Common Water Plants used in Aquariums

The most common plants found in fresh water lakes are often used in fresh water fish tanks, backyard pools.. These are Waterweed, (Elodea canadensis), and the Elodeas (Elodea), which has tiny flowers that float on the surface of the water, and have buoyant stems.

Another common plant is Water Celery (Vallisneria americana). It's leaves are long and slender and float up from the plant submerged, but reaching for the surface of the water.

PondWeeds (Potamogeton illinoensis) are one of the most important flowering plants for the ecology of fresh water lakes and are a vital food source for waterfowl, as wellas, many forms of aquatic life. Fish and frogs, snakes and snails are among the many that feed and breed among their leaves.

The plants used in aquariums are not often the common plants in the wild. Because fish tanks require special lights and sometimes a CO2 reactor in order to have the plants thrive. If you check out the link in my signature, it is a thread where I posted my planted aquariums. My main tank has 2x 39W T5HO lights made for freshwater plants. Without them, a lot of high light plants can't survive in a fish tank.

The most common aquatic plants used in fish tanks are Anubia nana, Anubia barteri, Java Moss, Java Fern. These plants are hardy and can grow under low light conditions without fertilizer. There is also Amazon Sword which has become quite popular but it has higher demands. Duck weed is often used in tanks with excessive nitrate. Baby Dwarf Tears are used in growing a carpet in the tanks but without CO2 injection and at least 4W per gallon it won't end up well.

Thanks for the information Ram, my post needed edited a bit, but I ran out of time.

I meant some fresh water tanks and ponds and some open aquariums.

In Florida, we were able to use a lot of the wild plants in with our big goldfish and sunfish. We replaced the plants often but the fish seemed to thrive on these plants better than store boughten ones. We started out spending good money for plants and had trouble keeping them alive, so we used what we had locally. But our aquariums had much more light, in a open area shed.

The aquariums you have are very nice. I have watched your videos and learned some interesting facts.