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Staurogyne Repens

Staurogyne Repens Aquatic Plant Care Guide

Updated on July 28, 2022
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Reviewed by Petco’s Animal Care
Education and Compliance (ACE) Team

Appearance | Care | How to plant | Maintenance | Common problems | Propagation | Mates & compatability

staurogyne repens

Are you looking for a great carpeting plant for your freshwater aquarium? Staurogyne repens may be just what you need. Its bright, bushy clusters carpet the substrate with a beautiful glow that moves along with the water. But this aquatic plant doesn’t just look great—it also helps improve your aquarium’s water quality and produces conditions that can help your aquatic life thrive.

Appearance

Staurogyne repens is a brilliant green carpeting plant that can brighten up just about any freshwater aquarium. It has stiff stems to hold up its tall, spade-shaped, spear-tipped leaves.Its leaves should be uniform in color without any yellowing or brown spots. Staurogyne repens’ size can vary—over time, it can grow to cover the entire bottom of an aquarium with correct propagation and placement.

Staurogyne repens is dense and bushy in appearance and can be pruned to the height you desire, making this a very popular freshwater aquatic plant. It is a slower-growing speciesand is considered fairly easy to grow.

Staurogyne repens care

In nature, Staurogyne repens grows in the rivers of South America. As a slow-growing plant, it can do well in nearly any size aquatic habitat, including nano aquariums. It does require good water conditions to thrive and to create the incredible bright green color that many aquarists love. This plant prefers the pH in your aquarium to be between 6.0 to 7.5, with a water hardness between 3 and 10 KH. As a tropical plant, it likes temperatures between 68 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit.

Whether you’re trying to grow individual clusters or use this plant as a carpet, lighting is essential to your Staurogyne repens’ health. Without enough light, your plant may grow more vertically instead of horizontally—as if it’s trying to reach the sun. To develop an aquarium carpet, you should provide moderate to strong full-spectrum lighting between ten to twelve hours a day..

Staurogyne repens develops an intricate root system that does best when provided with a nutrient-rich substrate. The roots are also thin and delicate—a fine substrate they can easily penetrate and anchor themselves to is key. Small sized aquarium substrate, plant substrate with small pebbles mixed in or clay-based substrates can all be good choices.

How to plant Staurogyne repens

Staurogyne repens tissue culture plants are the most common form you will see for sale. These plants are grown in vitro in a lab, meaning they’re generally safe from potential pests and bacteria. Just remove the gel from the culture with a gentle stream of dechlorinated water before planting.

Potted or bunched plants can be quarantined before adding them to your aquarium to prevent transferring any hitchhikers into your aquarium. No matter which type you choose, ensure your S. repens specimens have uniformly colored, bright green leaves and are smooth and thick.

When you’re ready to plant, plan out where to put your Staurogyne repens. As a carpeting plant, it’s usually placed in the foreground or midground, but in larger aquariums, it can be used to carpet the entire bottom. Ensure the area where you plant your Staurogyne repens has access to bright light and isn’t overshadowed by taller plants, driftwood or other accessories.

You’ll need to bury each plant stem about one-half to three-quarters of an inch deep into the substrate. You can use planting tweezers to do this. With tweezers, you’re less likely to damage the plant’s delicate roots. Plant each stem about two or three inches apart so the offshoots won’t compete for resources and will have room to grow. If any stems float up, simply replant them. As you watch your Staurogyne repens fill out and take shape, you can fill in any gaps with additional stems.

Maintenance

Setting up the right environment and planting your Staurogyne repens is often the most challenging aspect. Once established, Staurogyne repens care is considered fairly easy to moderate. The plant is quite hardy, but you don’t want it just to survive—you want it to thrive and show off that vivid green color. To do that, you’ll want to add fertilizer, use a nutrient-rich substrate, offer CO2, trim the stems and maintain the correct water parameters already discussed.

Staurogyne repens may be slow-growing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hungry. This plant absorbs nutrients voraciously—make sure you dose your aquarium with plant foods and supplements, always following the manufacturer’s directions. You’ll also want to avoid adding any medications that could hurt your plant. Instead, remove any ill aquatic life to a separate quarantine aquarium and administer any medications there.

Unlike some aquatic plants, Staurogyne repens doesn’t require CO2, but it can assist with growing a vibrant, healthy plant. A full pressurized setup may be a good idea if you have several other plants in your aquarium that need CO2. Otherwise, you can use CO2 plant supplements available as liquids or tablets. Be sure to not add too much CO2, as it excess amounts can harm other aquatic life.

Finally, you may need to prune your plants to grow a dense, beautiful Staurogyne repens. Trimming taller stalks can help you control the Staurogyne repens’ size, and you can then replant those cuttings into any gaps in the carpet. Pruning is also a good time to remove dead leaves and stems, which improves the flow of water and nutrients around the plant.

Common problems

S. repens is relatively easy to grow, but it does encounter many of the same problems as other aquatic plants. If the leaves are yellowing, you may have a nutrient deficiency, which can be corrected with fertilizer and water supplements. If they are thin, you may need more CO2 in your water. If the leaves are gray or transparent, that’s usually a sign of melt.

Melt is a common issue in aquatic plants when water parameters change too suddenly. The plant is shedding its leaves, which are not adapted to the new parameters. If you notice this condition, you should clip off any remaining healthy parts of the plant, clear away the dead debris and replant your Staurogyne repens. Preventing melt is often easier than replanting—don’t change more than one-third of your water at a time, and avoid adding too many new plants, aquatic life or medications that could disrupt the balance. Melt is not uncommon when introducing a plant into a new or different aquarium.

Staurogyne repens carpet does have a few unique problems. It’s prone to vertical growth, especially when it isn’t given enough light. If you notice tall, thin stalks, you can trim the tops of the carpet and provide stronger lighting. Aerial roots are also common. This is when the roots grow upward into the water in search of nutrients rather than down into the substrate. While this isn’t fatal for the plant, it does create brown within your beautiful patch of green. You can trim aerial roots and add fertilizer to your substrate to prevent this.

Propagation

While Staurogyne repens is used as a carpeting plant, it is a stemmed plant and may require some propagation to get it to spread into a denser form. Luckily, it’s fairly easy to propagate—just snip off the taller shoots and replant them in the substrate. You don’t need to cut it at the root—you only need about a two-inch piece, with or without roots.

Aquarium mates and compatibility

Staurogyne repens is a natural shelter, spawning area and feeding ground for many types of smaller aquatic life. Guppies, platys and swords often love the protection they provide, while dwarf catfish and crystal shrimp enjoy foraging through the leaves for algae and biofilm to eat. Other small, peaceful fish like tetras, danios, bettas, pencilfish, rasboras, killifish and even dwarf cichlids or cherry barbs can also be good matches.

You’ll want to avoid some other species—such as barbs and larger cichlids—known for being destructive to plants. Goldfish also tend to root around in the substrate and disrupt live plants. Other species to approach with caution include larger snails—like apple snails and rabbit snails, which may eat your Staurogyne repens—as well as crayfish and crabs, which can be destructive to planted aquariums.

Staurogyne repens aquarium plants can be an excellent choice for nearly any type of freshwater setup—from nano-habitats to hundred-gallon communities. These plants can thrive nearly anywhere with consistent, correct water parameters and plenty of light and nutrients. Check out our Aquatic Plant Care Sheet for more information.

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