How to Grow Ornamental Sweet Potato in Water

I've been experimenting with growing Ornamental Sweet potato plants in my aquariums since 2016.

 Here you can see my first cuttings I grew in plastic bottle aquariums back in 2016.

 I even tried to grow Ornamental sweet potato fully submerged underwater in 2017. 

You can see it all in my previously published videos.

 I tried different variations of Ornamental or Decorative sweet potato plants.

 June 18th, 2020 

Here I have a cutting with purple leaves.

 Let's trim off the bottom leaves. 

All we need is a cutting with 3 or more leaves to start.

 This cutting goes into a 1liter aquarium garden with snails and some other critters.

Let's make another cutting. 

You may notice that the fresh new leaves are light green on all cuttings. 

Two days later, on June 20th, the cutting already has new roots growing. 

The Ornamental sweet potato is a very fast growing plant. 

As in this example, I often use it for algae control in my aquarium gardens. 

Also, cuttings made in early Summer often develop flower buds.

In this example, it took only 6 days since I put the cutting in the water!

And here is another cutting I put in an aquarium garden with Guppies. 

The next day, on June 26th, the flower starts blooming. 

Time-lapse recording is the best way to watch blooms.

 And blooming flowers make any aquarium look - blooming :) 

The flower starts wilting by the end of the same day. 

But the plant shoots more blossoms to enjoy the next day. 

And more flowers bloom for about a week. 

The color of flowers ranges from pink to almost white. 

 June 28th. 

10 days since the initial setup, I remove a couple wilting leaves from this cutting.

 A couple weeks later on July 11th. 

The plant has many new fully developed leaves of a slightly brighter color.

 And there are new branches growing on this plant.

 So, we can do a couple things now. 

First of all, we can harvest one or two old leaves before they wilt.

 Ornamental sweet potato leaves are edible.

 Let's add water to the level. 

The larger the plant, the more water evaporates from the leaves of the plant. 

Also, we can make a cutting from this plant right above the new branch. 

Remove the bottom leaves from the new cutting.

 So, in less than one month, I have two plants out of one cutting. 

Let's put the new cutting into another aquarium garden. 

Now, let's trim off stems of the leaves we cut off. 

We can eat this leaves or use them to make fish food.

 In this example, I simply let the leaves air dry.

It takes about a couple days at room temperature for leaves to dry.

 Though, you may want to wait until leaves dry completely to easily crush them with your fingers.

 I feed flakes of dry Ornamental sweet potato leaves to my Guppies and Endlers. 

Or even better to mix it with other homemade fish food flakes whichever way you make them.

 Check my videos about making fish food for more details. 

August 3rd 

Here I have a cutting of Ornamental sweet potato with green leaves. 

Let's cut the stem to a desirable length and remove the bottom leaves. 

Removing bottom leaves helps the cutting develop roots. 

We can root any small cutting in a small cups the way I root different herbs in a plastic straws. 

Five days later on August 8th. 

The 12cm cutting already has about 5 cm long well developed roots. 

It's time to put the cutting into an aquarium garden.

 Notice this cutting does not have flower buds. 

Nevertheless, it looks great! 

Ornamental sweet potato growing with roots in water requires very simple care. 

Add water to the level once a week or so. 

And make cuttings or remove leaves to keep the plant in desirable shape. 

I use only fresh healthy leaves to make fish food flakes. 

Stems of the leaves are hard sticks when they dry.

 For that reason I prefer to cut them off. 

And then we can dry and keep the leaves the old fashioned way, in a book for Winter. 

Here you can see about 3 month old Ornamental sweet potato on October 20th. 

The plant has pretty color roots. 

And the roots grow more than 50 cm long in 1 liter aquarium. 

It makes Ornamental sweet potato suitable to any size aquarium. 

Also, I use only indirect sun light from the window for all my aquariums. 

I am going to move this plant into a 3 liter aquarium with fish for Winter.

 Here you can see the same plant about 5 months later on March 16th. 

The Ornamental sweet potato looks great with new leaves growing in aquarium garden all year around.

 Have fun and happy aquarium gardens :)