Native Plants for a 125 Gallon Sunfish Community Aquarium

Hi everyone this is my first post so be patient with me if i mess up. I have a 125 gallon aquarium that i plan to stock with various sunfish after i finish planting it. I would appreciate any recommendations on what species of native aquatic plants i should use. I am from western North Carolina and would like to use plants that are native to the North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee area. I especially like hornwort and i was wondering if there was a way to anchor it without buring it in the substrate as i have found that it usually rots when planted that way. I was also wondering if a dwarf water lily would live in an aquarium. Thanks for all of your help.

I am glad you are deciding to use plants that are native to your region. Fellow forum member Newt (Nathan) made a good list of native aquatic plants that do well in the aquarium some time ago. However, I can't seem to find it, hopefully he knows where it is and will post it in the near future. Good luck, and if the list is never found, I could offer a few native plants that work well in aquaria.

Blake

The water lillies do well, but in a tank they don't really look like lillies. You'll pretty much see a long thin stem going up to the top where the lily pad is hidden from view.

You can anchor hornwort, Anacharis or that ridiculous frilly weed that grows everywhere with plant anchors you can get at the LFS. They're pieces of soft metal that you can form around the stem to weight it. You can also just tie them down with thread to a rock or driftwood. That doesn't last forever, but it lasts quite a while.

Hi Farmer Cline!

I don't have that list saved, but there are plenty of native plants that do well in tanks. Several are available from aquarium and pond suppliers, including hornwort (Ceratophyllum submersum, a different species of the same genus as our native C. demersum, but so similar as makes no difference), cabomba (Cabomba caroliniana), red ludwigia (Ludwigia repens or L. palustris), cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), banana plant (Nymphoides aquatica), dwarf hairgrass (Eleocharis parvulus or E. acicularis), pygmy chain sword (Echinodorus tenellus), guppy grass (Najas guadalupensis), various Sagittaria species, American val (Vallisneria americana), duckweeds (Lemna, Spirodela, and Wolffia sp.), mosquito fern/fairy moss (Azolla caroliniana), and probably several others I'm forgetting.

The list of native aquatics that are not commercially available is much larger. A lot of species you'll just have to try and see what happens. Hopefully nativeplanter will chime in, she is our resident expert on native plants.

Newts list is an excellent starting point. I would add Bacopa (Bacopa caroliniana) as another easy plant and easily purchased. I am also rather fond of Didiplis diandra (aka blood stargrass, but I always forget that), baby's tears (Micranthemum umbrosum), and Mayaca (Mayaca fluviatilis). These might be available for purchase if you look around the internet.

Personally, I would stay away from any of the duckweeds and Azolla. Mainly because once you put them in a tank, you can never go back and decide you don't want them. They reproduce like crazy and you can never harvest them all. I think a nice floating plant is frogbit (Limnobium spongia). It helps remove nitrogen very well, yet is very easily harvested.

I wouldn't try to anchor the hornwort. The lead strips are a very short-term solution. Hornwort actually doesn't root! Definitely nice to have if you don't mind it floating about, but if you want something rooted, I would look at the other options.

I think your biggest question now is to decide how you want to set the tank up. Some plants do OK in fine gravel if you don't vacuum it. Many people (myself included) like to use soil under the gravel. I find the plants do much better that way, and it really expands what you can grow. Others use a special plant gravel and fertilizers from the pet store, but I can't comment on that much since I don't find it necessary and haven't done it. Your lighting needs to be considered too. Many of the exotic plants at the pet store do well with lower light levels, but ours typically don't. You will most likely need more than the standard one-bulb setup. There are different hoods you can buy to do this, or if you are at all handy you can build one yourself. You can even use a shop light if it fits the tank well.

Newt has a long thread on here somewhere about a school tank he rennovated. Perhaps he can direct you to it. FarmerTodd also has some very nice discussion on planted tanks, and has a nice website that describes how he set it up. Search around the forum and you're sure to find the link somewhere.

Hopefully nativeplanter will chime in, she is our resident expert on native plants.

Now stop it...
There are a good number of people on the forum who are very knowledgeable about plants.

Thanks for all of the help. I will definately be using an assortment of the recommended plants. I was also wondering if Elodea canadensis would do well in my aquarium which has a medium to high lighting system. Thanks!

Elodea is the devil! It'll grow just fine, but it's really quite ugly in a tank. It has a way of growing extremely fast right up to the surface of the water, and then all the submerged leaves die off and your tank looks like you have a stick with crap hanging off of it since you can't see the floating leaves that are spreading across the surface of the water, blocking out light and slowly making your other plants die. That said, there are some people on here that claim to like it.

What are you using for lighting and planting medium? Both of these are important if you want your plants to thrive....

I realize this post is from a while back, but I would just like to say that the Utricularia species are really cool to have in an aquarium. They are carnivorous, feeding on small inverts like copepods. They don't need the inverts as food to grow though, since they can create energy using photosynthesis. I had some Utricularia gibba that I had floating in my tank and it blanketed the surface of the water. It doesn't grow very thick and still allows light to get through. Sadly, I no longer have any because i moved it into a container outside and it ended up over-flowing and all of it poured out.

I have a bunch in my pond. I have to thin it out periodically, but it's not a really fast growing plant like, say, salvinia or duckweed.

I realize this post is from a while back, but I would just like to say that the Utricularia species are really cool to have in an aquarium. They are carnivorous, feeding on small inverts like copepods. They don't need the inverts as food to grow though, since they can create energy using photosynthesis. I had some Utricularia gibba that I had floating in my tank and it blanketed the surface of the water. It doesn't grow very thick and still allows light to get through. Sadly, I no longer have any because i moved it into a container outside and it ended up over-flowing and all of it poured out.

I agree, Utricularia are quite nice. Given enough light, they will flower for you. The inverts that they catch are not for energy, but for nutrients. I have seen it grow without bladders (the little traps) in nutrient-rich water (which I must say, confused me as to what it was when I first saw it).

Thanks for all of the great ideas. I am sorry that I have not replied sooner but I have been on vacation and ever since I got back I have been extremely busy doing school and tending my cabbage and head lettuce fields. As for the aquarium I added a clump of an unknown Utricularia species and a clump of hornwort to float around. I also added a dwarf waterlily from Lilypons. It is growing but is doing so very slowly. A care sheet came in the box with the lily and it said to place two Lilytabs plant fertilizer under the lily when planting and in the substrate around it twice a year. I did not do this because I was afraid that it would affect the water quality and now I am wondering if I should add some. The aquarium has a four inch layer of gravel that is elevated to seven inches where the lily is. There are no fish in the aquarium but I plan to add some soon. All suggestions will be appreciated.