Hornwort (Ceratophyllum Demersum)

This plant arrived green and healthy. It is thriving in my aquarium.

When this plant arrived, it was dirty and about half the needles fell off with the first gentle rinsing. I did a bleach dip according to the instructions, and about 20 pink worms fell off. This made me nervous, so I set the plant in a jar in the window sill with quality water & fertilizer. The remaining needles have fallen off. I would not buy again. -Modern Aquarium Reply- Our apologies for the snafu, our live fish food, bloodworms got mixed up with the hornwort in our greenhouse and caused it. We totally understand how this can make someone nervous. Hornwort is rather a difficult plant to ship and does need time to bounce back to its full glory after arrival, but shortly afterwards should be green and lush. Our apologies for the issue though and we are glad we were able to resolve it for you since.

I ordered this among a couple of other plants and was pleasantly surprised when this became my favorite. Good color and a good amount came with it. I like the way it moves in my tank. Packaging was amazing as well and the shipping was fast

It is look good in my pond, hope grow fast to help my with the shade for it.

Needed this guy to fill in a couple of bare spots in a planted aquarium. Looks great and is already showing signs of growth. Thanks.

My fish love to hide in these. I'm using them as floaters on one side of my tank.

Got two bunch of them. Not quite spreading out as pictured but still good

I ordered 2 bunches (4 plants total) and wow. It came with NO DEAD LEAVES at all. Some bristles fell off, but the plant itself is amazing. No pests or funky smells either.

I love it and so do my fish

Plants arrived green and healthy. Very little die off after going in the tank with the hornwort which beat my expectations. 10/10 will buy again

My first purchase from Modern Aquarium arrived today - I ordered a variety of plants and a 5-pack of mystery snails and EVERYTHING arrived in perfect shape. (Thank you!) I kept the two bunches tied together and put them in the back corners of my 5 Gal Betta tank and out of all the plants he LOVES these! He wedges himself into them and hangs out for the longest time. Very happy with my purchase!

Overall takeaway: I adore this plant, but there were some user errors and unfortunate coincidences along the way. My bunches were huge! And I was provided so many. Literally so much more than I ever anticipated. Granted, at the time I was just looking for something to look pretty in a betta 5 gallon and soak up some extra nutrients since I am bad about overfeeding (I just can't say no to the little dude). Full disclosure, I messed up the bleach soak...After the fact, I saw that most people with hornwort experience said the plant is sensitive to bleach in general and preferred a potassium permanganate soak, but I was so proud and thought I was following the bleach soak instructions so perfectly. I had timers and did the rinse and soaked with dechlorinator just as instructed, but within hours my hornwort started to self destruct. Turns out my bleach was professional hospital grade bleach...So with a plant that hates bleach to begin with, I almost gave a double dose... Needless to say, the plant was NOT thriving and I was convinced it was not salvageable. The worst part was that this accidental turbo bleach dip did not kill any of the wriggling little worms on my plant. Not sure what those things were, but they would get sucked up from my little hospital plant tank as I vacuumed the hundreds of needles falling off each day. I zapped the needles and worms with some steramine tabs to ensure chemical death before disposing. Within about 2 weeks I basically just had stems with a few needle segments barely adhering to the plant. I was ready to give up and trash the whole thing since 2 weeks with a GE plant light, liquid fertilizer, and dead needle disposals seemed to do nothing to turn the tide--BUT I was combing the reviews to see if anyone else had gone through something similar. I saw one comment in particular where they said do not give up as long as you have at least a single segment of fully green stem. They said it might take weeks, but if you clip and toss any yellow or brown stem segments and just keep green stem clippings in optimal water and lighting, they will bounce back. So I did that and was left with about 10 stem clippings ranging from 1-2 inches... This was still demoralizing, but I kept them going and in week 3 I noticed little baby needles growing in! At this point, I knew the plants were viable and recovering, so I reintroduced my little stubs into the 20 gallon long tank I had set up and established since almost destroying my hornwort. I'm now in week 5 since almost gassing my hornwort and my little stubs are THRIVING. They are seriously taking off. Healthy, sturdy needles coming in by the dozens and just this week alone my stems must have gained 3-4 inches each. It's truly remarkable to witness this growth explosion, and also amazing that any part of this hardy plant was able to survive a literal bleach poisoning. But at this rate, I think my plant will regenerate enough mass to match the initial shipment. And I'm sure it won't be long after until I'm regularly clipping it back to give away excess growth. So the takeaways are do not use high concentration versions of chemicals for plant dips. And even if you do shock this plant into a mass shed, isolate it and nurture it to reduce waste in your fish tank and right away try to clip it down to only the viable fully green stem segments. Even if it sheds down to bare stems, as long as those stems are green, you can bring this bad boy back to life and it'll shock you how fast it grows once it gets its groove back. Not docking any stars because the stress was caused by user error. It's actually been really satisfying getting to watch these stubs grow, so that alone earns a 5/5 from me. And I'm so happy to have them as little ammonia and nitrate removal factories since I had a little bit of a cycle shock when upgrading filters. Moved over all my bio media into the bigger filter, but losing the old sponge and carbon unit must have caused too much bacteria loss...doing regular checks and maintenance to keep the situation stable as the new, larger foam gets colonized, but so glad to have this rapidly growing plant to be a little backup insurance. PS, nothing on these plants can infect you via handling so long as you thoroughly wash your hands after with warm water and a detergent soap. I unfortunately had a shingles eruption on my palm that started within days of handling my hornwort and I got a little paranoid and thought a parasite might have burrowed into my hand flesh. Rest assured, that is almost impossible as long as you practice basic hygiene.