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i notice that when i anchor hornwort into the gravel, the part of the plant being anchored into the gravel eventually turns brown and rots away, and i've never tried floating the plant being that i don't know how well it'll do.

what would be best?

It grows best when floating. However keeping it from getting clogged into the filter with an HOB filtered tank has been quite a bit of an adventure for me . I know there are lots of ideas out there on how to do it (biggest one being dont use a HOB filter on the tank ). If you can anchor it in a way that it'll still reach the surface then just trim from the bottom up as it grows it should grow fast enough that the bottom portion doesnt have much time to look bad.

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so do you suggest trimming the bottom portion that rotted away?

Hornwort grows very quickly for me and besides the fact that the needles do clog my filter, i don't mind it at all and consider myself a fan of Hornwort.

Yup, and just replant the top portion.

Odd as it may sound hornwort never grows really fast for me, which is a shame because I really could use it in my "pond" to help with the nitrates...I have a feeling the bits that were in there turned to lunch .

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You can cut the rotten parts in a slanting position & leave it floating.


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The reason to trim the bottoms is mostly aesthetic, just to keep the height low enough, and to get rid of the mangy looking older growth in favor of the new growth. If you snipped off the tops of hornwort rahter than the bottoms, a.) it would look worse and b.) it would grow back slower and not as nicely.

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Hornwort won't stop growing for me. Everytime I try cutting it within a few days it's back to the top of the tank. I set a rock on the stems or wedge them under some driftwood. You could also tie it to something if you can find a way to hide the string and end of the stems. That might keep it from rotting.

There's 2 species of hornwort that I know of...one falls apart, looses needles, and grows REALLY fast...the other grows at a very fast rate (not as fast though), and doesn't fall apart. I've got both species in my 29g community tank and 10g frog tank.

I float in in my 10g frog tank (can't have the frogs eating the weights now cane we?), and I anchor it in my 29g (I'd rather not have an uncontrolable mass at the top of the tank in there). The stuff grows best when it's floating...but I usually wrap a couple lead weights 'round the middle of a bunch and drop it in the back of the 29g tank and let it grow to the top. I never seem to have any problem with the bottom rotting away (got 4 lights...4,200k, 4,200k, 6,700k, and 18,000k....the 18,000k light shines deep into the bottom of the tank, the others are just so the plants can have various other parts of the spectrum and other colors so they can all grow well (I don't have algae problems with that light setup either, there's no wasted light). Most of the algae I get in the 29g is all on the top parts of the hornwort when it grows up to the top and sits right under the lights...I usually trim off the tops every couple weeks to get rid of it.

If you don't mind having it floating around all over the place and don't have a couple watts per gallon of lighting, leave it floating...if you don't want it floating or have too high of lights, anchor it

Have fun