Shoreweed

Littorella uniflora

A lawn of short, fat, fleshy leaves — closer to a succulent than to grass. It grows in cool water and dim light, very slowly, and looks like nothing else on the bottom of a tank.

Light: low
Difficulty: difficult
Height: 3 – 5 cm (1.2 – 2 in)
Temperature: 4 – 26 °C (39 – 79 °F)

Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: slow
CO₂ demand: low
pH: 5 – 8
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 14 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: nano tank, foreground +1 nano tank, foreground, carpet
Propagation: runners, division +1 runners, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Stiff cylindrical leaves 3–5 cm tall growing in small rosettes. Planted a few centimetres apart, the rosettes send out runners and knit into a dense low carpet over a couple of months.

Keeping

Difficult, mostly because it is slow and fragile: the fleshy leaves break when brushed with a hose or scissors, and a bruised leaf does not recover. It tolerates dim light and cool water, but the dimmer the light, the longer and looser the leaves — for a tight lawn it needs brightness. Feeding goes mainly through the roots.

Placement

The front of the tank as a carpet, in a nano tank or a cool-water aquarium. Plant single rosettes a couple of centimetres apart and leave them alone.

Propagation

By runners: new rosettes appear beside the old ones and can be separated once rooted.

Water conditions match

The water suits 948 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.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Other varieties: Littorella uniflora 1 2 GROW, Littorella uniflora Topf

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Plantago uniflora L., Litorella lacustris, Littorella germana, Littorella juncea, Littorella lacustris, Littorella lacustris semimersa, Littorella lacustris stolonifera, Littorella lacustris hirsuta, Littorella lacustris isoetoides, Littorella longifolia, Littorella lortetiae, Littorella palustris, Littorella permixta, Littorella tardans, Littorella uniflora, Littorella uniflora isoetoides, Littorella uniflora terrestris, Littorella uniflora stolonifera, Littorella uniflora uniflora, Plantago uniflora
Littorella uniflora: (L.) Asch.
Family: Plantaginaceae
Conservation status: LC

Shoreweed

Tank conditions

Care and keeping