More and more people have started to add various types of plants to their ponds and aquariums so we have seen a spike in the number of people asking about how to keep floating plants in one place recently.
We have seen a number of excellent ideas on what you are able to do to keep your floating plants in one place on various social media groups but you have to realise that although some of them look amazing, they often take too much time and cost far too much for most people.
This is why we constantly see people asking about implementing the latest floating plant controlling system that they have seen a pond or aquarium keeper use on social media only to find out how much it costs and choose a different option.
To try and provide the absolute best ways to keep your floating plants in one place to our readers, we have stuck to the cheaper and easier to use options as these do tend to be the best options for the most part.
The methods that we will be sharing with our readers below will usually do everything that you need and can often look right at home in most ponds and aquariums.
If you do have a larger pond or aquarium then there are a few additional options that you have available but for the most part, you should be sticking to the smaller, easier to use options that have less things that can go wrong with them.
How To Keep Floating Plants In One Place!
The easiest way to keep plants in one place is to use a floating plant corral as it allows you to adjust the area of the corral to fit the dimensions of your pond or aquarium to control exactly where your floating plants are able to go.
You can also use floating plant separators and floating plant barriers too if needed but this will pump your costs up.
Depending on your needs and your location, you may also be able to use plant support stakes to control where your floating plants go in your aquarium.
This tends to only really work well in some very specific situations in aquariums but for some people, it may be the best route to take. For the most part, a floating plant ring will be a much better option for most people with them usually working out to be much cheaper too.
If you don’t want to buy a premade floating plant barrier then you can try to make your own and this is also a very popular option.
It does tend to be more difficult to make your own floating plant operators though, especially for ponds or larger tanks and your costs may end up being even higher than just purchasing a pre-made solution.
Making Your Own Floating Plant Separators!
Using some form of floating plastic is usually the easiest option for making your own floating plant separator but some people do use wood.
Using a floating plastic or wood allows you to focus on where you barrier will lay on the surface of the water without having to worry about using supports to keep it in place.
Although using supports may not be an issue for your particular setup, if you are into your aquascaping then having to plan out where supports can sit on your substrate without causing problems with your rocks and live plants is harder than it sounds.
This tends to be less of an issue for outdoor ponds though and you will often find that you are able to just place supports where you need them.
HDPE (high density polyethylene), LDPE (low density polyethylene), and PP (polypropylene) are usually the best plastic options to use in your aquarium if possible as they will naturally float.
Some people will choose to use other materials and then support them with floats to prevent them from sinking into their water though allowing them to easily control the locations of their floating plants.
How Do I Control My Floating Plants In My Aquarium?
If you only want to control your floating plants in your aquarium to provide a feeding area for your fish then a floating feeding square will usually be the best option.
They are cheap, easy to fit, and work perfectly as they block floating plants out of a specific area of your aquarium for your fish to feed.
Floating plant rings are a more popular option though as you are usually able to tweak the shape of the ring or order them in custom shapes to get exactly what you require.
Keep in mind that if you do choose to use a custom floating plant ring shape then you will be paying considerably more for the ring than you would if you just go with a standard shape.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how to keep floating plants in one place to an end. We hope that we have been able to help you and controlling floating plants is usually much easier than most people initially think, especially in a pond. If you are needing to restrict the movement of your floating plants in an aquarium it can become more difficult but it will still often be easy and cheap unless you need a very specific, custom solution.
