High flow floaters?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I had some Anacharis aka( Elodea) in a 55g a few years ago. It can either be planted in the substrate or left floating on the surface. I had success just letting it float. I had a Ac 110 and 2 big sponge filters on the tank. One sponge was hooked up to a power head the other was attached to an air pump.
 
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Looking at my tank, dawned on me that the swath of Hydrilla is mostly semi-floating (although some are slightly anchor in sand (on the left),
And it does well with the tanks high flow..
. Flow
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I also pulled the Hydrilla from lake Gatun, and had stems over 10 ft long, probably why it tolerated the more shaded end of the tank.
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Lots of stem plants will grow just floating at the surface. To the point of being out of control if you aren’t taking some out now and again.
Sorry I don’t have an ID on this stem it was sent in a sort of grab bag of aquatic plants.
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I really did like the lily pad look of salvinia. I assume anything that has that sort of look is for more stagnant waters?
 
I really did like the lily pad look of salvinia. I assume anything that has that sort of look is for more stagnant waters?
I use salvinia in several tanks and in my experience as long as the flow is across the top and not falling from above (so it pushes it down) it stays floating.
The only thing I’ve noticed is the more water movement the shorter the roots grow.
I’m stagnant areas salvinia grows roots that hang down two or three inches.
 
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I use salvinia in several tanks and in my experience as long as the flow is across the top and not falling from above (so it pushes it down) it stays floating.
The only thing I’ve noticed is the more water movement the shorter the roots grow.
I’m stagnant areas salvinia grows roots that hang down two or three inches.
I did notice that some individuals grew much longer roots than others.
I guess my biggest problem with salvinia was that the flow was pushing down.
 
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