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Can You Use Mondo Grass In Your Aquarium?

There has been a drastic increase in the number of stores selling mondo grass and marking it as an aquatic plant resulting in more and more people purchasing mondo grass for their aquariums and having problems.

This has cause a spike in the number of people asking about if you can use mondo grass in your aquarium or not as well as for tips and tricks on keeping their mondo grass healthy.

With there being so many stores selling mondo grass at hugely inflated prices as well as a large number of people reaching out and asking about if you can keep mondo grass in their aquariums, we decided to publish this dedicated article on the topic.

Our hope is that we are going to be able to help as many of our readers as possible while also clearing up a large amount of the confusion that we see on social media.

Before we go any further, we just want to say that the majority of our readers will be much better off if they just go with either java moss or java fern instead of mondo grass for their aquariums.

If you are set on mondo grass then we would highly recommend you check its price online instead of in your local pet store as you can generally get considerably more mondo grass for your money due to pet stores drastically overpricing it.

Can Mondo Grass Grow In Water?

Mondo grass can grow in water be it partially submerged or fully submerged but it is very difficult to get mondo grass to grow when fully submerged in an aquarium and most beginners will struggle with it.

Still, some of the more experienced aquarium keepers do see it as a challenge to get their mondo grass to take when submerged and thrive with it often being seen as a badge of honor amongst people who keep planted tanks.

This is why we try to recommend that our readers just go with either java moss or java fern instead due to it being so much easier to maintain in an aquarium.

As the majority of our readers are new to keeping live plants in their aquariums, this is usually the best route to take and it will be able to reduce the amount of work required on your part to keep mondo grass growing.

If you are looking to use your mondo grass as a partially submitted plant with its roots in your aquarium or pond water then this does tend to be much easier to maintain without issue.

This can make it much easier to keep your mondo grass alive but the majority of people we see reaching out and asking questions about using mondo grass in their aquariums are usually looking to use it as a fully submerged aquatic plant.

“Mondo grass” by chrisindarwin is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/?ref=openverse&atype=rich

Can You Use Mondo Grass In Your Aquarium?

Many people do use mondo grass in their aquarium as a live plant to provide cover for their fish as well as to help oxygenate their water.

Keeping mondo grass fully submerged in your aquarium is not very beginner friendly though and unless you go through the process of acclimatizing the mondo grass over a period of weeks, it is highly likely that your mondo grass will die.

Mondo grass tends to have a pretty generic look too with there being plenty of other different fully aquatic plants that can also oxygenate your water better than mondo grass.

If you are specifically looking for something to use as cover or hides for your fish then java fern should definitely be considered as an alternative to mondo grass.

You are usually able to integrate java fern as your verticle growth plant and java moss as your horizontal growth option to develop a “carpet” and make a beginner friendly live plant aquascape that is much easier to maintain than mondo grass.

You are also able to integrate a range of different live plant options too with most being cheaper and easier to care for than mondo grass too.

Conclusion

That brings our article going over keeping mondo grass in your aquarium to an end. We hope that we have been able to help you better understand that mondo grass is not really suitable for the majority of people as a live plant in their aquarium and that the majority of our readers should be going with alternative options if possible. Mondo grass can work in an aquarium but it does take a large amount of time, effort, and dedication to keep as a fully submerged plant with experienced live plant keepers often struggling to keep it.