What type of plant was it?

Question

In the pet store, I noticed that some of the aquariums had tiny lilly pads floating on the top of the water, and each lilly pad had a tiny stem, that I suppose came from some underwater plant. What was it?

I was hoping to find an artificial plant that looked like that.

Answer 1

There are water lilies (family Nymphea) that will grow in an aquarium.Occasionally you will find the "bulbs" for sale.
There are also some floating plants that are fairly easy to grow that look somewhat like lily pads.
Don't settle for artificials,when you can grow the real thing.
Good luck,and have fun with your fish.

P.S.
Ash is talking about Duckweed,not at all like you described.

Answer 2

I know of which you speak. I have them on the surface of the water in all of my planted tanks. They are not from a specific plant but rather they develop over time like algae does when the tank is more seasoned. They are non-harmful though sometimes pesky because they can cover the entire surface of the water making it difficult to feed and such and they have to be cleared away and scooped out every so often.

There are no fake plants that replicate this. If you have live plants, they will develop over time on their own. They do provide some shade and ambience to a tank and they look pretty nice. I call them water clovers though I cannot say that this is actualy what they are called. They look like a cross between tiny lillies and clovers with little string roots that hand down from them.

edit* yes Duckweed is what that is called, thank you Pee Tee for that, sounds to me like exactly what you described as much as I can tell. Maybe you are talking about Chinese Ivy? Your description is not entirely clear as to whether the roots that hang down are actualy connected to a plant that is rooted into the bottom. There are many kinds of floating plants as well as babies of others that float so more description may be neccessary to tell you for sure, or a picture would always be helpful too.

Answer 3

Well, this isn't a water lilly; don't think you'll find much like that in a fake plant, at least that has the stem to the underwater plant, but here's something that has a sort of similar floating pad.