Amazon Frogbit

Hydrocharis laevigata

A floating plant with round leaves the size of a coin and long trailing roots. It shades the tank from above, takes nutrients straight out of the water and gives surface fish something to hide under.

Light: low
Difficulty: easy
Height: 3 – 5 cm (1.2 – 2 in)
Temperature: 4 – 35 °C (39 – 95 °F)

Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: very fast
CO₂ demand: low
Tolerates light: medium – high
pH: 5 – 8
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 14 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: surface
Propagation: fragmentation, runners
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Rosettes of round, slightly puffy leaves lie on the surface, and a curtain of fine roots hangs beneath them, sometimes to the bottom of the tank.

Keeping

Undemanding and very fast: no planting, no carbon dioxide, any light. Two cautions. It multiplies until it covers the whole surface and leaves the plants below in the dark, so a third of it goes in the bin every week. And it dislikes drops of water on the leaves — under a closed lid they rot, so it is happiest in an open tank.

Placement

On the surface, ideally penned into one corner. The dangling roots are a favourite shelter for gouramis and other fish that live near the top, and fry hide in them.

Propagation

By itself: daughter rosettes grow on short runners and break away on their own. To slow it down, simply scoop out the excess.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1034 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 Featherfin Synodontis 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

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

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: Limnobium laevigatum

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Salvinia laevigata Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd., Limnobium laevigatum (Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.) C. V. Morton, Trianea bogotensis H. Karst., ? laevigata, Hydrocharella echinospora, Hydrocharis stolonifera, Hydromystria laevigata, Hydromystria sinclairii, Hydromystria stolonifera, Jalambicea repens, Limnobium bogotense, Limnobium laevigatum, Limnobium sinclairii, Limnobium spongia laevigatum, Limnobium stoloniferum, Trianea bogotensis, Trianea neovisae
Family: Hydrocharitaceae

Amazon Frogbit

Tank conditions

Care and keeping