Accidentally made my own "dwarf" water lettuce

Hey everyone, so this is a story of caution as well as what can happen when you do stuff without knowing what you're doing. I don't recommend it, but sometimes trying things without being constrained by pre-existing notions can yield some interesting results.

So, first of all, I again don't recommend any of this at home, you may kill your plants or fish if you're not careful.

When I started my 20 gallon tank, one of the first plants I got was some water lettuce. At the time, the tank was almost brand new, and I was also flooding it with so much light that I was getting some pretty good algae buildup on plants and the tank glass. Luckily it was just the usual, unavoidable kinds like brown algae (diatoms), green spot algae and hair algae, but I thought they were still beginning to affect how much light and nutrients my plants could get. I knew that it would go away eventually, but didn't want my plants to suffer and be smothered by the algae while I waited for things to balance out, because I figured them being smothered would just make things take longer.

So, I looked to the ever-helpful internet (sense my slight sarcasm) to see what I could do. The best solution seemed to be dipping the algae-covered parts of plants in a weak hydrogen peroxide solution, but I didn't have hydrogen peroxide handy. So, I decided to try the other method I found was widespread, a very weak bleach solution that would kill off the algae in about 3 minutes. I mixed up the solution and started dipping plants, which mostly went well- Anubias seemed to be squeaky clean after dipping and rinsing, and amazon swords didn't seem to mind too much either. It was mostly these broad-leaved plants that had bad algae on them, but I had noticed that the water lettuce roots had also begun to be covered by diatoms and hair algae.

I hummed and hawed for a while, then decided that I could replace them for $1 each anyway, so I went for it. I think I only kept them in the solution for half the time, then tried to rinse them as best I could. Right away I could tell that they didn't like this treatment much, because the leaves began to fold up toward the center and were standing nearly vertically... Uh-oh. Their roots did look much better without all the brownish gunk clogging them up, but I didn't know if I had just killed them or what. All other plants except Hygrophila didn't seem to mind the dip, and I'm sure not having algae covering their leaves helped.

In the month since then, I have been watching my water lettuce, and it has never seemed to really recover fully. The main plant stays pretty small, and the little runners which it sends out start out tiny and don't get very big before they tend to break off. The roots have only gotten to about 6" long so far for the biggest ones. I was beginning to think that there may just not be enough nutrients for them to grow, but I recently got a new water lettuce plant and it is growing and sending off runners normally.

Has anyone else ever stunted a plant in a way that it seems its offspring carry on the trait? I'm not quite sure how I did this, and it doesn't really make sense... wouldn't the affect of the bleach dip only influence the plant that was actually dipped? Or could it have messed with something like gene expression that is now getting passed down through the reproduction process? I don't know if chemicals work this way... maybe it's just that none of them have had a chance to grow to a good size due to the surface agitation, and just keep breaking off when they are small due to turbulence.

I kind of like that they stay small, but I'm just wondering, what could the bleach have done to the original that would make new plants stay small as well?

you may have simply gotten ahold of a recessive trait, think back to HS punnet squares either way id keep it going and see what happens if you take some runners and start new mother plants elsewhere.

Hmmmmm,

What comes to my mind is the use of all those funky chemicals probably sickened the plant dwarfing it. As to manipulating its DNA structure so it will now always stay dwarfed along with any offspring the plant may produce I don't think so. BUT, if I am wrong then you possibly created a NEW plant. Lol!

Reading your post the problem seemed to have started at the point you noticed excessive amount of light creating a ton of algae. In response to this the correct choice would have been floating plants & being patient, then let the system work itself out. Either raising the light, reducing the time of illumination and the use of floating plants, the plants would suck up any excessive amount of nutriance the algae was using as food but you would need a bunch, these would also filter the light. These are the tools I use in my tanks. These tools work anytime. Other floating plants that work well are red root floaters, and Savinia. I know you were using water lettuce but did you have a lot in there?

I have found that water lettuce size is very light dependent. "Average" aquarium light will give small plants. If you up the intensity then they will grow larger and faster. Outside in my ponds they get double handful size, until the cold weather kills them.

Yeah, I know I should have just been patient, but I wasn't

I will try to get some pic next time I remember to, I did put some in my greenhouse tank and it still seems small, but I don't know. It's kind of cool though, I don't know if anyone else will want it but I like having small water lettuce! The big ones' roots get so huge

I have HUGE water lettuce in one of my tanks - about 5" across I'd guess. And then in other tanks it doesn't get more than an inch across. The two size determination factors for me are light and current. The more light, the bigger they get. The more surface water flow, the smaller they'll stay. Floating plants don't like a heavy current - it ruins their mojo.

Maybe that's the main issue then, because I do have a lot of surface water flow with my ghetto HOB filter. I wonder if it's the physical stress of the water that makes them unhappy, or something about more dissolved air maybe?

pbmax wrote:I have HUGE water lettuce in one of my tanks - about 5" across I'd guess.  And then in other tanks it doesn't get more than an inch across.  The two size determination factors for me are light and current.  The more light, the bigger they get.  The more surface water flow, the smaller they'll stay.  Floating plants don't like a heavy current - it ruins their mojo.

Correct! I too had to change the water return when I planted one of my tanks to divert flow away from the surface. This made a huge difference in how the floaters grew.