Madagascar lace plant: living lattice
Aponogeton madagascariensis
Leaves of pure skeletal lattice — spectacular, and genuinely demanding.
Where it comes from
Aponogeton madagascariensis grows from a bulb-like corm in the flowing rivers and streams of Madagascar. It is one of the most unusual plants in the hobby: its leaves have no tissue between the veins at all, forming an open lattice — a living lace — through which water flows freely.
What to expect
The leaves are long ovals of pure skeletal mesh, deep green to olive, arising in a rosette from the corm. A healthy plant can carry a dozen or more, making a dramatic specimen that needs nothing else around it to hold the eye. There is genuinely no other aquarium plant that looks like it.
How to keep it
This is the one advanced plant in the batch, and its needs are specific. It comes from cool, moving water, so it dislikes warm tropical tanks — keep it at the lower end of the range. It is a hungry bulb that wants a rich substrate and root tabs, benefits from CO2, and — counter-intuitively — prefers only moderate light, because its slow, intricate leaves are easily smothered by algae under bright lighting.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Lighting | Medium — too much light algae-coats the lace |
| CO2 | Beneficial for healthy growth |
| Temperature | 20–26 °C — dislikes warm water |
| pH | 6.0–7.5 |
| Hardness | Soft to moderate |
| Fertiliser | Root tabs; a hungry bulb |
| Substrate | Nutrient-rich, over the bulb's roots |
| Growth rate | Moderate |
| Placement | Midground, Background |
| Difficulty | Advanced |
The rest period
Unlike most aquarium plants, the lace plant often takes a dormancy. After a strong growth period the leaves may die back and the plant appears to fail. Do not throw the corm away — lift it, store it somewhere cool and dark in a little damp substrate for a few weeks, then replant. It typically returns with renewed vigour. Many keepers lose the plant simply by binning a dormant, healthy corm.
What goes wrong
Melting leaves and algae-coated lace are the two big battles. Melt usually follows water that is too warm or a disturbed, uprooted corm; algae follows light that is too strong for such slow leaves. Keep it cool, feed the roots, hold light moderate, and keep CO2 stable, and it rewards the effort like few other plants.
More plants in this series
- Tiger lotus (Nymphaea zenkeri) — the other dramatic bulb plant
- Amazon sword (Echinodorus grisebachii) — the classic background specimen
- Cryptocoryne wendtii — the easy rosette alternative
- Vallisneria spiralis — the flowing background plant