Guppy Grass

Najas indica

A tangle of thin brittle stems that grows almost anywhere and asks for nothing. It floats or is tucked into the substrate, takes nutrients out of the water and gives fry the safest cover there is.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 18 – 30 °C (64 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: stem plant
Growth rate: fast
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 1 – 14 °dKH
Placement: background, midground +1 background, midground, foreground
Propagation: fragmentation, cuttings +2 fragmentation, cuttings, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: no

Appearance

Fine branched stems with narrow leaves form an untidy bright-green thicket. The stems snap easily, and each broken piece grows on.

Keeping

One of the least demanding plants there is: any light, any water, no carbon dioxide. The trouble is the speed — it fills the tank in weeks and needs thinning by the handful. In a filter intake it also collects and clogs.

Placement

Floating or pushed into the substrate anywhere. It is above all a breeding and shrimp plant: fry and shrimp live inside the tangle and grow up unharmed.

Propagation

By itself: any broken stem carries on growing. Nothing needs doing.

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 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: ? indica, Caulinia alternifolia, Caulinia foveolata, Caulinia indica, Fluvialis indica, Najas falciculata, Najas foveolata, Najas foveolata minor, Najas kingii, Najas lacerata, Najas lobata, Najas minor indica, Najas palustris
Najas indica: (Willd.) Cham.
Family: Hydrocharitaceae
Conservation status: LC