Creeping Rush

Juncus repens

A grass-like plant with long stems and narrow leaves that turn reddish brown under strong light. Undemanding, and it grows in almost any water.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 4 – 28 °C (39 – 82 °F)

Leaf colour: green, red +1 green, red, bronze or brown
Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: fast
Tolerates light: medium – high
pH: 5 – 7
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 14 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: background, midground +1 background, midground, foreground
Propagation: cuttings, division +1 cuttings, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Thin leaves in tufts along a creeping stem; green in moderate light, red-brown when the light is strong and trace feeding is good. The whole plant looks like a loose bunch of grass.

Keeping

Easy: it tolerates a wide range of water and cool temperatures, needs no carbon dioxide, and grows steadily rather than explosively. Light is what changes it — from plain green to red-brown — and trace feeding deepens the colour.

Placement

Anywhere from front to back, depending on how long you let the stems get: trimmed short it works as a low tuft, left alone it reaches the middle of the tank.

Propagation

By cuttings, like a stem plant: cut a piece and plant it. Clumps can also be pulled apart.

Water conditions match

The water suits 835 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Butterflyfish Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo Homaloptera bilineata Red-tailed Rasbora Boraras naevus Lampeye Killifish Spotted Raphael Catfish Corydoras melanotaenia Festivum cichlid Pseudomugil paskai

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 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 Geophagus altifrons Geophagus winemilleri Pearl Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid 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: Juncus repens Topf, Juncus repens 1 2 GROW

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Cephaloxys flabellata, Juncus subincurvus, Tristemon repens
Juncus repens: Michx.
Family: Juncaceae

Creeping Rush

Tank conditions

Care and keeping