Ceratophyllum species are distributed throughout the world, often in slightly brackish environments. This plant never develops true roots. Instead, it grows at the surface in long strands. Breaking the main strand encourages branching. Homwort can be grown much like a bunch plant by pushing strands into the gravel. From there the ends will grow up toward the surface.

Under good lighting the whorls (groups of leaves) stay close together on the strand. Poor lighting causes homwort to become very sparce and spindly. African cichlids, goldfish and other vegetarian fish love to nibble on the delicate fan-shaped leaves. Like most floating plants, it grows readily under normal aquarium conditions, as long as extremes are avoided. Again, this is an excellent plant providing hiding places for fry.

Anyone who has dabbled in the growing of live aquatic plants is surely familiar with duckweed. Probably all too familiar! Duckweed grows as a small four lobed star-shaped plant with a single hair-like root. A small handful will quickly multiply to cover the surface of any standard size aquarium. Without question, this is the easiest to grow of all aquatic plants. All it requires is water and a moderate amount of light.

Duckweed reproduces by physically dividing. This is known as vegetative propagation. Rataj and Horeman (1977) report nine species of Lemna, as duckweed is scientifically known, plus, several other genera. It occurs in nature in pools, ponds and any other body of standing water, in almost every tropical to temperate part of the world. Although it is considered a pest in many situations, duckweed does serve several purposes. First, it provides refuge for the fry of livebearers, anabantids and other surface- oriented fish. Second, it provides shade area where the light is excessively bright. Last, it serves as an excellent treat for vegetarian fish such as goldfish, Silver Dollars, African cichlids, large barbs, and many others.

I have actually dried duckweed out on a tray and mixed it in with my flake food. My fish never noticed the difference and ate both flake and duckweed hungrily. There should never be a need to purchase this plant. Just find a friend who has some; I’m sure he or she will be more than happy to thin out their crop for you.

Sally writes that everyone is always looking for a short cut when starting up a new salt-water aquarium. Looking at an empty tank for four weeks or longer can be very exasperating. Even when you add a few mollies or similar “junk” fish to the tank to get the nitrogen cycle started, you still wonder if you will ever get the nitrite level down to the safe point allowed to permit the addition of your newly purchased salt-water fish. Although there are numerous methods for innoculating a new salt-water tank, one way that works quite effectively is the transfer of the filter medium from a healthy established tank’s power filter.

As a rule, Sally does not utilize power filters on her salt-water tanks, except for occasional diatoming, although outside power filtration has been found to be very effective, especially if used in conjunction with undergravel filtration. Her method of innoculation is as follows: First, Sally runs an outside power filter containing only filter floss material for a week on the established tank after having stirred up a portion of the top layer of the dolomite substrate. The floating debris collects very nicely on the filter floss and sometimes algae will even take hold and start to grow on the floss as well. She then takes this same filter and places it on the tank that she wants to innoculate.

If you have other salt-water tanks around, Sally finds that the water that you remove from your normal water changes is excellent to use as part of the water that you add to the new tank. She will normally leave the filter running on the new tank for about a week and, with the addition of a half dozen mollies to the tank, three weeks is about the average length of time for the completion of the nitrogen cycle. Incidentally, this method of transferring filter material can also be used to condition a fresh-water tank.