Red Watermilfoil

Myriophyllum tuberculatum

Red and orange needles arranged like the branches of a small conifer. Striking, and one of the hungriest plants in the hobby.

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

Leaf colour: green, red
Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: fast
pH: 5 – 7
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 8 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: red accent, background +2 red accent, background, midground, Dutch street
Propagation: cuttings
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Very fine leaves in whorls, angled upward along the stem, red to orange under good conditions and dark and stunted without them. Grown well it reaches the surface and branches into a bush.

Keeping

Difficult. It needs strong light, carbon dioxide and — the part that catches people out — constant feeding: iron and trace elements for the colour, and nitrate and phosphate that must never run out completely. In a tank kept deliberately lean it simply stops growing. Trim by removing the old stem and replanting the top rather than cutting the same stem again.

Placement

The middle or back of the tank, in a group, where the red stands against green neighbours.

Propagation

By cuttings: replant the top and discard the old bare stem.

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: Myriophyllum tuberculatum in Vitro XL

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Myriophyllum indicum, Myriophyllum muricatum, Myriophyllum spathulatum, Myriophyllum tetrandrum
Myriophyllum tuberculatum: Roxb.
Family: Haloragaceae
Conservation status: LC

Red Watermilfoil

Tank conditions

Care and keeping