Delta Arrowhead

Sagittaria platyphylla

Broad ribbon leaves growing in a rosette, spreading by runners into a colony. An undemanding plant for a large tank, and a rare one in shops.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 4 – 25 °C (39 – 77 °F)

Leaf colour: white markings
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: medium
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 21 °dKH
Placement: midground
Propagation: runners
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Underwater the leaves are wide, strap-shaped and blunt-tipped; above water they narrow and the plant can flower with small white three-petalled flowers. The broad blades contrast with fine-leaved neighbours.

Keeping

Easy: medium light, no carbon dioxide needed, cool water is fine. It feeds mainly through the roots, so a nutritious substrate or root tablets matter more than anything added to the water. It spreads by runners and will fill the space given to it.

Placement

The middle of a roomy tank, where the colony has room to spread. The thick leaves give shrimp and shy fish somewhere to hide.

Propagation

By runners: young rosettes appear beside the parent on a horizontal shoot and can be separated once rooted.

Water conditions match

The water suits 835 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Zebra Mbuna Homaloptera bilineata Red-tailed Rasbora Boraras naevus Spotted Raphael Catfish Corydoras melanotaenia Festivum cichlid

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 Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Mylossoma duriventre Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly

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 Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Pearl Cichlid Redbelly 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: Sagittaria graminea platyphylla, Sagittaria mohrii, Sagittaria recurva
Sagittaria platyphylla: (Engelm.) J.G.Sm.
Family: Alismataceae