lake plants

A

aglarond

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Jun 11, 2008
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I was paddling around lake huron yesterday when all of a sudden the aquarium obsession crept up on me. I started looking down into the water and I noticed that there were many different types of aquatic plants rooted in the sand.

I started pulling some out of the sand and was surprised by what I found. Though some types were ugly, others were very beautiful, lush, and green. One looked like a thin red cobomba, another like a larger variant of star moss, and there were several types of thin and broad leaved grass like plants. One patch of plants I found was particularly amazing. They were rooted at least fifteen feet down and grew up in a helical shape for about five or six feet.

I don't have a camera with me up at the cottage so no pictures yet.

What I'm wondering is if any of these plants would survive in an aquarium setting? Some of the plants were growing in shallow water but some were so deep that I had to dive down to get them. They must be adapted for low light levels. Temperature is also a concern. Lake temperature only ever reaches near aquarium temperature at the height of summer.

Should I try to plant these plants in one of my aquariums or would I be better off playing it safe? Could there be any diseases or foreign contaminants introduced through these plants?

I swear that some of the plants I pulled up look a lot like what you find at the lfs selling for 5-10$...
 
i would definatly quarentine em, but it would be a nice experiment to try
 
I've thought about looking into local/native plants (not always one in the same. I suppose it should be said not to "release" the plants once they have hit your tanks, can't say it enough really) but can't find any I like in the one pond I've checked! haha

I agree with the QT suggestions. I typically will "actively" QT plants before I introduce them to a tank by using dilute bleach dips or potassium permanganate (spell check?).

I'd love to see some pictures and get some updates.
 
I've grown a number of wild-collected plants. They almost always have some clinging invertebrates and invert eggs, so be mindful of that. Many popular aquarium species are native to the eastern US, so they may in fact be exactly the same plants you would pay $5-10 for at the LFS; additionally there are several common aquatics that do well in tanks but have just never become popular in the trade for whatever reason.
 
I think it would be very cool to have some native plants in your tank. I would just make sure they aren't endangered or on the noxious weed list (many of these are illegal to own) and I will echo quarantining them and never let them make it back into the wild.
 
I got back tonight and planted some of what I had collected. I had a 20 gallon with only a few inhabitants in it, so I moved those fish to another tank and used the 20 gallon as a quarantine tank.

The pictures don't really represent what the plants looked like when I pulled them out of the lake. I think after two days in bags they may have started to melt a bit. The water is a little murky from all the rearranging. My camera isn't that great either. I hope they will start to look better in a few days.

Anyway, have a look at what I found:













The plant in the second picture is kind of creepy. Inside each of those little bunches there are little orange/red things. I have no idea what they are. The plant has a very thick and stringy feel to it. I found it growing a couple of feet down.

The plant in the third picture is my favorite. In the lake it grows like a carpet over the bottom, staying close to the ground. It has a really nice green color and I like the shape of the leaves. I found this one growing one to two feet down.

There are two plants in the fourth picture; a grass like plant with thick leaves and a grass like plant with thin leaves. The thick leaved plant has mushroom like offshoots coming from the bottom of it. Any ideas on what they might be? Flowers? Rhizomes? The thick grass grew from shallow water down to about five feet; the thin grass only grew in very shallow water.

The fifth picture is of the cobomba like plant. It suffered the most from being in bags and lost a lot of its red coloration. It grew anywhere from two feet down to ten feet down.

The sixth picture is of some other type of grass. I only found one plant of this type and it was growing about a foot down.

Anyone have any ideas on what these plants are or how well they might grow in an aquarium setting?
 
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