Feathered Limnophila

Limnophila heterophylla

Bright green whorls of finely divided leaves, like a cross between water wisteria and cabomba. Fast, forgiving and happy without carbon dioxide.

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

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: fast
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 21 °dKH
Placement: background, midground
Propagation: cuttings
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Thread-fine leaves arranged in fans around an upright stem, so a planted group looks like a soft green forest rather than a row of stems.

Keeping

Easy and adaptable — one of the few feathery plants that does well in an ordinary tank without carbon dioxide. It wants decent light, otherwise the lower whorls thin out. Growth is fast, so trimming is regular; each cut makes the group denser.

Placement

The back or middle of the tank, in a group. The fine texture reads best next to broad leaves — beside another feathery plant both look like one bush.

Propagation

By cuttings: cut the top and plant it, the old stem branches from below the cut.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1016 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.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Columnea heterophylla Roxburgh, Adenosma triflora, Antirrhinum gratissimum, Capraria gratissima, Columnea heterophylla, Limnophila heterophylla reflexa, Limnophila menthastrum, Limnophila reflexa, Limnophila roxburghii, Tala odorata
Limnophila heterophylla: (Roxb.) Benth.
Family: Plantaginaceae
Conservation status: LC