Fast Growing Aquarium Plants

MonsiuerPercy1

I was just wondering if there are any really fast growing aquarium plants out there. Can anyone help?

aunt kymmie

The fastest growing plants in my tanks are Hygrophila corymbosa, Hygrophila difformis, Cabomba caroliniana, Ludwigia & Anacharis. I have to prune them weekly.

artgalnj

Tiger Lotus bulbs. I can't believe how huge and tall the leaves got. My Bronze Wendtii Crypts are growing really fast too.

MonsiuerPercy1

hmmm And how could I acquire such plants?

artgalnj

I've bought plants from a couple of sources. I have a really good LFS about 40 minutes away. He has everything imaginable fish-wise and he also has a fantastic selection of plants too. For my 75g, I bought many of my plants from www.aquariumplants.com. I was VERY happy with the plants and shipping time. I know a lot of people complain that the shipping is a bit expensive, but I would buy from him again in a heartbeat.

aunt kymmie

I've used www.liveaquaria.com and was very happy with the plants that I received.

fishman8181

The fastest growing plant for me is valisneria "vals", there are many varieties a couple inches to a few feet. Looks like course grass.

Byron

As you can see from previous replies, we have a lot of different plants. There are two aspects to this, faster in the sense of using nutrients, and faster within each species. Some plants naturally grow faster, namely the stem plants. Rooted plants tend to be slower in growth. Floating plants can also be faster in most cases. Aside from this, there is some variance within individual plants resulting from the light and nutrients that are available for photosynthesis.

Faster growing plants pull nutrients and ammonium out of the water faster (and consequently require more light and perhaps CO2 diffusion to balance), and require more maintainance (pruning stem plants, removing large floating plants) to maintain the appearance you want. Rooted plants tend to stay where you plant them and the growth rate of new leaves will depend on the light and nutrients. Some like Echinodorus (swords) are heavy feeders and produce leaves much faster than Aponegeton or even moreso Cryptocoryne (crypts). Anubias tends to be very slow growing, and as a result it tolerates lower light much better.

Byron.