Giant Vallisneria

Vallisneria australis

The big vallisneria of the hobby — long broad ribbons that reach the surface and lie along it. Sold for decades under several other names, and as undemanding as its smaller relatives.

Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 4 – 32 °C (39 – 90 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: fast
pH: 6 – 8
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 21 °dKH
Propagation: runners
Grows emersed: no

Appearance

Green strap leaves growing from a rosette, long enough in a settled plant to run across the surface of a tall tank. The giant vallisnerias in the trade, long labelled with a string of different names, belong to this species.

Keeping

Easy: a wide range of water suits it, carbon dioxide is not needed, and it grows quickly once rooted. It spreads by runners and will colonise the back of a tank, so thinning it out is the regular job.

Placement

The back of a large tank. The long leaves at the surface shade the plants beneath them, so keep the space in front clear.

Propagation

By runners: daughter rosettes appear beside the parent and are separated once rooted.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1010 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 Featherfin Synodontis 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

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

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: Vallisneria australis 'Curly', Vallisneria australis 'Marmor', Vallisneria australis Topf, Vallisneria australis Marmor, Vallisneria australis Marmor Topf

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Vallisneria spiralis var. procera Rodway, Vallisneria spiralis procera
Vallisneria australis: S.W.L. Jacobs & Les
Family: Hydrocharitaceae
Range regions: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia

Giant Vallisneria

Tank conditions

Care and keeping