Plant Profile Nymphoides hydrophylla 'Taiwan'

[Plantbase]

Plantbase submitted a new Plantbase Item:

Nymphoides hydrophylla 'Taiwan'

Nymphoides hydrophylla 'Taiwan' grows in Asia and Africa - and this variant of the species originates from southern Taiwan. The rosette plant can become 15-30 cm tall and 10-15 cm wide. This variant is characterised by many underwater leaves and the intense, light-green, transparent colour of the plant. The plant is fast-growing and it is necessary to thin out the leaves (remove oldest leaves and surface leaves). The plant is easy to care for under varying conditions, but for optimal growth it requires a lot of nourishment. The new plant grows from the plates of old leaves.


Plant information obtained from: Tropica Aquarium Plants - www.tropica.com

Read more about this Plantbase item here...

 

[Ryan Langan]

This is a beautiful plant that can really fill out an upper area of the tank;
Just to share my experience with this plant:

I planted mine from tissue culture and planted it as 2 portions (defined by separate root systems);
I have tropica plant soil under my black quartz sand and I planted the portions about 10 cm apart (which is probably not enough when the plant has grown out).
I placed around 5-10 osmocote 6 month slow release plant food under the substrate the planting sites.
They were quite slow to grow from tissue culture (2cm high) to about 10 cm in height (taking about 2 months); but then they really took off once established and new leaves were produced almost daily and went from a small leaf at the base of the stems and within 2 or 3 days would be around 3cm higher than the other leaves; so it rapidly went from 10 to 25cm in height in about 1 month.

My grandad liked the plant and asked for one so while removing the plant i found there were 3 separate root systems; I gave him one at around 13cm height. On transfer to his tank; its leaves died off until it only had 1 leaf remaining; and then within a week or 2 it shot up 12 new hug leaves which were about 18cm in height (so dont write it off if it looks dead after moving).

note that the leaves are large and will block alot of light, so maybe plant low light demanding plants in close proximity (or hardscape)

Conditions used for above results:
with low-medium lighting (they were positioned in the back corner and I have 3x 20watt LED floodlights equally spaced; over my 90cm length, 35cm deep tank.)
Very inconsistent CO2 injection (DIY citric acid/bicarbonate) with daily varying pressures; although I aimed for 1 bubble per second as much as possible (realistically achieved 60% of the time)
Osmocote plant food
Tropica plant soil
Fine quartz sand
Weekly dosing of liquid plant fertiliser (Easy life ProFito)
Fairly poor circulation (which I have only recently increased with a small internal filter)
Ample filtration (overhead sump with 1kg of lava rock/pebbles and ceramic media 600l/h)