Hygrophila difformis

Hygrophila difformis in my aquarium

Common name
Water wisteria

Synonymies
Ruellia difformis, Synnema triflorum.

Description
Light-green stem plant with incised leaves. This easy to keep aquarium plant forms braches near the bottom of the aquarium. The plants grow to the light. Therefore they do not grow so nice if they are planted near the sides of the aquarium, because they than grow to the insight of the aquarium where the most light is. In the aquarium literature this plant is often recommended for a new aquarium, because of it's rapid growth and it's removes a lot of not wanted nitrogen out of the water. 

My experiences
As already described above this is a easy to keep plant, which I can partly agree with. Also in my own aquarium this plant rapidly starts growing after it has been planted. The plants also always formed side shoots in my aquarium and even broken leaves were able to grow roots in my aquarium. Despite the rapid growth of this plant I never had this plant for a long period. In my aquarium this plants rapidly attracts algae and therefore I've always removed it after 1 till 2 months every time I had them. Although the other plants in my aquarium also suffer from algae sometimes, this mostly is on old leaves or old plants while with H. difformis even the young leaves rapidly attracts algae in my aquarium. Because of this I personally don't agree with the advise to use this plant in a newly setup aquarium. Of course it's true that this plant rapidly grows after planting in the aquarium, but especially in a newly setup aquarium where there's a great risk of algae growth I think that this plant isn't a good chose (based on my own experiences).

Place and lighting in my aquarium

This plant has stood in the middle and right-back of my aquarium. The lighting I used at the time was a 0.42 Watt/liter lumilux TL lighting (2*18 Watt).

Foot-note The picture on this page is from my own aquarium.

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