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re: Hygrophila difformis



>Anyways, I'm looking to grow this type of plant, in a planted aquarium
>set-up. Before I get the old 30 gallon tank going, I'd like to hear
>from those out there who have had success with this plant. Also, what
>other plants go along with hygrophila difformis? What fish for that matter.

H. difformis (water wisteria) is a very non-demanding plant.  It will grow both
emersed and submersed, although it prefers a pretty high humidity environment
when grown emersed.  No particular substrate needs (it will grow in a floating
bunch, but it is a stem plant and does not behave like Indian fern or Water
sprite, and it doesn't require a lot of iron.  This plant prefers moderate to
high light and will go nuts over CO2 injection or if grown emersed.  In very
high light, it will send horizontal stems across the bottom of the tank.  If
you have a waterborne nutrient problem, this plant is difficult to clean algae
off of because the leaves break relatively easily, although it's less brittle
than h. polysperma.

If your nutrient level drops completely to zero, the plant will just stop
growing.  Emersed growth does not do well when submersed, and vice-versa.  It
is capable of sending out rootlets from each leaf node, whether grown emersed
or submersed.  It kinda looks strange in my micro tank with airborne roots.
Underwater, the roots become relatively fine and branch out.  In a substrate
with mulm, the roots become very fine and resemble the "Crystalline Entity"
from Star Trek in color and pattern.

I've kept it with a strain of h. polysperma that has a pinkish cast to the
leaves (not alternathera), rotala indica, anubuas nana, java fern, java moss,
bolbitis heudetrollis, v. spiralis, c. wendtii, and probably some others that
slip my mind without problem.

David W. Webb
Enterprise Computing Provisioning
Texas Instruments Inc. Dallas, TX USA
(214) 575-3443 (voice)  MSGID:       DAWB
(214) 575-4853 (fax)    Internet:    dwebb at ti_com
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