Aquatic plant Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments (saltwater or freshwater). They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that ...

s are used to give the

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

a natural appearance, oxygenate the

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

, and provide

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

for

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

, especially fry (babies) and for

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s. Some aquarium fish and invertebrates also eat live plants. Hobby

aquarist An aquarist is a person who manages aquariums, either professionally or as a hobby. They typically care for aquatic animals, including fish and marine invertebrates. Some may care for aquatic mammals. Aquarists often work at public aquariums. They ...

s use aquatic plants for

aquascaping Aquascaping is the craft of arranging aquatic plants, as well as rocks, stones, cavework, or driftwood, in an aesthetically pleasing manner within an aquarium—in effect, gardening under water. Aquascape designs include a number of distinct styl ...

. Brackish plants are known to occur in brackish water.

Listed alphabetically by scientific name

The taxonomy of most plant genera is not final. * '' Bacopa monnieri'' * ''

Crassula aquatica ''Crassula aquatica'' is a succulent plant known by the common names water pygmyweed, common pygmyweed and just pigmyweed. It is an annual plant of salt marshes, vernal pools, wetlands, and other fresh to brackish water bodies. It is at least par ...

'' * '' Cryptocoryne ciliata'' * ''

Cymodocea nodosa ''Cymodocea nodosa'' is a species of seagrass in the family Cymodoceaceae and is sometimes known as little Neptune grass.

'' * '' Helanthium tenellum'' * '' Juncus roemerianus'' * ''

Myriophyllum spicatum ''Myriophyllum spicatum'' (Eurasian watermilfoil or spiked water-milfoil) is native to Europe, Asia, and north Africa, but has a wide geographic and climatic distribution among some 57 countries, extending from northern Canada to South Africa. It ...

'' * ''

Najas marina ''Najas marina'' is a species of aquatic plant known by the common names spiny water nymph, spiny naiad and holly-leaved naiad. It is an extremely widespread species, reported across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas and many oceani ...

'' * '' Sagittaria'' spp. * ''

Spartina alterniflora ''Sporobolus alterniflorus'', or synonymously known as ''Spartina alterniflora'', the smooth cordgrass, saltmarsh cordgrass, or salt-water cordgrass, is a perennial deciduous grass which is found in intertidal wetlands, especially estuarine salt ...

'' * '' Vallisneria'' spp. * ''

Zostera marina ''Zostera marina'' is a flowering vascular plant species as one of many kinds of seagrass, with this species known primarily by the English name of eelgrass with seawrack much less used, and refers to the plant after breaking loose from the submer ...

'' * ''

Zostera noltii ''Zostera noltii'' is a species of seagrass known by the common name dwarf eelgrass. It is found in shallow coastal waters in north western Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Aral Sea and on islands in the Atlantic off th ...

Mangroves A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several ...

* Black mangrove, '' Avicennia germinans'' * Red mangrove, ''

Rhizophora mangle ''Rhizophora mangle'', the red mangrove, is distributed in Estuary, estuarine ecosystems throughout the tropics. Its Vivipary, viviparous "seeds", in actuality called propagules, become fully mature plants before dropping off the parent tree. Th ...

'' * White mangrove, both ''

Avicennia marina ''Avicennia marina'', commonly known as grey mangrove or white mangrove, is a species of mangrove tree classified in the plant family Acanthaceae (formerly in the Verbenaceae or Avicenniaceae). As with other mangroves, it occurs in the intertid ...

'' and ''

Laguncularia racemosa ''Laguncularia racemosa'', the white mangrove, is a species of flowering plant in the leadwood tree family, Combretaceae. It is native to the coasts of western Africa from Senegal to Cameroon, the Atlantic Coast of the Americas from Bermuda and ...

References

{{Aquarium Fishkeeping Brackish water plants Brackish aquarium plant species