Can anyone on this forum give me advice on floating plants? I have dwarf neon rainbow fish and thick-lipped gouramis and I have read a few profiles that say they are best kept with floating plants to make them feel more secure and also improve their coloration because the lighting is more subdued. I have had the gouramis for 3 months and they are still quite shy.

http://www.fishforever.co.uk/thicklippedgourami.html

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile118.html

I live in Leeds (like quite a few people in this forum it seems!) and I have never seen any floating plants in the local shops although they seem to have lots of normal plants. Also I have a fluval 3 filter which generates quite a lot of current and I am not sure the plants will look good if they are being pushed round the tank all the time. Is it worth getting some floating plants?

Tank set up
125L with fluval 3 internal filter
some amazon sword
6 dwarf neon rainbowfish
6 cherry barbs
2 thick lipped gouramis
5 amano shrimp

you can give it a try, in wouldn't say it's a necessity but some people use them with success for shy fish.

paws for thought on york rd sometimes have floating plants in, alternativley ask in the buy,sell swap forum for someone with them or look online at somewhere like greenline

Hi aquabadger,

I brought a single floating plant off ebay about 2 months ago for around 2-3 pounds, now i have 50% of the surface in my 4 foot tank covered with them,
I can't currently recall the name of the plant i brought but it grows quite quickly and so would be an easy option for you to try,
(i'll post the name later when i remember, off out to work in a few minutes)

Could always try duckweed, I inherited some along with an upside down catfish I rehomed. I personally dont like it (and have got rid of most of it) but it seems pretty hardy, may be more to your taste.

So MW, I'm staring at the 2nd line picturing you, in your typically busy day, parked by the side of some highway stretch "paused for thought and looking down at the ditch by the side of the road noticing floating aquarium plants for this thread." ...then I came to my senses and figured it out

it's a fish shop round here

I have Salvinia in all the tanks in my house. I do have to keep it in check sometimes and chuck some out/give some away but otherwise it looks good, and my Opaline Gourami like to lurk under it . I also have a couple of baby water lettuce. The long trailing roots are good for fish to hide in . You may be better able to find these in the pond sections of garden centres rather than fish stores .

This post has been edited by Honeythorn: Jul 15 2008, 02:07 PM

Salvinia and duckweed are both good choices for small floating plants. Another plant that is floating in the sense that its not rooted is hornwort. It forms a dense clump if you let it float free with a strong current in the tank. The ends just end up tangled into the middle. The duckweed and salvinia will get blown around by strong currents and if you are also getting vertical mixing, they will move throughout the water column. Its what I see in my 40 breeder that has a very powerful power head in it.