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Best floating plant for beginner


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In my 36 gal tank I’m looking to as something to float on top. But can’t decide on what. I have two Java moss balls floating mid level, dwarf hair grass as slight carpet. Amazon sword as background. Only have albino corydoras and nerite snails. Will eventually have loaches and neocardinia shrimps is my goal. So hit me with ideas. Pic of my tank 

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I've had both Salvania and Amazon Frogbit do quite well for me with minimal efforts. There was a time where I never fertilized the salvania and it was just fine. Without the fertilizer it never really grew, but it stayed happy. once I've added the fertilizer its almost coverd the tank in just a bout a month. I've had the frogbit for a few weeks, its doing really good. And growing very long roots. I found that my mysterysnail loved snacking on the amazonfrogbit, not sure if this is the same with nirites:

 I've even caught him haning from the frogbit trying to eat it. 

Heres my amazon frogbit, you can see all the new leaves. Unfortantley the quantity of the frogbit really decreased after the snail started snacking on them:

Frogbit.jpg.915d15e52511850ccd8ceaed759d3e04.jpg 

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Water Lettuce was my first real 'floating' plant and I love it. It's large and easy to control growth of new plants because of the size. It does a great job cleaning the water and clearing nitrates in my small tank in about a week. I'm going to move some trimmings to my display, too.

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10 minutes ago, Sandra the fish rookie said:

Where is everyone getting their floating plants? I am having a REALLY hard time finding them. When I do .. they don't do well during shipping.. I see that some of you mix different types.. I have some red root floaters..that I am trying to keep alive post shipping.. 

Most of mine came from eBay, but Etsy also sells variety packs of them. Once you get a plant that does well in your water, getting rid of it becomes the bigger issue.  I put some dwarf water lettuce in one of my outdoor stock tanks and it's covered the tank. Frogbit does very well for me in one tank. Salvinia in another. And duckweed does pretty well everywhere.

Here's a photo of the dwarf water lettuce (and some salvinia) in my 110 gallon stock tank. The tank is 53"X36" and the water lettuce has only been out there for about a month. Every inch of the stock tank is covered.

 

IMG_20210610_090354836_HDR.jpg

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 We originally bought a very small cup of duck weed from the local Koi farm, and a few Water Lettuce from the LFS. 
My wife’s little all in one Betta tank is a floater growing machine and supplies my 75g and my patio pond with way more than I need. 

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1 hour ago, Sandra the fish rookie said:

Where is everyone getting their floating plants? I am having a REALLY hard time finding them. When I do .. they don't do well during shipping.. I see that some of you mix different types.. I have some red root floaters..that I am trying to keep alive post shipping.. 

Amazon has frogbits which I'm about to order myself.

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On 6/11/2021 at 5:35 PM, Georgiapeach88 said:

I’m in love with a red root floater so I think I’m gonna go with that thank you everyone for all your great info definitely keeping the frogbit as a back up plan if I can’t find any good Red root floater 

It is a great plant, and you have enough light for it. In my tanks it likes a bit of heat as well as light, and it likes fertilizer--like most red plants it likes kinda a lot of all of it.

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Frogbit is interesting in that in my fish tanks it stays small with dime-sized leaves. It spreads, reproduces, seems healthy and happy, but seldom grows larger. I saw Simply Betta on YouTube with frogbit and her plants were huge. I thought she must have a different kind of frogbit. Then I moved some of mine to a Sterilite container under the plant lights I use for my outdoor seedlings and they're now also huge. It's not a nutrient issue as the Sterilite container holding them never gets fertilized and there are no fish in there. I'm not sure if the lack of fertilizer or the different lighting is responsible for the difference in size, but it's interesting. Mine were small when I got them on eBay so I'd just assumed they were always that size until I saw Simply Bettas. When I move a bigger frogbit from the Sterilite container to a tank, it regresses back down in size. It doesn't stay big. The ones in the Sterilite container have silver dollar sized leaves. (The coin silver dollar, not the fish.) It's like it's two totally different plants. Pretty neat.

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I just have to hop in and plug my favorite—salvinia minima!! The leaves are small and the roots stay short, and it’s easy to remove some if it starts to take over. Plus I like how the leaves look fuzzy and repel water.

I’m sure the red root floaters will be beautiful though!

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On 6/10/2021 at 5:50 AM, Sandra the fish rookie said:

Where is everyone getting their floating plants? I am having a REALLY hard time finding them. When I do .. they don't do well during shipping.. I see that some of you mix different types.. I have some red root floaters..that I am trying to keep alive post shipping.. 

I'm getting mine from ebay.  My red root floaters sufferred from shipping but I found a solution, as long as they are at least a little viable when you receive them.  Instead of chucking them right into your aquarium, put them in a bowl or bucket with water and put in a sunny spot.  They really like having no flow so they seem to do best in this type of set up.  I also set up a corral for them in my tank using air tubing because they kept getting caught under my hob filter and dying from getting pushed under water over and over again.

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All my more rare plants (ones that aren't easily found, not necessarily unheard of) have come from Etsy, including my red root floaters. I don't run heat or use ferts and granted they may not be as prolific as others who use them however I have plenty of babies floating and they do well. 

Edited by xXInkedPhoenixX
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Since my red root floaters are struggling to really take off in my tank, I am doing an experiment.  I have some in a clear tupperwear type bowl in a window with good light, I've had that going for about a week and they look super happy there, much happier than in my tank.  I also set up a bucket outside in full sun to see if it likes my extreme heat and heavy duty killer sun (I live in Southern AZ, we're 107 today, so yay).  I'm curious to see how it does, I doubt the bucket will work out because it is just soooo hot and the sun is sooo intense but that's the point of the experiment... maybe it will thrive.  

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