Plant of the Month: Brazilian Pennywort, Hydrocotyle leucocephala

[pokerboi]

Is this plant also called "Cardamine"? If so, I've definetly had it before.

You can make a great background with it if you make a plastic/vinyl trellis and let it climb all over.

I dont recommend using metal to make the trellis .. you can leach harmful metals into the water.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Cardamine Lyrata is another species all together, though it does look similar. I've had both.

 

[Taysius]

Had my sample plant for a short while now and I love it! I have it floating and it's already growing more roots and leaves. Great plant!

 

[Robert H]

There are actually several species of Hydrocotyle, and I wouldn't call any of them low light exactly. Some are more easier than others. In their natural habitat they all grow as a bog plant in only inches of water, usually with their leaves above water. Hydrocotyle leucocephala is perhaps the easiest to grow submersed because it adapts to underwater growth and grows faster underwater than the other species. Hydrocotyle vulgaris is more sought after as a foreground plant because it tends to creep horizontal to the substrate with single stem leaves growing straight up looking like little mushrooms or "umbrellas".

As a floating plant, Hydrocotyle leucocephala grows much faster. In traditional Dutch aquariums they use the plant growing on the surface in the rear of the aquarium to keep nitrate and ammonium levels low, and in the aquascape in the front corners growing from the substrate up to the water surface arching over to create a natural frame to the aquascape.

in the photo below, you can see the pennywort growing in the right front corner as a "frame" in a traditional Dutch planted aquarium

Brazilian pennywort shouldn't really be that hard to find. Its grown commercially in Florida, and several of the big online sellers like aquariumplants.com and azgardens.com sell it for less than 2 dollars for a whole bunch.

Cardamine is from Japan mountain lakes and likes cold water and lots of light. It grows slowly;

 

[Kaosu]

just picked some of this stuff up...its great!!!! its growing like a weed and nearly to the surface of my tank already!

question though..any tricks on keeping it down in the substrate...my sculpin can thrash around a bit when feeding, and seems to work the stems out quite regularly..so i clamped most of them together with the soft tab that came with them.
any tips on keeping it in place would be great!