# Something eating Hygrophila corymbosa



## helgymatt (Sep 12, 2007)

Hi,
Something is eating the small new leaves of my Hygrophila corymbosa. I am trying to figure out which fish it is. I have 6 angels, 4 black mollies, 5 SAE, and 5 Otocinclus and 1 cory cat. Anyone had any experience with any of these fish eating hygrophila or other plants?
Thanks


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

I don't know about H. corymbosa, but I know sae's will eat mosses and other finer leaved plants.


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## mpe1329 (Sep 1, 2007)

Funny you should mention it. I noticed yesterday one of my new Mollies attacking newly planted HC with gusto. Not sure she was swallowing the stuff but she was ripping out strands of it and seemed to be scarfing down leaves that floated to surface. I was able to remove her, but no sooner did so when I saw the remaining female Molly going after the HC, and I've been having a tough time trying to remove her. For some reason the male does not seem to touch HC and seems to focus on surface of leaves of rotalia, which is fine by me.


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## helgymatt (Sep 12, 2007)

I had figured it was the mollies, but I havn't yet seen anything eat on the leaves. Maybe they do it at night? I think I'll remove them and see if the problem goes away.


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## armadillo.mx (Oct 10, 2009)

Hi, I have this same problem from many days ago but I don have any molly, I've never seen any fish when in the act of eating my hygrophila Corimbosa

My fish are:

-6 Black neons
-4 cardinal neons
-1 Cory cat
-4 Glow light tetras
-12 Rummy nose

anyone have had a similar case?, wich fish is the one eating the plant?

only if I'd had a video cammera monitoring all time the tank I'll know by myself wich fish is the guilty one.


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## timwag2001 (Apr 15, 2009)

are they little pinholes in the leaves?
betcha you just have a K deficiency


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## armadillo.mx (Oct 10, 2009)

timwag2001 said:


> are they little pinholes in the leaves?
> betcha you just have a K deficiency


hi!

they're not pinholes they are clearly choped from the border of the leaves, here's an attached picture


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## Bobbyland22 (Feb 21, 2020)

ITS THE ANGELS... my adult pair of angels are making FAST work of making my H Corymbosa look like tall leafless stems under water with just the leaves above water growing out now. Looks kinda cool I guess; like palm trees. But that’s NOT the look I wanted, lol/ugh!! Yeah, anyway, ya gotta pick between angels n some plants, but they LOVE corymbosa. Also seem to like eating any small floating (pond) plants n even pull out all my DHG plugs before they can get rooted, so I keep putting the plugs back, n everything will look great. Then under the moonlight, I finally caught them red handed (or green finned for that matter). Anyway, for me, my pair of angels are priceless. So I just bought a 20 gal JUST for getting plants established underwater...giving fast growing stuff, like the dwarf hair grass, a fighting chance against some nibbling. As for plants like the corymbosa, although I feel like they eat the immersed leaves as much as the terrestrial ones that come on most plants when u first buy them. That’s one plant, that once they get a taste for it, u just can’t have the angels n H Corymbosa together, unless it’s a HUGE amount throughout a VERY LARGE aquarium. But even then, they’ll never look picture perfect.

As for the mollies, they are mainly just trying to eat any algae on top of leaves, but w MINIATURE leaves like what’s on HC, they may be going for algae, but it’s so delicate, they’re just ripping it up n probably even eating a lot of that too. Tho the angels are more likely eating it too. U should do what I’m doing w my DHG and establish a big matt of the HC, and THEN add it to ur show tank, as it will then be growing and given a chance to get to its healthiest before it gets nipped at. 

Haha... just realized u may mean Hygro Corymbosa when u say HC. I’m thinking hemianthus callitrichoides.


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## bertha (Sep 19, 2018)

never heard of that. but this seems interesting. subscribed


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