Utricularia Gibba stow away in plant order for shrimp tank

[angelsword]

I ordered some plants and found a little one inch strand of something I didn't recognize. I thought it might be something good so I left it floating in my RCS tank. Shortly after that I put some Riccia on a rock with net. The little strand is now everywhere. It's growing from the Riccia on the rock and its tangled in the floating Riccia.

I did some Googling and it looks to be Utricularia Gibba which is a carnivorous plant that's really difficult to get rid of. Would have been nice to have a warning from the seller Maybe they thought they had removed it all.

Is it going to eat baby shrimp?

[stangmus]

No, you will be fine

[GeToChKn]

Good luck getting rid of it. I've gotten that stuff before and it's a pain. I've demo'd my moss driftwoods like 3 times to finally get it out of 1 tank. Any strand you see, keep taking it out. It spreads worse than duckweed. lol. I think the flowers are the carnivorous part though, and they don't flower unless growing out of the water.

[angelsword]

Ugh. Worse than duckweed? I hate that stuff.

I thought the little balls along the stem were the parts that trap stuff?

[radioman]

This sounds crazy but I think it looks cool all bunched up like a ball of java moss. Of course I have never had an outbreak of it before.

[somewhatshocked]

Don't get nervous about the carnivorous bit - it feeds on organisms much smaller than shrimplets. Micro organisms, to say the least.

[angelsword]

Airtight, I'll quit worrying about it eating shrimp and start trying to figure out how it crawled out of one tank and made it to a tank in another room. It must have hitched a ride on the back of a snail lol

[jmowbray]

Check out this site for more information about U gibba.

[angelsword]

Originally Posted by jmowbray

Check out this site for more information about U gibba.

Helpful info. Thank you