What's your favorite Freshwater plant? Colorful, flowering, hardy??

I am hoping to find some ideas for new plants to add to my community tank and perhaps something that can stand up against cichlids.

Personally I like the large leafed plants and flowering plants. Lilies being my ultimate favorite both above and below water :3
Recently I seen a cute little purple/red plant at Petsmart and it has started a new idea...
A Rainbow tank!!!

Anywhoos.. Just curious as to what every ones favorites are?

PLEASE POST A PIC OR LINK ALONG WITH THE NAME!

Hi Ripples,

Ripples wrote:I am hoping to find some ideas for new plants to add to my community tank and perhaps something that can stand up against cichlids.

Are we talking about big earth digging cichlids? Plant ripping fish?
When I housed large cichlids & earth diggers the only plants I was successful with where Java moss, Java fern, & large Anubias species plants. These are hardy plants & are best to stand up against these type fish. I am changing out Java fern species in my large tank TODAY & will be taking these plants to aquarium co-op in Edmonds to either donate or get store credit for more plants. If you want them let me know maybe we can do a meet up!
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Ripples wrote:Personally I like the large leafed plants and flowering plants. Lilies being my ultimate favorite both above and below water :3
Recently I seen a cute little purple/red plant at Petsmart and it has started a new idea...
A Rainbow tank!!!

Some of my favorite plants are red in color. My Rotala Indica started out looking real shabby as a small transplant but when it matured it be came a magnificent wall with new growth being a red / pink in color.
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Lillys are a great plant I have 2 species. 1 is a Tiger Lilly, the other I forget its name but it's leaves are like military camo pattern green/reds. In the picture it is a small Lilly but it used to be HUGE but melted back to this size. These both will flower but one would need an open top tank, or a good 4 inches of space at the top.
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Another neat plant that adds a red are Red Root Floaters. This plant does have small white flowers. I yet to get mine to flower though. Under high light they grow pretty quick, I keep them well managed and in my tank the plant is just chilling in the corners, or stuck in little clusters under plants.
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There are just some of my favorite Red plants. I have a few more that I am trying to grow out but right now haven't had them long enough to brag about

I think we have some Anubias and Java fern and moss already but the Java fern and the moss are VERY slow growing! Lol We can always use more
I like the Java fern since it tends to root itself onto things and doesn't require being planted.
Oh and as for the cichlids we have, currently we have two 55 gals of Pundamillia Neyereirei and Electric yellow labs. They are separated by gender. As for smaller cichlid species, we have a sunspot Brevis, about 5+ masked Julies, two Orange flash Apisto's and a German Blue Ram.. Sadly when we got her and her mate her mate was already sick with dropsy so the move killed him within a few days so we need to find another boy.

I love how the rotala indica looks! It looks like a great plant to put in the community tank for the shrimp and fry to hide in give them a chance to escape the jaws of my goldfish. I refuse to get rid of him because he was from our wedding. He is already HUGE and I plan on helping him to get as big as we can support with our tanks and house!

Oh and we also have red root floaters and a few lily species though yours look prettier than ours do! We have one that was from one of those bulb packs you can buy at WalMart and then the dwarf species we had gotten at the swap meet--- if anyone remembers us, we were the ones with all the guppies and BN pleco fry, I want to know the scientific name for these lilies you traded to us!

I have been looking online at Petsmart to try and find the plant that I had seen but so far I haven't had any luck :/


Here are a list of links to lilies that I found online! (I will post pics when I get on my lap top.. Too lazy for that right now)

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[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] --- entire list of Nymphoides lily plants!!
and frogbit... But everyone knows that that looks like lol

It looks like a good number of the lily species suitable for aquariums are under the Nymphoides Genus. I have the Nymphoides Taiwan but I was told it is like the banana plant though it does look like a lily for sure
Anyways, today is my day off so this means that I will be bombarded this thread with plant species I like or want to try.

All the pictures & plants where taken from a tank with Apistogramma, Rams, and Angelfish. The Rotala Indica has grown to an average of 2 feet tall. It will grow until it bends over. Now that it's matured I clip the tops, and thin out the stalks regularly. Yesterday alone I trimmed enough that if I had a retail store would sale for $50, lol!

Yeah, African cichlids have a tendency to tear up fragile plants. This is why I recommended the plants above. Yes they are slow growing but like any other planted tank patience is the key. Once Anubias and Java fern matures they are a magnificent specimen! The Java fern you see have been growing now about 10 months. The rhizomes are about 8 inches long, leaves are about the same length. I've been thinking long and hard about ripping them up and starting over with a different species!

