Giant cabomba
Cabomba aquatica
Also known as Yellow cabomba, Giant fanwort
Care at a glance
- Light
- High light
- CO2
- CO₂ required
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Placement
- Background
- Type
- Stem
- Temperature
- 68–86°F (20–30°C)
- pH
- 5.0–7.0
- Hardness
- 1–8 dGH
- Max height
- 31.5 in (80 cm)
- Spread
- 3.9 in (10 cm)
- Nutrient uptake
- Root + water column
- Growth region
- Submersed
- Difficulty
- Difficult
- Origin
- Northern South America (the Guianas, Venezuela, Colombia, northern and eastern Brazil, Bolivia)
- Family
- Cabombaceae
Overview
This is the demanding cabomba, and it holds soft-water requirements that the common green species shrugs off. Give it low carbonate hardness, a pH at or below neutral, strong light and steady CO2 in the 20 to 40 mg/l range, or it drops needles and stalls. Plant bunches at the back with a little space between stems so light reaches the lower fans, and handle it gently, because the stems are brittle and resent repeated uprooting. Propagate by cutting healthy tops and replanting them; the old base usually sends out side shoots. In hard water or under weak light it sheds foliage from the bottom up, which is the usual way this plant fails.
In the wild
Cabomba aquatica grows in standing and slow-flowing soft, acid waters across northern South America, from the Guianas and Venezuela through northern and eastern Brazil to Bolivia. It lives in ponds, ditches and quiet river margins, often in tannin-stained water over fine sediment. It is a true aquatic with no emersed form: only the small shield-shaped floating leaves and the flowers ever reach above the surface.
Good to know
A member of Cabombaceae, the fanwort family, a small lineage related to the water lilies rather than to typical stem plants. It is the largest-leaved fanwort, with submersed fan leaves divided into a great many fine tips and reaching around 9 cm across. When a stem hits the surface it switches to producing roundish, shield-shaped floating leaves, and the flowers that follow are bright yellow, which sets it apart from the other fanworts in the hobby.
Did you know
The fans are only half the show. A stem that reaches the surface starts making small shield-shaped floating leaves and then holds bright yellow flowers above the water, a colour no other commonly kept fanwort produces.
Appears in
High-light plants · Background plants · Stem plants · Advanced plants
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