Elatin pepper

Elatin pepper, scientific name Elatin hydroropiper. Varieties of this plant are widely distributed throughout the Eurasian continent from the warm Mediterranean in the south to cold Scandinavia and in the east to Siberia itself up to the northern regions of China.

The plant forms a network of highly branched creeping stems on which are placed tiny green leaves. In favorable conditions, the entire open surface of the soil can be covered with Elatin pepper, forming something like a lawn or green “carpet”.

The plant owes its appearance in the aquarium hobby to the Italian nursery Anubias (Bologna, Italy), which in 2010 began to supply it for sale. Elatin Pepper has quickly become a mainstay of professional aquascaping. It looks like a miniature version of Glossostigma, with the same miniature leaves as Hemianthus Cube, but growth is more controlled and there is no threat of rapid overgrowth.

Not the easiest to grow due to a very narrow range of pH and dGH values, while the temperature variation can be very large. The plant is suitable even for unheated aquariums – the origin from the northern regions affected.