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This is the Nymphoides Taiwan that we have in a few tanks.  ^^^


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^^^ This is the lily that we got out of a bulb pack from WalMart a long long time ago. We used to have a bigger one but I'm not sure what exactly happened to it.. CrazedAce would know where it went.

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^^^ Dwarf Hair grass which I LOVE!! I have some big plans for this in my Nano tank :)a little under water garden!

I forgot to take a pic of the little dwarf lily but I will do that later and upload it. But these are my current favorites that we own. There are a few others that I like, like the Amazon Sword. But right now they are being attacked by black hair algae and don't look so pretty. We are trying to solve the issue by reducing the lighting in it but it looks like a bleach dip needs to be done on the infected plants.

Nice!

Ripples wrote: We are trying to solve the issue by reducing the lighting in it but it looks like a bleach dip needs to be done on the infected plants.

Bleaching just takes care of the immediate visual problem. For long term care have u considered using regular dosing of Flourish EXCEL or maybe CO2 injection? Maybe throw in a couple Siamese algae eaters as well?

CrazedAce doesn't want to start using fertilizers just yet... If we can avoid it then that would be great. I hadn't thought to use Siamese algae eaters though I have heard, and this is probably wrong, that they tend to attack other fish. Our shrimp have started to eat it but there are too few shrimp and too many infected plants.. This stuff blooms out of no where it seems!

currently my favorite plants are murdannia sp red, ludwigia rubra , ludwigia "tornado" curly, and mermaid weed, and hygrophila odora

crinum calamistratum, and almost all cryptocoryne... ok maybe I don't have a favorite

The Murdannia sp red is pretty wicked looking! It reminds me of a witches hand... Or at the least pics I seen do lol
I like the Mermaid Weed as well! That would make a great addition to my tanks
The cryptocoryne is nice and full looking as well.

Yeah as I am getting more into planted tanks I am starting to notice that I will be finding many more favorites... Lol

I'm starting to really dig my spiral val. So far my one plant has given me five more (the last one is on the right, just starting to sprout up and barely visible in the pic):

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lol My wife loves hairgrass... I just want to take a pair of scissors and cut it flush. It looks like a lawn that needs mowing!   

We have jungle val and another type of val in our 30gal that we had left to grow for like so, months. Probably pulled about 30 plants out and spread them throughout the rest of our tanks. We shall see if the Africans think they are tasty or not.

CrazedAce wrote:We have jungle val and another type of val in our 30gal that we had left to grow for like so, months. Probably pulled about 30 plants out and spread them throughout the rest of our tanks. We shall see if the Africans think they are tasty or not.

My phone is broken so I cant post pics but I have amazon swords and rotala growing in my african tank they dont seem to touch it.

Flyfalcons wrote:I'm starting to really dig my spiral val.  So far my one plant has given me five more (the last one is on the right, just starting to sprout up and barely visible in the pic):

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Does it get very tall? I love the way it looks as well but my experience with jungle val has me wary lol
btw your tank is gorgeous! Do you use two types of substrate?

Chiisai, I am trying to get some dwarf grass to fill out in my 2.6 gal tank right now I am sure you can trim it, right? Because I was hoping to start an underwater lawn lol
my plans keep changing for this tank   

Not sure how tall it's going to get. I've only had good lighting for a couple months now, curious to see how big it will get. The substrate you see is gravel over dirt, with Beamswork LED lighting. I also love how it's coming along, thanks.

My favorite at the moment is Limnophila aromatica and anubias nana

ludwigia palustris ''super red''
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That is a sexy plant

That is indeed a nice looking plant

MorganEA can you post a link or pics to the plants you posted?

Anubias nana
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Limnophila aromatica
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I love the leafy look of the Anubius nana but the purple color on the Limnophila aromatica is amazing!
My favorite color is purple so if I can get more of it in my tank it will make me happy

It produces really big pearls as you can see in the photo. Pretty fast growing too. Has been a real pleasure to keep, but VERY red all the time. It makes it hard to find balance.

Red is good too much green can get boring lol

For me is Anubias coffeefolia ... I love the dark color, the ribbed texture of the leaves, will flower, and that great anubias leaf shape.

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That is awesome that it is both aquatic and land! I'd love to see the flowers... I really want to get some plants that go through seasons.

