Banana Plant

Nymphoides aquatica

A small plant with a cluster of swollen roots that really do look like a bunch of bananas. Those tubers store food, which is why it survives where other plants starve.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: difficult
Height: 5 – 15 cm (2 – 5.9 in)
Temperature: 15 – 28 °C (59 – 82 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: slow
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 5 – 12 °dKH
Placement: foreground
Propagation: plantlets on the inflorescence
Grows emersed: unknown

Appearance

Round, heart-shaped leaves on long stalks grow from a rosette 5–15 cm tall; beneath it sits a bunch of thick green tubers. Given the chance the plant sends leaves up to the surface and floats them there.

Keeping

It wants decent light and a soft substrate. Set the tubers on the surface of the ground, not buried — buried they rot. To keep the plant low, cut off the leaves that head for the surface.

Placement

The front of the tank, where the tubers can be seen — they are the whole point of it. A dark substrate shows them best.

Propagation

Young plants form on the older leaves; once they have their own roots and tubers they can be detached and set on the substrate elsewhere.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1007 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.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Anonymos aquatica Walter, Villarsia aquatica J.F. Gmel., Hydrocotyle cordata, Limnanthemum aquaticum, Limnanthemum trachyspermum, Menyanthes brachysperma, Menyanthes trachysperma, Nymphoides aquaticum, Trachysperma aquatica, Trachysperma nutans, Villarsia aquatica, Villarsia trachysperma
Nymphoides aquatica: (J.F. Gmel.) Kuntze
Family: Menyanthaceae