Ruffled Aponogeton

Aponogeton longiplumulosus

A bulb plant from Madagascar with long olive leaves whose edges are deeply waved. Big, undemanding and happy in almost any water.

Light: low
Difficulty: medium
Height: 20 – 60 cm (7.9 – 24 in)
Temperature: 12 – 28 °C (54 – 82 °F)

Leaf colour: green, bronze or brown
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: medium
CO₂ demand: low
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 4 – 12 °dKH
Placement: background
Propagation: seeds
Grows emersed: no

Appearance

Narrow leaves 20–60 cm long with strongly fluted edges, olive green to brownish, on long stalks. It makes no floating leaves, so the whole plant stands in the water column.

Keeping

Moderate demands and no special requirements about water. Dim light is enough, carbon dioxide is optional; root feeding under the bulb makes the difference. The usual bulb rule applies: leave the growing tip at the surface of the substrate rather than burying it. It stops growing at intervals, rests a few weeks and starts again — the bulb is not dead.

Placement

The back of a large tank, alone. In a small aquarium the leaves have nowhere to go.

Propagation

It flowers readily in an open tank; ripe seeds are sown on the substrate.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1008 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Red Zebra Cichlid Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Kenyi Cichlid Cuckoo Catfish Golden Swordtail Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo Zebra Mbuna

Will eat this plant

These species damage plants, especially when their diet is short of vegetable food.

Bengal Loach Zebra Loach Burmese Border Loach Emperor Botia Spined Loach Marbled Headstander Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Common Metynnis Mylossoma duriventre Red Whiptail Catfish Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly Moonlight Gourami Melanotaenia parva

Will uproot it

These species dig through the substrate and pull rooted plants out.

Marble Loach Peacock Eel Forktail Loach Guntea Loach Long-nosed Loach Horseface Loach Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Painted Pleco Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Aulonocara maylandi Aulonocara multicolor Aulonocara Orchid Geophagus altifrons Geophagus winemilleri Pearlscale Cichlid Pearl Cichlid Redbelly Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid Chuco godmanni Haplochromis philander Red Chromide Jack Dempsey cichlid

Matching water does not mean the fish will leave the plant alone.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Aponogeton longiplumulosus: H. Bruggen
Family: Aponogetonaceae
Conservation status: EN