxygenate the water sufficiently for shrimp?
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It is possible to keep fish - and shrimps - in a tank with no surface movement provided the tank is understocked. But slow surface movement should not cause too many problems with frogbit.
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Its quite hard to adjust the filter, with the outlet trough faced up, even with the venturi control turned low the frogbit is still doing circuits. I guess I need to fiddle. I was hoping photosynthesis would sufficiently oxygenate the water.
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I've seen people construct a floating plant holder, with suckers and airline, to stop their plants from dancing around the surface of the tank.
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I've got frogbit in my puffer tank, which has 2 filters and surface movement. It doesn't appear to be a problem. It's the same in the danio/platy/cory tank, which has quite a bit of surface movement. In each case the frogbit has floated around and come to rest against some of the silk plants that reach the surface, with the frogbit roots dangling into the rest of the plants.
:)
The water lettuce seems to be a bit more delicate though.
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Yes, provided the Frogbit can come to rest somewhere it will be OK. Its roots should grow longer and hang down, the longer they get the more they can hang on to other plants etc. It grows well in 7 of my 9 tanks, one of the others has the filter in the hood, while the other has a filter that is more than twice the power required for the tank. The second tank has Zebra danios, WCMM and barbs which all seem to enjoy the fast flow. I've tried Frogbit in these several times but it won't survive in either.
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The majority seems to have settled on the opposite side of the filter.
I have used the airline and suction pad to contain it before, I might give it another go. I've never had much luck with frogbit, I'm wondering if the heat from the lighting could damage it? I have some LED lights that need to go in the tank, maybe they'd be a better option.
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I don't think the heat from the lights will have any effect, after all it does comes from the tropics. My experience is that it needs to stay still. All floating plants are necessarily from still or very slow flowing waters, they wouldn't last long in a fast river, they'd end up in the sea! In one of my faster surface flow tanks, they collect behind the spray bar and do well there.
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Okey dokey. I guess I'll wait and see what happens I guess.
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Instead of 10 large plants I now have a myriad of small ones. This happened last time I tried growing frogbit, eventually it died off. Most annoying.
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The small ones should grow into big ones if the conditions are OK. That's how frogbit reproduces. It only takes a few weeks for my tank surface to become covered with it after reducing to just a few plants.
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It seems in my case that any movement is too much movement.
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I find that the roots of one plant tend to catch on something such as the leaves of a plant growing just under the surface and it comes to a halt. This first plant then acts as a sort of starter, others catch onto it and I end up with a raft of them in one part of the tank which slowly gets bigger and bigger as the plants reproduce.
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I've not long planted the tank so there's nothing high enough yet. I've moved the inlet trough so it's facing down, there's nothing in the atm apart from a nerite and I'm sure there'll be enough O2 in there for that.
Its killing me not moving the shrimps in but I really do want the planting sorted first. I might have to replace the dwarf lobelia with a low growing crypt. Patience is a virtue so they say. 'They' must have been really patient buggers! ::)
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I've seen people construct a floating plant holder, with suckers and airline, to stop their plants from dancing around the surface of the tank.
I did stumble across a floating plant holder that stuck to the inside of the tank with a suction cup. But I can't remember were I saw it :-[, I think it was on ebay or amazon.
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Thanks Alex, I'll have a look. I have made one with airline and a connector, you could see it from outside the tank which I didnt like
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Found it!
If you all ready haven't.
http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/3x-Aquatic-Plant-Pot-Bowl-Holder-with-Suction-Cup-Aquarium-Fish-Tank-Live-Plant-/201323072293?nav=SEARCH
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Ah thank you, I did see those but they wouldn't be big enough.
I've been looking at images and what I bought off ebay seems to be water lettuce although it was listed as amazonian frogbit. ???
Maybe that's why I'm having such a problem. Littlefish did say she had a problem with water lettuce.
Which raises the question where the heck to I buy true amazonian frogbit?
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What I have that was purchased as frogbit has round and relatively thick leaves. So thick that you can't really bend a leaf as it would snap. My frogbit seems fine in water with a lot of movement and just collects in a corner and carries on growing.
The plants I purchased as water lettuce are much more delicate. It also has round leaves, but these are smaller and much finer leaves (which are flexible) compared to the frogbit. The water lettuce seem to be doing much better now I've moved them to the sail tank, which has much less water movement.
