Reptile & Amphibian Forums

They are a cool tank plant to have.

I tried to keep some in my semi-aquatic Asian floating frog tank. It rotted and died in a few weeks.

what plants do you use now.

Water lettuce looks good and seems to do fine. My friends have it in their tanks and it seems to do well.
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Burgundy baby, With your blue eyed soul, You play the hits and I'm on that roll, Capricorn sister, Freddie Mercury, Jupiter Child cry

I have bamboo, peace lillys, java moss, java fern, and some sort of semi-aquatic grass in the tank now. I wish the water hyacinth would have worked out. They looked good, and gave some nice hiding places. I dont think the water hyacinth liked the high humidity.

Water hyacinths need full sun in order to thrive. They probably won't do well under indoor sunlight conditions. They also like more tropical temperatures. I would go with water lettuce. You can also try plants like duckweed, frogbit, and floating heart.
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Jerry Wei
WeiSides Zoo

We have the hyacinths in the tank with an anaconda at the shop I'm working at and it's actually doing quite well now that we have added an air filter. It's just one of those small ones with the bubble stone. It's even starting to get it's first blooms.
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Heather

I had some problems growing it outside in my pond. What seemed to work best is lots of sunlight and also to keep the water moving somewhat like with an airstone that was mentioned. I'm not sure but it doesn't seem to be big on chlorine in the water either. I have a girlfriend that actually complains on how often she has to "weed" hyacinth out just to keep things looking nice. I envy her. I know that when I picked up the starters of these plants that they were in shallow (about 6" deep if that)water and were in a pretty heated up greenhouse. The thought also crossed my mind if the plants have a problem if you move them around a bit. Occasionally I'd take them out to clean the pond. Don't think they liked this. At any rate, I'm still learning... sigh...

I have raised hyacinth (yes, intentionally lol) outside for a few years. Inside, you could probably try raising them with a grow light, but they also need a lot of nutrients.

In my years of experimenting with them, in a low-nutrient or smaller system, they stay small and don't ever multiply. In a system that is full of life and nutrients, they thrive, get larger, and multiply all of the time.

I've even experimented with a way to grow hyacinth as tall as possible, and have had some that were nearly 4ft tall. This was achieved by digging a deep pond/hole that was filled with water (with a liner of course). The water level was reduced a little bit at a time, in a matter of three years, and as the water level was reduced, the plant's roots were lower, yet the sunlight was still higher. So, the top of the plants would grow up as the water level went down.

Eventually, the plant's roots were all the way at the bottom of the pond, with barely enough water to cover their roots, yet they were thriving. When it completely dries out, they did start to brown a bit, but almost every time it rained, they would turn green again and rebloom.

Well, I'm sure you didn't want to know all of that, but I'll get back to your question. If you try to raise hyacinth indoors without success, I'd suggest getting a kiddie pool from walmart and filling it up with small hyacinth plants, somewhere where it has access to sunlight. Use some type of non-toxic fertilizer in it. Every 2-3 days, just swap them out for what's in your indoor tank. This should (hopefully) keep them lookin' good.