Pistia: types of aquarium plants and content

Enough vegetation must be placed inside to set up an aquarium. When choosing greens for its decoration, it makes sense to turn your attention to the pistia.

The aquarium plant pistia is also known as water rose, floating lettuce, and water lettuce. Outwardly, it resembles an ordinary head of cabbage. The root system of the plant is under water, and the leaves on short stems float on the surface. The length of one leaf ranges from 20 to 25 centimeters, and the width reaches 10 centimeters. Rounded plates with narrow bases, painted in a green-blue tint, are collected in rosettes.

Elongated and slightly depressed veins parallel to the length of the leaf. This gives the plates a corrugating effect, which additionally ensures the stability of the plant on the surface of the water. The surface of the leaves is covered with short gray hairs that prevent the plate from getting wet. The length of the cob is no more than a centimeter. It is shrouded in a light green leaf and is located at the top with several male flowers.

As a rule, their number ranges from 2 to 8 copies. Under the two accrete stamens there is a single female flower with several ovules. Self-pollination in Pistia occurs by itself. However, no less effective is the use of seeds formed in the fruits of the plant. The active growth of the culture begins with an increase in daylight hours. In addition to the appearance of new leaves, there is an increase in rosettes (from 10 to 12 centimeters). In addition, side shoots are actively formed.This entire period lasts about a couple of months.

In nature, Pistia lives in the tropics of Africa, therefore high humidity and the same temperature are an essential condition for the development of this culture. The plant grows so quickly that it covers the entire surface of the reservoir in a short period of time. Under natural conditions, the diameter of the outlet reaches 30 centimeters, while the thin, intertwined spines go almost 60 centimeters under the water.

There are few types of water lettuce, but they all differ in the height of the "original" and are suitable for germination in an aquarium. Blue water lettuce is characterized by the presence of beautiful blue-tinged leaf plates. Most often, a floating pistia is chosen not for aquariums, but for decorating small reservoirs. Corrugated kale is characterized by miniature leaves with the same corrugated ends. The diameter of the plates ranges from 7 to 10 centimeters.

Variegated water lettuce has mottled leaves, the surface of which is also covered with stripes of a beautiful creamy yellow color. As for the names "layered pistia" or "body pistia", all these are just other names for water salad.

Keeping a pistia in an aquarium is a fairly straightforward task. It is recommended to maintain the temperature in the range from 25 to 28 degrees. Lower rates of particular harm to the plant will not cause, but the size of the outlets will be smaller. The hardness and acidity of the liquid, in principle, do not play a special role, but it is good if the pH level remains in the range from 5 to 7. Too hard water will slow down the development of the culture, and worsen the condition of the bushes. This also implies the importance of regularly renewing the water.

For a pistia, an important condition for existence is a sufficient amount of light. In this case, she does not have enough natural sources, so you will have to use artificial ones. Incandescent lamps are not allowed to be used, as their use contributes to the appearance of burns on the plates. But luminescent devices will show themselves perfectly. The required daylight hours are up to 12 hours. You can understand whether a plant has enough light by its appearance. A well-lit pistia opens the sockets during the day and closes them at night.

In summer, water lettuce can be exposed to insects. It will be treated like an ordinary plant. The diseased bush is removed from the aquarium, treated with pesticides according to the instructions, and before returning to the vessel, it must be washed under the tap.

The main components of caring for a water rose are regular feeding, as well as providing conditions for winter rest. It should be mentioned that sometimes the kale needs to be thinned out. If you let it grow uncontrollably, then it will fill the entire surface of the water., will create a strong shadow at the bottom and thereby deprive all the inhabitants of the aquarium of the necessary lighting.

It is recommended to feed the pistia in spring and summer, when there is an active vegetation. Complex fertilizers, which necessarily contain iron, are best suited for this purpose. The number of dressings is determined as follows: for 100 liters of water there is only 1.5 to 2 grams of dry powder. In order to determine if the pistia has enough nutrients, it is necessary to carefully examine its roots. If they look as usual, then everything is in order, but if they began to grow, then the plant lacks organic matter.In addition, for water lettuce, it is important that the water in the tank contains a sufficient amount of nitrates. Fertile and silty soil mixture is considered optimal for culture.

Like most plants, the development of the pistia changes during winter. Its growth gradually stops at the end of summer. Almost all the foliage falls off and only a few small leaves remain on the bush. Daughter processes also slow down in their development. In this case, the culture needs to provide a soft transition to a state of dormancy, after which next spring it will be able to return to growth and expansion with renewed vigor.

Already from the beginning of autumn, the temperature in the reservoir is gradually decreasing. Since this can have a rather deplorable effect on the fish, it will probably be necessary to move the pistia to another vessel for a while. The temperature of the liquid will have to be gradually lowered to a range of 17 to 19 degrees. During the transition to the dormant period, you will need to gradually reduce the lighting. Top dressing during these months is not applied at all, and the water changes much less frequently.

It is customary to propagate water lettuce either by seed or by shoots. The easiest way is to use lateral processes or stolons. When the bush reaches 8 centimeters in diameter, small shoots can be separated from it, which by that time have created a couple of full-fledged leaves. On the stolons, full-fledged children are separated, resembling a strawberry mustache. If the required shoots appear during the period of winter dormancy, then they will have to be removed for preservation on a peat moss surface and covered with a glass plate.

When stolons are transplanted into a separate container, it will be important to maintain the water temperature at 11-13 degrees Celsius. In the spring they can be transplanted into the main aquarium. In nature, by the way, babies detach themselves from the mother plant on their own and get to a new habitat with the help of the current.

Despite the fact that the water rose is an unpretentious plant and has an innate immunity to most common diseases, even it has problems. In hot summer, the plant often becomes a target for insects. Besides, Pistia is sometimes exposed to fungal or bacterial diseases in the case when the plant itself is no longer young, but is somehow weakened. In this case, unfortunately, the culture cannot be saved; it dies. It is necessary to immediately remove the bush from the aquarium, and then carry out a complete water change. Pistia infection can occur even with an unsuccessful transplant. To prevent such a situation, it is necessary to remove the plant again, thoroughly rinse its roots, and then remove it for about a month in a separate container. When quarantine is over, the water lettuce can be returned to the community aquarium.

Some of the inhabitants of the aquarium, such as snails or other molluscs, often spoil the leaves. What begins as a violation of the decorative attractiveness of the plant can even lead to the death of the pistia.

For the pistia aquarium plant, see the video below.