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I think I definitely have water lettuce, does the frogbit have glossy leaves? What I have in the tank has matt bluey green leaves.
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Amazon frogbit generally has rounded leaves that lie flat on the water surface, almost like giant duckweed. True water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) leaves are raised up slightly above the water surface and slightly more triangular. There is also Salvia natans which is generally smaller. The frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) is the only one I have that has survived and thrived long term in my tanks. You can see them all on the Tropica aquarium plants web site in the "easy" section.
If you can get a picture, it might be possible to tell which you have.
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Hi Fiona.
I took a bit of each out of the tanks. The "frogbit" is on the left and the "water lettuce" is on the right.
Apart from size, leaf thickness etc., you could also have a look at the roots. My frogbit seems to have long, stringy roots, and the water lettuce has branched, feathery roots.
Not sure how much this helps.
:)
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What I have is on the right in your piccy, thankee it did help :) Guess I need to find some real frogbit now. I've attached a pic of mine, as you can see the plants arent looking too happy. The yellow you see on the edges of some leaves eventually spreads and the leaves rot off.
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None of these look like the true water lettuce which is at least as big as the frogbit, if not quite a bit bigger. I had lots of it in my young fishkeeping days when it was the only floating plant generally available. The small one might possibly be Salvinia natans.
Again, the perils of using English names ................
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I can understand why you were having trouble with the water movement. The water lettuce I have has only really started growing since I moved some into the snail tank and the rest into the betta tank. Whereas the frogbit has grown in the puffer, tiger barb and temperate tanks.
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The plants were considerably bigger when I first had them Richard, the outer leaves rotted off and the smaller plants were connected to the larger by a threadlike stem but they all broke off too.
Well I've found some true amazonian frogbit on amazon ironically, so that'll arrive next week. Shame I can't use our native frogbit, I have tons of that starting to grow again in the pond.
Thanks for all the help folks :)
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Look at the pictures on Tropica aquarium plants, you'll see what real water lettuce looks like :
http://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Pistiastratiotes(128PL)/4570
The big photo with leaves poking up shows what I used to have, although the site says that it makes flat rosettes in an aquarium, leaves always stand up above the water to some extent.
Nothing like anything in the photos put on here.
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I've seen that for sale and it looks nothing like mine. There are water lettuce described as a dwarf variety. However I've just found this on a website: "Growth depends upon conditions. The so-called ‘Dwarf’ Pistia stratiotes is not a distinct species but simply due to less-than-ideal conditions of light and nutrients. Dry, curling ends of leaves are typically due to low water vapor. Also it is badly affected by drops of water formed by condensation on the lid of the tank."
So I'm guessing mine is stunted from less than ideal conditions
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It looks very pretty with the leaves sticking up.
I guess part of the problem is buying stuff of amazon, ebay, etc., where (as you say) English/common names are used, with no reference to the latin.
So far I'm just generally high-fiving myself to get anything to grow in tanks where I've always used artificial plants and concentrated on the fish. Even my bunched plants that I just stuck in the sand have started to root.
I'm seriously considering actually planting my 125L, now I've upgraded the axolotls and before I move the tiger barbs in.
:)
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Fiona, I'm sure yours isn't water lettuce. The true water lettuce does suffer from dried out leaves, because they stick up above water level. I think it used to do better when we had different lights which were further from the top of the water. With most tanks these days there is very little gap between the tubes and the water surface which means that the leaves are very close to the hot tubes. Maybe it's a plant that would do better with LEDs which give off very little heat.
Looking at the pictures on the Tropica site you can see how it gets its name, the sticking up leaves do look a little like a lettuce, whereas those plants with leaves flat on the surface look nothing like any lettuce I've ever seen!
I don't think the LFS shops are any better than EBay etc for getting the names correct.
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Fiona, I'm sure yours isn't water lettuce. I don't think the LFS shops are any better than EBay etc for getting the names correct.
I guess we can only hypothesise Richard, you've grown water lettuce and don't recognise my plant as such, however I've found evidence to suggest it may indeed be 'stunted' water lettuce which is barely surviving in my tank and therefore not growing into a lettuce.
I will be giving up on the blasted stuff and I might try and get a refund while I'mm at it. What we all agree on is that it isn't amazonian frogbit.