Green Hedge?

[BillHicks]

Hello Everyone,

I just bought a plant from a lsf called a "Green Hedge" (Alternanthera ficoidea?) that I thought was an aquatic plant. Here is a picture of the plant:

Here is a closeup of a leaf:

After doing some research here and on a few other sites I saw many people saying that this is not an aquatic plant, and does not belong in an aquarium because it will rot and die if kept submerged. My first thought was to remove it immediately. But I decided to do a little bit more research, because I started seeing references to it on pond aquatic websites and saw it sold as an aquatic plants on other aquatic plant websites. I found this bit of information:

"Aquarium Plants : Terrarium/Bog Plants

These plants prefer a moist, semi-aquatic environment, with their roots wet and their leaves above the water line. They are perfect for a Paludarium (half-water/half-land set-up), or a humid Terrarium. Some of them will survive quite well when fully-submerged in an aquarium - check the chart below."

on this page:
http://www.aquariumcenter.com/plants_product.php?id=4

and the page basically indicates that it is ok to keep this particular plant fully submerged.

Since there seems to be some kind of debate on whether this particular plant will survive and grow fully submerged in an aquarium i was wondering if anyone had any more info on the Green Hedge and could shed some light on the subject.

I'm new to Aquarium Advice but I've been reading through the forums and you all seem like one of the best sources for Aquaria information, so thanks in advance!

 

[malkore]

http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide_viewer.php?id=234

 

[BillHicks]

Thanks. There seems to be some false information about these plants out there. This settles it for me, the plant is not meant for aquariums and will be coming out of mine.

 

[travis simonson]

You'll find many plants sold at the lfs are not actually capable of surviving submersed for very long. Most of the time they do this out of ignorance rather than intentionally. I noticed some bog plants being sold at my lfs as fully aqautic plants and pointed this out to them and, to my surprise, they corrected their mistake and now sell them as 'Bog Plants', although they give me crap about it every time I come in

 

[lmw80]

Thanks. There seems to be some false information about these plants out there. This settles it for me, the plant is not meant for aquariums and will be coming out of mine.

bill -I found out the hard way about the green hedge as well. It's a shame lfs don't do more research about these things.

 

[hashbaz]

Now that it is already in there, I would leave it there until you have a good reason to take it out. Before I learned about researching plants, I bought several "terrarium" plants. They would grow slowly at best and usually slowly died. But looked great for several months.

 

[travis simonson]

Now that it is already in there, I would leave it there until you have a good reason to take it out. Before I learned about researching plants, I bought several "terrarium" plants. They would grow slowly at best and usually slowly died. But looked great for several months.

I agree, you can get away with it for a while, but at the first sign of rot I would pull it out. It's too bad some of them can't survive submersed because so many bog plants look great.

 

[BillHicks]

I may keep it in for now. My cherry barbs seem to love it, they chase each other through the dense leaves, wriggling all around them. They are really getting a kick out of it.