Of Hornwort and Hornwort

There is usually a lot of confusion about plant identification, and the retail channel is not always careful with its designations. In my case I got Hornwort from two different sources, and one was the course variety, Ceratophyllum Demersum, while the other one was Ceratophyllum Submersum, which is also called Soft Hornwort, or Tropical Hornwort.

After the Duck Weed lessons (see previous post), it is now time for Hornwort (aka Coontail). Clearly, this is not only an easy plant, it will produce copious oxygen in the water, and much like Duck Weed, it will use up a lot of nutrients, for to plants fish waste is food. Lastly, if you have a goodly amount of Hornwort around it will also tend to keep pH from going down (acidification), and it provides endless cover for fry and for inverts of all sorts.

Soft (Tropical) Hornwort (Ceratophyllum Submersum)

Hornwort (Ceratophyllum Demersum)

To a degree Hornwort and Duck Weed are natural companions for the surface cover of Duck Weed reduces air exchange, while Hornwort produces lots of oxygen. Together, these two plants are what you want around when you are starting a tank. They will help stabilize the water immediately, prevent the pH from dropping and absorb nutrients like crazy during the new tank cycle. The beauty of both plants is that they're not rooted, so you can have them even if you have no substrate for rooted plants.

Evidently, these two will also out-compete algae, so you should never have any serious algae outbreak with this combo in your tank. It is important also to realize that the filter and the plants are competing for nutrients, so you don't want to overdo it with the filtration either. Enough is enough. Ideally you should have capacity to spare.
Once my new 10 Gallon tank is completely up and running, and before I introduce serious inverts, I am going to shut down my API SuperClean 5-20 HOB filter, and rely on an ATI Hydro Sponge #1, so that I will have only biological and mechanical filtration, and I'll keep the SuperClean HOB as a spare in case I ever need chemical filtration. From my 29G tank it is clear that, at least with a very low bio load, some MTS, a betta, 8 cories, nitrates decreased to near zero as my plants took off, and now I am watching developments as I am slowly adding some more fish.