Waterwort

Elatine hydropiper

A carpet of tiny bright green leaves that hug the substrate — like a miniature glossostigma, only smaller and flatter. Rare, and not a plant for a first tank.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: difficult
Temperature: 4 – 26 °C (39 – 79 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rhizome
Growth rate: medium
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 4 – 8 °dKH
Placement: nano tank, carpet
Propagation: runners, cuttings +2 runners, cuttings, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Paired leaves a few millimetres long on creeping stems that press close to the ground. The mat it makes is fine and even, almost like moss seen from above.

Keeping

Difficult: it needs good light reaching the substrate and clean water, and it is slow to anchor — until the stems root, the mat lifts off in pieces. It puts up with cool water. Once established it spreads on its own and asks for little.

Placement

The front of the tank as a lawn, in small pieces pressed into the substrate a couple of centimetres apart. Its size suits a nano tank.

Propagation

By the creeping stems: cut a piece of the mat with tweezers and press it in elsewhere.

Water conditions match

The water suits 954 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 Zebra Mbuna Homaloptera bilineata

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

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 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: Alsinastrum gyrospermum, Alsinastrum octandrum, Alsine elatina, Elatine conjugata, Elatine gyrosperma, Elatine hardyana, Elatine hydropiper, Elatine hydropiper intermedia, Elatine hydropiper oederi, Elatine hydropiper submersa, Elatine hydropiper terrestris, Elatine hydropiper gyrosperma, Elatine hydropiper hydropiper, Elatine hydropiper siphonosperma, Elatine hydropiper emersa, Elatine hydropiper pusilla, Elatine hydropiper schkuhriana, Elatine majuscula, Elatine nodosa, Elatine oederi, Elatine paludosa octandra, Elatine schkuhriana, Elatine serpillifolium, Elatine serpyllifolia, Elatine siphosperma, Elatinella hydropiper, Potamopitys hydropiper, Rhizium curvum
Elatine hydropiper: L.
Family: Elatinaceae
Conservation status: NT