Who Gives A Fish Forums

@graye I came across something in my research that said it's originally from South America, but it's become an invasive species in Africa... my plant was listed as African water lettuce when I bought it.

Mine had a pretty rough start - the outer leaves basically melted, probably from the cold, and it took a couple extra days to get here... but the inner leaves are doing great now, and the roots have doubled in less than a week, so it seems to be thriving.

I'm hoping it'll do well in my 45 gallon tall tank, especially since it's open top and will be opposite the filter.

I've got water lettuce in a couple of my outdoor tanks, and I've gotta say, it's a fantastic addition. I've got around 7 different species in each one, and water lettuce always stands out - it's way more attractive than some of the other plants I've got, especially when paired with darker greens. One weird thing I've noticed is that dragonfly nymphs seem to love hatching off it - I get tons of them in my still-water tanks. Last time I tore one apart, I found around 30 nymphs in just 40 gallons of water. And for some reason, I always find the most emerged nymph skeletons on the water lettuce.

One thing to watch out for is that water lettuce can collect a lot of aquarium debris in its roots, so just be mindful of your fish food - if you're overfeeding, you'll end up with a cloud of detritus when you move the plant.

I've got some dwarf water lettuce going on. This is my second crack at it. First time around, they turned a bit yellow and just didn't seem to take off. I'm guessing it was either not enough nitrates or too much light. This time, I've toned down the lighting and sometimes just switch it off altogether. My main tank's open top, and I've also got some in my closed top shrimp tanks. Fingers crossed, I'll have a full-blown infestation by summer.

In my experience, I've noticed water lettuce tends to have some minor flaws - like slight variations in color or the occasional dead tip on the leaves.

I'm having a tough time with my red root floater in my South American tank, too much water movement maybe. But I recently bought 4 water lettuce plants for my African tank and they're doing great, throwing out babies left and right - I've got 18 to 2 dozen in just a few weeks. They seem to love the African tank, which has a ton of water flow, and the plants are stacked up opposite the Tidal 75. I did make a mistake by adding them before I completely removed all the duckweed - what a mess. I netted everything out, rinsed them in aquarium-safe dishpans in my sink, and got rid of at least 99% of the duckweed, putting it in my tilapia breeding tank. I removed the plant baffle while I was netting, and when I put the plants back, they packed in pretty tightly. I might put the baffle back in to reduce the surface flow and let them spread out some.

I had some of that outside in a tub one time and it went ape ! The roots were an underwater jungle .