Water Sprite

[Old fish guy]

I like the water sprite called Ceratopteris Cornuta which is a broad leaf water sprite. Seems to be hard to find in Ohio. Why is that?

 

[Emily M]

I have no idea! Do you have a local aquarium group that you could ask??

[gardenman]

Water sprite is a hard plant to ship. That limits its availability. If you ever watch plant unpacking videos, you'll see dozens/hundreds of plants stacked atop each other, often on their side, in the shipping boxes. Water sprite has tender/brittle, kind of celery-like stems that are easily damaged in shipping. If you can find a hobbyist on ebay or aquabid who has it you could try ordering from them. Finding it from a commercial source is trickier. If you get one and it's damaged, just float the damaged stems/leaves and they'll likely spawn you new plants.

[Seattle_Aquarist]

Hi @Old fish guy

I understand.  There are some plants today that don't seem to be as popular as they were when I got into the hobby 50+ years ago.  I keep both Ceratopteris cornuta and Ceratopteris thalictroides and brought C. cornuta to our local club meetings regularly before COVID shut everything down.  Cornuta is a great species for breeding the Anabantoids (Betta; Gourami; Paradise Fish) with the broad leaves that cover the surface for the fish to build their nests under.  Also great for livebearers fry to hide in the roots of the floating plants.

It is a tough time to ship plants to the midwest (I was born in Chicago) but when the weather warms a bit if you haven't found it locally drop me a PM and I will ship you some snail-free plants for the cost of Priority Mail postage. -Roy
C. cornuta in background


C. cornuta covering the surface

[Daniel]

On 1/24/2021 at 8:22 PM, Old fish guy said:

I like the water sprite called Ceratopteris Cornuta which is a broad leaf water sprite. Seems to be hard to find in Ohio. Why is that?

 

I found my broad leaf water sprite on AquaBid and have been very happy with it.

[Kelly S]

That's a cool-looking plant! What part of Ohio? I'm hoping to get to a couple of stores that sell plants near Cleveland this week. I'd be happy to keep an eye out and let you know what I see. 

[gardenman]

1 hour ago, Daniel said:

I found my broad leaf water sprite on AquaBid and have been very happy with it.

Aquabid and ebay are great sources for it. You're typically buying from a fellow hobbyist at both sites. If they've got the right conditions, they're weeding it out as it grows like crazy. Retailers have a much harder time with it due to the brittleness of the stems. They snap very easily. Commercial plant orders typically come with hundreds of plants stacked one atop the other and a plant with brittle stems will get destroyed in the shipping and unpacking process. Just working around it in an aquarium you're apt to break a few stems, but it grows so fast it's not a big deal. Shipping one water sprite plant is pretty easy and it should arrive safely so the hobbyist grown route is best for it.