Many aquarium plants are actually bog plants. Some can stay submerged indefinately and others must be grown emmersed (only roots wet) part of the time. Do I have a favorite? Impossible for me to choose.

Oh... I didn't know that... >_> I guess it is time for me to research my current plants to make sure that they can remain fully submersed.

I just want plants that look like the ones in the pics...PLEASE!!!! I'm learning but boy is it slow going...luck with some and others just "die on the vine" so to speak. Trying hard to get that great balance that will give me those beautiful plants that I see in the pictures.

cichlid-gal wrote:I just want plants that look like the ones in the pics...PLEASE!!!!  I'm learning but boy is it slow going...luck with some and others just "die on the vine" so to speak.  Trying hard to get that great balance that will give me those beautiful plants that I see in the pictures.

Your on your way Donna. What you said perfectly explains the process. Some grow for you, some die. Plants look like crap, weird algae's form.... It can be slow at 1st. But, you will learn & the plants will grow, and 1 day everything will come together...

For some reason Hygrophila polysperma  'Rosanervig'  has become an interesting plant in my aquarium. I seem to be fixating on it a bit so I would have to say its a current favorite, (Love red plants).
The plant I have was came in with a shipment of Stargrass from Poke. I wasn't interested in the plant at all but it started growing these matured leaves about 3-4 inches long, pink to red in color and you can totally see the vanes in the leaves. I'm keeping it n check because I don't need another background plant but it looks good poking up from a field of Stargrass.
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I think that might be the plant I had seen at my petsmart... I'm not sure though, but it looked EXTREMELY similar to that! If you ever have any clippings or if it starts creating new shoots, however it spreads, I would love to get my hands on some!

A lot of plants don't like to be transplanted in the winter. It shouldn't matter because of lighting but some just have these internal clocks and won't grow until spring. That makes them susceptible infections until they spring back to life. Some don't care what time of year it is and just go for it.

For instance, it amazes me that Aponogeton know to go dormant in the autumn no matter how much light there is. I have been lucky this last time around. They have survived without me pulling them from the water. They need Carbon or the corm doesn't store enough food (carbohydrate) to survive. We'll see how well they look come spring.

Ripples wrote:I think that might be the plant I had seen at my petsmart... I'm not sure though, but it looked EXTREMELY similar to that! If you ever have any clippings or if it starts creating new shoots, however it spreads, I would love to get my hands on some!

Sure, I don't mine sharing. However, I did just clip it back yesterday for our Plant It Forward so it maybe a while. I'll keep you in mind and let you know!

I love Ludwigia but can't say I'm having great luck with it. Especially the beautiful reds that it brings to the tank.

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So I stopped by PETsMART today and gt the name for the plant that I want. It is:

Telanthera Cardinalis

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All of these are amazing looking plants
anyone know of any different colored plants? Orange, yellow, purple, blue?
my new mission is a rainbow planted tank.

Ripples wrote:All of these are amazing looking plants
anyone know of any different colored plants? Orange, yellow, purple, blue?
my new mission is a rainbow planted tank.

Ripples,
I like this website. Perhaps its got what you are looking for.

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For me personally I think what plant isn't my favorite is an easier question to answer lol. I can grow it all day but, I can't seem to stop using it when I do nano layouts is HC aka Hemianthus callitrichoides! I have a love hate relationship with it but I always seem to have some laying around in some tank after I swear it off.

There are just so many species of plants out there that I have grown and haven't had a chance to get ahold of yet to pick just one species! I think my favorite I've grown to date has been Blyxa japonica, I was able to get deep red hues out of it like it was Blyxa aubertii (no it wasn't actually Blyxa aubertii, big difference in the size).

I got a little tiny piece of HC in a 'R.A.O.K. - Plant It Forward' package. It didn't do we'll in the course gravel since there was so little of it, so I have put the segments in a vivarium. I will let them grow out there and then slowly acclimate to submersed. Should take a year maybe 2. It is a challenge.

hyp3rcrav3 wrote:I got a little tiny piece of HC in a 'R.A.O.K. - Plant It Forward' package. It didn't do we'll in the course gravel since there was so little of it, so I have put the segments in a vivarium. I will let them grow out there and then slowly acclimate to submersed. Should take a year maybe 2. It is a challenge.

If you have enough light and its happy it grows really fast. Its getting it "happy" that is the struggle. Hope all goes well with it!

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Limnophila aromatica looks soooo good!