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How to keep floating plants together

Deano3

Member
Joined
8 Feb 2012
Messages
2,503
Hi everyone recently added red root floaters to my aquascaper 900 however the flow is strong so get blow into water constantly, wondering if there is something i can use to keep together on surface ?

Thanks dean
 
I was actually thinking would it float earlier before i posted 😅😅 will have a try
 
You can buy plastic floating rings – various shapes – which can either contain floating plants, or exclude them and keep an area clear. They are quite cheap. Or have a look at Foo The Flowerhorn's video in which he makes one from scratch.
 
In my main tank I use airline made into a ring using a connector and attached to the side of tank with a suction cup. In my nano I use a plastic lid with the middle part cut out, so its just a plastic ring. This one is more prone to sinking.
 
20211023_200730.jpg
This is a picture of the airtube ring I mentioned.
 
i use air tube but carefully super glue the ends together as the joiner was a heavy spot and made it not sit well on the surface.

also use hot water to soften it then you can make it nice and flat

i want to try acrylic tube but haven't found any locally.

i also aimed my spray bar away from the surface which helped alot
 
I find red root floaters the least floaty of floating plants. If you have decent flow under them they easily get pulled under the water. They also tend to grow over one another in a thick layer when happy which pushes the ones underneath down. It's a cool plant but can sometimes be a pain compared to other floating species.
 
I finally got mine to thrive and flower, covering almost the entirety of a 20 long in a single mat. The catch is that this tank has almost no flow, which isn’t ideal if you have other plants that need more gas exchange. I use the airline tube corral to keep the plants away from the sponge filter outlet.
 
I found out that air tube ring will work fine for a while until water infiltrates into the tube through imperfect joint. Attaching a couple foam floaters to the ring will prevent it from semi sinking. The type of floaters also matters. Water lettuce and frogbit have deep roots, and they can be contained better than shallow root salvias, except that water lettuce will send out runners that drop off plantlets.
 
You can also reverse the principle if you put a ring around the outflow or above an airline you can have some surface disturbance but let the rest of the tank cover. Anything that blocks the current works too, if you have a lilly with emersed leaves, for example, in the centre and outflow one end, you'll have less current the far end and they'll be fine. I think they are more stable once they've built up density.
 
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