Floating Aponogeton

Aponogeton natans

A bulb plant from the still waters of India and Sri Lanka: long wavy leaves rise to the surface and lie on it. It flowers readily, which few aquarium plants do.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: medium
Temperature: 20 – 31 °C (68 – 88 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: fast
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 14 °dKH
Placement: background, midground
Propagation: seeds
Grows emersed: no

Appearance

Long green leaves with a wavy edge on thin stalks. The upper leaves reach the surface and spread across it, so the plant is best seen from above as well as from the front.

Keeping

Moderate demands: good light, a nutritious substrate, steady conditions. Bury the bulb only halfway, or it rots. Sudden changes in water make the leaves melt, so change water in small regular amounts rather than in one go. Rest periods with dying leaves are part of its cycle.

Placement

The middle or back of a roomy tank. Remember the surface leaves shade whatever is planted beneath.

Propagation

By seed: the plant flowers above the water and the ripe seeds are sown on the substrate.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1014 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 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

Other scientific names: Saururus natans L., Aponogeton flavidum, Aponogeton lineare, Aponogeton lucens, Aponogeton monostachyon, Aponogeton monostachys, Potamogeton indicus, Saururus natans, Spathium monostachyum
Aponogeton natans: (L.) Engl. & K. Krause
Family: Aponogetonaceae
Conservation status: LC