Anubias Nana on the Surface:

Anubias Nana (Anubias barteri var. nana) is a dwarf epiphytic aquarium plant native to the shaded forest streams and seasonal bogs of West Africa, where its thick rhizome grips rock and submerged wood along slow-moving water. Small, leathery, dark green leaves grow in a tight rosette from that rhizome. In the Botanical Method Aquarium, it attaches to hardscape rather than substrate, building a stable grazing surface and refuge that holds up under low light and heavily tinted water. Do not bury its slow-growing rhizome in the substrate. Its roots are free to grow into it.

Essential Details

• Care Level: Easy
• Growth Habit: Slow growth via rhizomes
• Light: Low
• CO2: Not Necessary
• Propagation: Rhizome division, leaving 3+ leaves per section
• Tint Tolerance: Low to High
• Habitat Location: West Africa, most heavily documented around Cameroon's coastal rainforest streams
• Optimal For: Betta fish, dwarf shrimp, and West African cichlids such as kribensis, and other species suited to low-light, slow-flow blackwater and biotope aquariums
• Use with Caution: Rinse before introducing; may carry beneficial hitchhiking snails, snail eggs, or duckweed from the grow-out ponds
• Size Range: Leaves reach 2 to 3 inches; mature plants stay under 5 inches tall
• Quantities: Sold as a potted plant

Anubias Nana for Aquariums & Vivariums

Anubias Nana's rhizome should not be buried, as covering it in substrate causes it to rot. The roots that extend from the rhizome are a different matter: they are free to reach into the substrate or wrap around hardscape. We tie or glue the rhizome to wood or rock with thread, clear fishing line, or a small bead of cyanoacrylate gel, or hold it against its anchor point with a rubber band for two to three weeks until it attaches on its own. Once established, the rhizome and root network build a grazing surface of biofilm across the aquarium's hardscape.

Anubias Nana tolerates low light better than almost any other aquarium plant, which is part of why it holds up so well in a heavily tinted Botanical Method Aquarium. Carbon dioxide injection is not necessary, though it speeds up the plant's naturally slow growth when we choose to run it. Because it draws only a portion of its nutrition through those wrapping roots rather than a substrate root system, light water column fertilization helps its growth.

New leaves emerge one at a time from growing points along the rhizome. We divide a mature plant with clean scissors or a blade, keeping two to three leaves and a healthy length of rhizome on each section before reattaching it to its own piece of hardscape. Anubias Nana's slow growth rate means a division can take months to fill back in, which is part of why the plant holds its shape for so long without needing to be trimmed back or thinned.

Because it naturally grows along stream banks where the water level rises and falls with the season, Anubias Nana tolerates time above the waterline as readily as it does fully submerged, and it holds up well mounted on hardscape that breaches the surface in a paludarium or riparium. Leaves grown emersed come in slightly smaller and more leathery than their submerged counterparts, without any change in care.

Beneath the Leaves: Anubias barteri var. nana in the Wild

Anubias barteri var. nana is most heavily documented around Limbe, Cameroon, where its rhizome grips rock at the edge of shaded forest streams and seasonal bogs. Flooding covers the plant completely for weeks at a time before receding and leaving it growing emersed once again. The genus name Anubias comes from Anubis, the Egyptian god associated with the underworld, a reference early botanists gave the plant for the deeply shaded understory streams where it is most often found.

Where a botanical contributes as it breaks down, an aquatic plant is living and contributes as it grows. So let them grow. Mother Nature leads the way.

Sustainability Note:

Please select a heat/cold pack if necessary. Check your local weather before ordering to avoid any shipment holds or cancellations. All Plants may contain snails or snail eggs. We keep them in all of our aquariums for the benefits they provide. Our blackwater aquarium plants are provided in cooperation with PNW Bettas in adherence to their Shipping and DOA Policies. Your curated selection will arrive in their packaging separate from your botanical, wood & merch orders.