Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Aquatic plants are used to give the aquarium a realistic appearance, oxygenate the water, and provide habitat for fish, especially fry (babies) and for invertebrate species. Some aquarium fish and invertebrates also eat live plants. Many commonly-used plant species come from the rivers of South America. Anubias Cabomba (fanwort) Ceratophyllum (hornwort) Cryptocoryne Echinodorus (sword plant) Elodea Lemna (duckweed; floating plants) Microsorum Pistia (water lettuce; floating plant) Vallisneria Vesicularia dubyana ("Java moss") Several species of land plants such as umbrella pine and aluminum plant (Pilea cadairei) are also frequently sold as "aquarium plants". While such plants can survive for a few weeks immersed, they will eventually die and must be removed so their decay does not contaminate the aquarium water. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.