Creeping Jenny

Lysimachia nummularia

Round leaves like coins in pairs along a creeping stem. A garden pond plant that took to aquariums, undemanding and quick to soak up excess nitrate.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 4 – 30 °C (39 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green, bronze or brown
Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: medium
Tolerates light: medium – high
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: background, midground +2 background, midground, Dutch street, foreground
Propagation: cuttings
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Rounded leaves in opposite pairs along a soft stem that creeps rather than stands. Green in an ordinary tank, yellow-green under strong light; the golden form is brighter still and needs more light to keep its colour.

Keeping

Easy: no carbon dioxide needed, cool water is fine, growth is steady rather than explosive. It wants decent light — in the shade the stem stretches and the leaves shrink. It takes up a lot of nutrients from the water, which makes it a quiet indicator: when a tank is overfed, this plant grows fastest.

Placement

Anywhere, depending on trimming: pinned down and cut back it spreads along the front, left alone it climbs to the middle. It also grows out of the water in an open tank and can flower there.

Propagation

By cuttings: cut a piece of stem and plant it, or pull a dense clump apart and divide the roots.

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.

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

Other varieties: Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea', Lysimachia nummularia Aurea, Lysimachia nummularia Topf, Lysimachia nummularia Aurea Topf, Lysimachia Nummularia Aurea

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Ephemerum nummularia, Lysimachia nemorum, Lysimachia nummularia longipes, Lysimachia nummularia suaveolens, Lysimachia nummularia submersa, Lysimachia nummularia festiva, Lysimachia repens, Lysimachia rotundifolia, Lysimachia suaveolens, Lysimachusa nummularia, Naumburgia prostrata, Nummularia centimorbia, Nummularia officinalis, Nummularia prostrata, Nummularia repens
Lysimachia nummularia: L.
Family: Primulaceae
Conservation status: LC

Creeping Jenny

Tank conditions

Care and keeping