Unruly floater plant roots

[apleiadean42]

I added these floating plants a few weeks ago and have not been able to check up on my tank much because I’ve been through 2 surgeries. Today I was able to walk into the kitchen where this tank is and saw this unruliness. The plants are Frogbit and water  Spangler. What do I do? I have one betta and 2 nerite snails. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Betta is going to want to have access to the water's surface to breathe. I'd remove half or more of the floating plants (trust me they will grow back fast enough). When I've removed floaters I always took out the ones with the longest roots BUT I've also trimmed roots on them and they still live, so that is also an option for some of them. 

Edited September 30 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[Odd Duck]

Exactly what @xXInkedPhoenixX says, remove excess plants and trim the excess roots of the plants you keep.  Frogbit seems to rather like having some roots trimmed.  The roots will divide and sprout twice as many and keep right on growing.  I don’t trim every single root deliberately but I will cut them back to about 2” long.  I just put my scissors at the level I want the roots to start over and start trimming.  It’s easier than lifting each plant and trimming individually.  Then just wrangle the loose roots and discard them.

I’ve never grown water spangles but I don’t think they get particularly long roots.  That looks like all frogbit roots to me.

[MWilk]

Have you considered red root floaters? They don’t do this. 

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 9/30/2024 at 9:47 PM, MWilk said:

Have you considered red root floaters? They don’t do this. 

Salvinia minima and Salvinia natans have shorter roots, too.

[AAE]

@apleiadean42, I hope you are recovering well from your surgery.  Not the most fun road.  have frogbit in an aquarium as well as an outside fountain.  If you have an outdoor water feature, you could consider relocating some of the frogbit there.  I live in Los Angeles so the temperatures in the Winter should be tolerable.