River Buttercup

Ranunculus inundatus

Leaves cut into narrow fingers on upright stalks, like a stand of tiny green umbrellas. Unlike most carpets it grows in height as well as width, and looks like nothing else in a tank.

Light: medium
Difficulty: medium
Height: 5 cm (2 in)
Temperature: 10 – 30 °C (50 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rhizome
Growth rate: fast
CO₂ demand: medium
Tolerates light: medium – high
pH: 5 – 7
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 14 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: midground, foreground
Propagation: runners, division +1 runners, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Deeply lobed star-shaped leaves on thin stalks about 5 cm tall. The plant spreads by creeping runners and forms a low, open cover rather than a dense mat.

Keeping

Moderate demands: good light keeps it compact, and carbon dioxide speeds the spread; in shade the stalks stretch and the cover thins. Overlong leaves can simply be trimmed.

Placement

The front and middle of the tank. Its unusual leaf shape shows best against a plain substrate rather than among fine-leaved plants.

Propagation

By runners: new plants appear along a creeping shoot and root themselves. Cut a rooted piece and move it.

Water conditions match

The water suits 841 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.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Ranunculus inundatus, Ranunculus rivularis inundatus, Ranunculus rivularis subfluitans
Ranunculus inundatus: R.Br. ex DC.
Family: Ranunculaceae
Range regions: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia