Giant Baby Tears

Micranthemum umbrosum

Small round leaves on soft creeping stems — the same look as the tiny carpeting baby tears, but at a size that is far easier to grow. Trim it and it stays low, leave it and it climbs.

Light: medium
Difficulty: medium
Height: 10 – 15 cm (3.9 – 5.9 in)
Temperature: 4 – 26 °C (39 – 79 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: fast
CO₂ demand: medium
Tolerates light: medium – high
pH: 5 – 7
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 10 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: midground, nano tank +1 midground, nano tank, foreground
Propagation: cuttings, division +1 cuttings, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Round bright green leaves the size of a lentil in pairs along a thin stem 10–15 cm tall. Planted in a group the stems knit into one soft green cushion.

Keeping

Moderate demands: it wants decent light, and carbon dioxide makes it noticeably faster and denser. Once it starts it grows quickly and needs pinching back — trimming is what makes it spread sideways instead of upward. Most of its feeding comes from a nutritious substrate.

Placement

The front or middle of the tank. Trimmed regularly it works as a low cushion; left alone it grows up and fills the middle. Fits a nano tank.

Propagation

By cuttings: any pinched-off shoot can be pushed straight back into the substrate.

Water conditions match

The water suits 798 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 Homaloptera bilineata Red-tailed Rasbora Boraras naevus Lampeye Killifish Spotted Raphael Catfish Corydoras melanotaenia Festivum cichlid Pseudomugil paskai Blue-eyed Platydoras

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

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 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: Micranthemum umbrosum Topf

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Anonymos umbrosa Walter, Globifera orbiculatum Michx., Globifera umbrosa J. F. Gmel., Globifera umbrosa Walter, Micranthemum orbiculatum Michx., Anonymos umbrosa, Globifera umbrosa, Micranthemum emarginatum, Micranthemum orbiculatum, Micranthemum orbiculatum emarginatum, Micranthemum pilosum, Micranthemum standleyi, Pinarda repens
Micranthemum umbrosum: (J. F. Gmel.) S. F. Blake
Family: Linderniaceae

Giant Baby Tears

Tank conditions

Care and keeping