hi I'm Irene with Girl Talks Fish and one of my main secrets for getting rid of algae
is floating plants I love how they suck up all those excess nutrients they block out too much
light from getting to the plants and the fish love it especially surface dwellers and fry the
only problem is they do multiply out of control which can be bad because that can potentially
shade out all the plants below so they're not getting enough light as well as if it covers
the entire surface of the tank it can limit the amount of oxygen in the water for your
fish so here's my honest review of five floating plants I've kept and which one is my favorite
number five on the list is Salvinia and it's one of the newer floating plants that I've tried and
that's okay I mean I think the most common variety you'll see on the market is Salvinia
minima and the leaves are really small it's an automatic No-No for any floating plant if it's
got really tiny leaves like duckweed because it makes it so annoying when you have to get
rid of some of it because it's starting to cover the entire surface of the water another thing is
the roots are really tiny as well so it's not really providing much cover for my small fish
now I did just get this bigger species which I think is called Salvinia cucullata it has these
like small cup like shaped leaves and I really like how it grows in these clumps or mats which
makes it really easy to move out if I need to now I just got this species from my local fish store
so I'm not really sure how it's going to perform in the future but let's just say in general I tend
to like more uniquely shaped and larger types of Salvinia I first saw dwarf water lettuce when I
was doing a tour of Lily's fish room which you can see right here and and one of her guppies tanks I
saw this beautiful floating plant that looked like a green giant flower with rippled petals velvety
texture I mean I was in love I had to have it she didn't have that much of it so the one she did
give to me unfortunately when I put it in my new tank the long beautiful roots immediately shed off
and then it ended up melting away probably from lack of nutrients now that I'm realizing it but
I was too embarrassed to ask her for another one so I basically didn't keep it for many years but
finally I remembered it and I was like okay I'm gonna order some more from etsy.com and the seller
was great they actually trimmed off the long roots they're only three inches long and they weren't
as likely to snap off in transit and I ended up putting it in this 20 gallon high tank and it did
great the only problem is I just couldn't figure out how to grow into that big giant flower form
and instead it would form like little leaves and then maybe at max the clumps were like about an
inch and a half in diameter so you know how I feel about small leaves and eventually I ended
up phasing out that plant but if you do know the secret of how to grow bigger dwarf water lettuce
let me know down in the comments because I would love to try this beautiful floating plant again
speaking of floating plants with really really long roots let's talk about Amazon frogbit they
are technically third place on my list but I really really like this plant their leaves are
kind of like round and green they look like little lily pads that are about the size of a nickel to a
quarter but the way they propagate is by sending out runners so they're all kind of connected
together and it's really easy to like lift out a giant mat of them if you need to remove them
definitely one of the hardiest floating plants I've kept besides duckweed uh and then the really
really long roots are great for small fish to hide in the only problem is long roots in general tend
to snap pretty easily and tear off when you're doing tank maintenance so what I like to do is
make a ring of airline tubing or get one of those floating corrals you can buy online and then put
all a frog bit inside and that way when it's time to do a water change I just unhook the ring from
the side of the tank and then it kind of all the floating plants stay contained and then they sink
down and then rise with the tide so to speak so if you want to see a complete care guide a frog
bait you can check it out over here probably the prettiest floating plant I've ever had is red root
floaters I love this plant and it's another good reason why I liked to use the floating corrals for
them is because A) I can make sure the filter doesn't push down the floating plant and then
B) I can put all the red root floaters positioned directly under the light and that's how you get it
to turn from green to pink to, if there's enough light like outside, kind of super dark red with
even white flowers so pretty they have relatively short roots and they also grow in giant clumps if
you don't disturb them which again makes it really easy to move if you need to I honestly can't say
enough good things about this plant and in fact I just bought some for this aquarium over here
got it from a company on Etsy that says they're guaranteed to have no snails and no duckweed
which is a win the only times I've had problems of this plant would be in the past I did have
some melt because as I was using an air pump that was actually too strong so if the current is way
too strong they don't like that I just switched out to a gentler air pump and then also if they
escape this corral and end up floating to a darker corner of the tank without enough light it will
also melt in that case the only reason why red root floaters aren't number one on my list is
because I value low maintenance and easy care over appearances and the easiest floating plant I've
ever owned is floating water sprite a it's really easy to purchase because a lot of times they're
sold commonly as a potted stem plant and a lot of sellers do not like to touch floating plants
the people who are online they're kind of hard to ship they melt easily and honestly I don't see a
lot of my local fish stores selling floating plants either number two it grows extremely
quickly especially once it starts popping up those immersed grown leaves above water and then it can
access CO2 directly from the air that is why it is actually my go-to plant when I'm trying to cycle a
new aquarium just because it takes off so quickly plus I really love the huge broad lacy leaves it
puts out it really provides a ton of shade which is great for blocking out the light on things like
anubias and other slow growing plants that are really prone to Growing algae just be careful
that you don't get lazy on maintenance like I did where it ends up shading out the other plants in
the aquarium that do need it like in my case it ended up out competing my Pogostemon stellatus
and dwarf aquarium lilies so you just gotta- it's a really big plant so it's very easy to move it
out and then propagate it to another tank if you like floating plants are definitely one of the
easy plants to grow but if you are interested in my honest opinion of 10 other beginner aquarium
plants check it out over here take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see you in the next video