High flow floaters?

[Deadeye]

Any floaters that may work in higher flow? I like giant duckweed and red root but don’t know if those will be fine.
And please don’t say hornwort because I’m getting sick of the stuff lol.
I had lots of giant duckweed but most of it has suddenly died off (likely strangled by hornwort and hair algae) so I’m in the market for a new floater. Not sure if the flow was involved with killing it, but from what I’ve read it may be related (though it exploded in growth long before it died with no change in flow).

 

[FJB]

I have had good success with floating corrals (a loop of plastic hose, tethered to thee tank's frame). They allow the floaters you want and eliminate the problems of high flow inside the corrals. The larger the floater type (giant frogbit versus duckweed), and the higher the flow, the larger the plastic hose diameter should be. But all float if in a loop. I use them in most of my tanks.
Of course one can also modify the manner the flow hits, if that is an option in what you want to accomplish.

 

[Fishman Dave]

Does depend somewhat on what exactly you mean by higher flow and in particular the type of higher flow. Obviously very few floaters will do well, or good at all, if the very top layer of water is moving constantly. Most are designed to grow well in more stagnant conditions. That said, some will do really well if the top layer of the tank is fairly stationary but the lower levels have high flow. One of these is the Indian fern (ceratopteris). These quite like their roots in moving water as long as the leaves are on the surface (so have access to oxygen) and have good lighting. These do well in these conditions and it especially helps that they take food from the water itself so you can add fertiliser in the water column. For best results though you may need to get plants established in lower flow, grow to a good size and move to tanks with higher flow simply because keeping them stationary when smaller is not easy. One word of warning though, they are a little hard to please when moving from one tank to another and can do really well in one tank and really poor in another which you think has exactly the same conditions.

 

[Deadeye]

Thanks for the advice!
I should mention that the flow is caused by just a hob filter, so not extremely high flow, but enough where everything is moving (until the hornwort blocks it up).
I’ll look into blocking it off from certain areas + Indian ferns.

 

[eon aquatics]

duckweed grows well

 

[Fishman Dave]

Have duckweed myself on a hob style filter tank which keeps efficiently sending it down and into the filter intake, hence wiping it all out, so going to try the intriguing idea of floating corals myself, so thanks for posting the initial question.

 

[eon aquatics]

there is a duckweed swamp on my parents property but it has been very dry and the swamp dried up

 

[Deadeye]

duckweed grows well

A little too well lol, when it was doing well I was taking it out all the time.

Have duckweed myself on a hob style filter tank which keeps efficiently sending it down and into the filter intake, hence wiping it all out, so going to try the intriguing idea of floating corals myself, so thanks for posting the initial question.

That must have been what happened to mine. There was a time the hornwort was so thick I couldn’t even see the top of the tank to know what was up.

 

[duanes]

Above is Salvinia (giant duckweed) I pulled from Lake Gatun, as you can see, it ended up in a sump by overflowing with the current of the 1500 gph pump feeding the main tank.

it was found in areas of hardly any current, above swaths of Hyrilla and other plants.
But even in the sump it didn't do so well, it requires storm sunlight, as do many floating plants.
Water sprite (feating) is one that seems to need less light.

 

[xenacanth9]

Every time I put floaters in my high flow tanks they get stuck in the filter ☹
I've lost a number of fish due to plant-clogged filters over the years