Mud Sword

Aquarius palifolius

A large, fast, undemanding sword plant that sooner or later leaves the water. Fine as a young plant in an aquarium, and at its best as a marsh plant in an open tank or paludarium.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: very easy
Temperature: 15 – 30 °C (59 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: fast
Tolerates light: medium – high
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: semi-emersed, background
Propagation: plantlets on the inflorescence +3 plantlets on the inflorescence, rhizome division, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Lance-shaped to broadly oval green leaves on long stalks. Young plants are lightly translucent and look at home in a natural layout; a mature plant grows to about a metre above water and carries branched, drooping flower stalks with small flowers.

Keeping

Very easy and fast, with one limitation worth knowing before buying: a strong plant starts making ever longer leaf stalks and grows out of the water, and this cannot be prevented for good. Cutting off the newest leaves brings shorter-stalked submerged ones back for a while; the other option is to replace an overgrown plant with a young one. It is often sold under other names.

Placement

The back of a large tank while it is young; long term, an open tank or a paludarium, where it becomes a specimen plant.

Propagation

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

Water conditions match

The water suits 1015 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 palifolius, Echinodorus palifolius Topf

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Sagittaria palaefolia Nees & Mart., Echinodorus palaefolius (Nees & Mart.) J. F. Macbr. var. latifolius (Micheli) Rataj, Echinodorus palaefolius (Nees & Mart.) J. F. Macbr. var. minus (Seub.) Rataj, Alisma ellipticum, Alisma ellipticum minus, Alisma nathpurense, Alisma palifolium, Alisma virgata, Echinodorus ellipticus, Echinodorus ellipticus latifolius, Echinodorus ellipticus minus, Echinodorus glandulosus, Echinodorus palaefolius latifolius, Echinodorus palaefolius minus, Echinodorus palifolius, Echinodorus palifolius latifolius, Echinodorus palifolius minus, Echinodorus piauhyensis, Echinodorus virgatus, Sagittaria palifolia, Sagittaria palifolia foliosobracteata, Sagittaria palifolia heterophylla, Sagittaria palifolia undulata
Family: Alismataceae

Mud Sword

Tank conditions

Care and keeping