Question about hornworts? Pictures

[chronic]

I think thats what these are?
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c173/1chronicpls/Picture218.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c173/1chronicpls/Picture219.jpg

Today I bought a couple new plants, and I saw these and thought they would be kind of cool, somethign I can keep higher in the water that my pleco can't rip out.

But I never read up on them and had no idea how messy they would be shedding needles.

I rinsed them off really good, threw them in my aquarium and they just exploded, needles everywhere my new tiger oscars were fascinated!

So I cleaned my filter after a while of letting it suck up most of them. And scooped a bunch out with my net.

But my question is. Can this be harmful for my fish? Or would it just be like any other plant. Clean up the dead, decaying leaves and thats it?

[toddnbecka]

Ya, that sure do look like hornwort. I have some in my 38, it grows very well with a 4' shop light w/plant bulbs hanging directly over the tank. I's say some of the stems are probably longer than I am tall (>6') by now. I never bothered trying to root mine, they just float and grow. There's quite a good population of some sort of small "pond" snails living among them. I never see the snails anywhere else in the tank.
Given enough light you won't be cleaning up dead leaves, just trimming the monsters occaisonally. Otherwise, they're harmless, though the filter intake getting clogged with dropped leaves can be a nuisance if the plants aren't doing well.

[chronic]

Ok, cool. Yeah I just wasn't sure if that shedding was going to promote anymore problems beyound cleaning.

They are cool, I hope mine do well, I turned my bubbles down to basically nothing. The oscars like to hide in them, and my pleco can't mess around with it, so its good!

Thanks for the reply.

[Commodore 64]

I've not had a problem with shedding.

SOme people report hornwort is sensitive to Excel, but this is in dispute (mine weren't), although I don't use Excel anymore.

What was your water temp? Hornwort is reportedly cool water plant. I know mine does way better in 76 degrees than it did in 80 degrees.

the biggest problem I have is that it grows so darned fast and shades all the other plants in my aquarium.

[chronic]

Since I already had a hornwort thread open.

My calico comet goldfish spends his time eating my hornwort. Its annoying since it looked really good for a while up until he went to town on it.


It can't harm him can it?

[scruffy]

My last bunch of hornwort exploded, too! Within a day, most of the needles were stuck in the bottom of my filter. Any tips for selecting a good bunch of hornwort?

[country_boy454]

I gave up on hornwort. I couldn't get it to grow very well. Didn't like my water. I have cabomba in place of hornwort. This stuff really grows fast and thick. I planted two small stems in my 75 gallon when I set it up less than a month ago and now they are about 3 ft long each plus I have transplanted some into my 55. I think the cabomba looks better too. It turns purplish red towards the upper part of the plant.

[gm72]

I have rather soft water and neither hornwort nor cabomba does well. Maybe related to the water conditions for sure.

[country_boy454]

I think I remember Dave mentioning that Hornwort likes slightly acidic water. Or maybe I read it somewhere. Which I do not have. My tap is more 7.6-8.0 PH range. Also it is only a KH of 8.

[korith]

Hornwort was my first live plant. Let me tell ya something it grows fast, real fast. In my 20g tall I anchored a few small bunches of it along the back wall of the tank. In about 2 weeks it had consumed about 3/4 of the tank space!

[Commodore 64]

Anyone who wants hornwort, PM me. It grows like gangbusters in my shrimp tank. I'll send you some for costs of shipping.