01
Overview
This is the plant shops hand to people who have killed everything else, and it earns that role honestly. The hand-sized clumps of rounded leaves stay in proportion in tanks from 20 liters up, and a healthy specimen can outlive the aquarium it was bought for.
02
Aquascaping use
Its dark, calm foliage is the classic counterweight to busy stem plantings; a clump between stones settles a composition immediately. It also thrives in fish-focused tanks with plastic-proof herbivores, since barbs and cichlids rarely bother it.
03
Planting
Wedge the rhizome into a crevice or glue it to hardscape, keeping the rhizome itself in open water. Given time it will crawl slowly across whatever it touches, rooting as it goes.
Attach to hardscape
04
Light & CO₂
It grows in the shadow of other plants, under a single weak lamp, or beside a window; genuinely low light is fine. Under bright light it grows slightly faster but spends the difference fighting algae on its leaves.
05
Substrate & fertilization
Water-column feeding at modest levels is all it asks. If leaves come in small and pale over months, nudge micronutrients up gently rather than changing everything at once.
Feeding behavior: Water-column feeder. Nutrient demand: low.
06
Growth, trimming & propagation
Remove the oldest algae-worn leaves a few at a time at the rhizome. Split established clumps every year or two; each division restarts noticeably fresher growth.
Rhizome division
07
Common problems
- !Green spot algae on old leaves under excess light
- !Rhizome rot when buried or bruised
- !Flower spathes appear underwater and quietly rot if not removed
