Large-flowered Sword

Aquarius grandiflorus

One of the biggest sword plants: broad green leaves on a rosette that fills the back of a large tank. Slow, undemanding, and happiest in cool water.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 4 – 30 °C (39 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: slow
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 21 °dKH
Placement: semi-emersed, background
Propagation: plantlets on the inflorescence +4 plantlets on the inflorescence, rhizome division, seeds, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Wide leaves on long stalks, plain green, growing from a heavy rosette. An established plant is tall enough to reach the surface, where its newest leaves often continue above the water.

Keeping

Easy and slow. Like all swords it feeds through the roots, so a nutritious substrate or root tablets matter most; light from moderate upward, carbon dioxide optional. It prefers an unheated or cool tank, and it needs room — this is a plant for a large aquarium.

Placement

The back of a big tank, alone. Its leaves shade a wide area beneath them.

Propagation

By young plants on the flower stalk, by dividing the rhizome, and from seed.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1017 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.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Other varieties: Echinodorus argentinensis, Echinodorus floridanus, Echinodorus grandiflorus, Echinodorus grandiflorus ssp. aureus, Echinodorus Grandifolius

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Alisma grandiflorum Cham. & Schltdl., Echinodorus argentinensis Rataj, Echinodorus floridanus R.R.Haynes & Burkhalter, Alisma grandiflorum, Echinodorus argentinensis, Echinodorus floridanus, Echinodorus grandiflorus, Echinodorus grandiflorus grandiflorus, Echinodorus grandiflorus bracteatus, Echinodorus grandiflorus ovatus, Echinodorus pellucidus, Echinodorus pubescens clausseni
Family: Alismataceae

Large-flowered Sword

Tank conditions

Care and keeping