Aquarium plant "vallisneria spiral": description, reproduction, maintenance and care

One of the most common plants of the family of water-flowers is vallisneria. The maintenance and care in the aquarium behind it is of interest to most people who are not indifferent to the creation of natural corners.

Vallisneria: where did it originate and where does it grow?

Despite the fact that its natural habitat was originally a subtropical zone and hot tropics, today the plant is often found even in some water bodies in the southern regions of Russia. In addition, adapted to the standing water of lakes and ponds, in rapid river flows, it also gets along well. Originality of the appearance of the vallisneria is given by bright green leaves.

Vallisneria spiral today is extremely popular among landscape designers. It is actively used to decorate artificial ponds or tall huge aquariums. Thanks to the unpretentiousness of the plant, it is even possible for novice amateur aquarium decorators to grow vallisneria.

Description of an underwater plant with spiral leaves

Most plants of this type are extremely fastidious: for them it is necessary to select a special primer, provide adequate lighting, maintain only a certain temperature of the water. Vallisneria spiral, on the contrary, is very unpretentious. Its bushes are well developed on the sandy bottom of a dense fraction or among the stones pressing its roots under water. Of course, light is needed for the plant primarily for timely and prolonged flowering. Therefore, in the natural environment, it blooms only in the summer, and at home it is possible to achieve long-awaited flowers resembling white bells, even in the spring.

The peculiarity of the leaves of vallisneria is their rigidity. Having similarity with narrow green satin ribbons, reaching a length of 70 cm, they are so sharp that if they are careless they can damage their hand.

Value of vallisneria in an aquarium or an artificial reservoir

Supply of oxygen - the merit of the plant in the metabolic processes of the aquarium. Taking useful organic substances from the soil, creates all the conditions for the full existence of living organisms in the water namely vallisneria. The maintenance and care (the plant species are numerous, but several of them predominate), performed in accordance with the requirements of cultivation, will allow the bushes to reproduce at an unprecedented rate. In this regard, the vallisneria requires regular thinning of densely growing thickets.

It is extremely important to remember that sometimes in shallow water bodies or aquariums of insufficient height, the leaves of the plant create an almost impassable green veil, which prevents natural light transmission. The solution to this problem is one - to reduce the bushes of growing vallisneria.

What can do harm to underwater bushes?

It is possible to thin the plantation, but it is impossible to shorten the leaves under any conditions. Living spider veinsneria will simply be doomed to perdition. After the cut, the leaves will turn yellow, rot and eventually disappear.

The presence of certain minerals in water can adversely affect its growth. For example, saline solution used for the treatment of aquarium fish negatively affects the condition of bushes: the leaves become dull when used. Thus, not only this aquarium plant reacts to salt .

Vallisneria spiral does not tolerate rust. Such a problem is not uncommon for many owners of ornamental aquariums in Russian cities. Using as a filler tap water, flowing through the iron rusting pipes, the hosts risk to destroy all the living things in the aquarium.

Food additives for fish

The presence in the water of copper salts, which are sometimes used in the preparation of preparations against algae and slugs, also does not benefit vallisneria. And although manufacturers often refute the likelihood of adverse effects of drugs on aquarium vegetation, the reviews say the opposite. In particular, after the addition of "Bicillin-5" - a medicinal product for fish - Vallisneria spiral, giant die.

Giant Wallisnaires

This kind of underwater plant is no less common among aquarists. The name predetermines the possibility of establishing such a vallisnerium only in the spacious high vessels of a home pond. Under normal conditions, the leaves of giant vallisneria can reach a length of two meters. This species, like the spiral vallisneria, is unpretentious in maintenance, withstands for a long time both the absence of necessary illumination, and temperature changes.

Reproduction of a plant

To propagate vegetatively a popular representative of the aquarium flora at home, you should create an optimal environment for it, close to the natural one. As a rule, the whiskers grow a mustache, which subsequently form the daughter bushes. Separate from the mother plant young shoots can be after the formation of the daughter shoots several leaves and root lobes. Cutting a mustache, you can get a separate bush ready for independent existence.

It is quite difficult to grow vallisneria by the seed method at home. In addition, experts find this inappropriate, since the plant is dioecious. This means that each separate bush forms flowers of male and female sex.

Using a Wallisnierian Person

For domestic purposes, vallisneria is not used. However, repeatedly biologists have tried to identify additional benefits of an underwater plant that could be used in the farm. They managed to test spiral bushes in the process of sewage water treatment in urban centers. Moderately warm temperature drains would allow the vallisneria to grow and spread throughout the year.

On the territory of Russia, similar studies were conducted in one of the scientific institutes of Perm Krai. Then the results of the experiments demonstrated that due to the presence of this representative of the water-colors, the content of harmful salts of nitrogen and phosphorus became several times smaller. In this case, the experiments were carried out only in sedimentation tanks with slow water flows.

Features of care and content of spiral vallisneria

A frequent visitor in aquariums is spiral vallisneria, brought from far abroad. The main supplier of the underwater species of the plant are the southern states of North America. Its characteristic difference can be called wider leaves, twisted as if into a tailspin.

The ideal water temperature for this type of plant is approximately +20 ... + 25 degrees. In a colder pond, her condition does not deteriorate, but there is a clear slowdown in growth. The periodic or partial change of water in the aquarium also positively affects the plant.

To create the most favorable conditions for living in an artificial environment of vallisneria, the acidity and hardness of the water should ideally be neutral.

The lack of daylight helps to stretch the leaves excessively, after which they begin to lighten and turn yellow. Indoors, an aquarium with shrubs of such plants should be lit for at least 12 hours.

If the vallisneria spiral does not grow, the problem may be hidden in the ground or in the state of the root system. The fairly gentle rooting of white color consists of small veins, hence it is convenient for them to grow in well-washed river sand. When creating the soil in the aquarium, it is necessary to remember about its preferred thickness - not less than 5 cm. In addition, it is important to feed the underwater soil at least for the first time after planting, although in the aquarium the standard density of planted fish is not needed in additional fertilizers.

In the home care of special difficulties does not cause vallisneria spiral. Diseases of the plant can be caused by a single cause - a low level of quality of tap water. When filling the aquarium, this fact needs to be taken into account, as owners often overlook such an important detail and begin to look for problems of plant growth in lighting, water temperature and fish feed.

If you want to grow a real healthy wallisnerie, which will become an element of decor not only the aquarium vessel, but the whole house, it is not necessary to buy a new primer. When replacing the aquarium, the old soil from the previous vessel will come in handy: a lot of organic substances useful for plants usually accumulate on the bottom.