How to Grow Peace Lily in Water

Peace lily is a common house plant that can grow potted in soil or in water.

Here you can see it growing in one of my aquarium gardens with fish.

To begin with, we need a plant with 2 or more leaves.

Remove any dry and wilting leaves.

Wash roots clean of any dirt.

Let’s remove this broken leaf.

I keep leaves with dry tips.

Now we can put the plant in water — any size tank will do!

Here I put the plant in a 1 liter vase covered with a planter.

The planter holds the plant in place, allowing only the roots of the plant in the water.

Also, the planter reduces water evaporation.

I put the plant in this aquarium garden with snails on November 2nd, 2019.

A couple days later, I moved the plant into an even smaller tank made of a disposable plastic cup.

We can start growing a Peace lily in any suitable size tank!

This cup size aquarium with aquatic plants and snails will do for now.

As the plant grows, I may need to cut it or move it to a larger aquarium.

Let’s set up a large aquarium for this plant that would also be suitable for fish.

A 3 liter glass jar with a lid should do for up to 3.5 cm long fish.

Add some gravel.

Fill it up with dechlorinated tap water.

Add some aquatic plants — I add hairgrass in this example.

January 17th, 2020.

I move the Peace lily plant into the 3 liter aquarium.

Remove a wilted leaf.

I used the lid of the jar to make a planter.

Put the planter into the aquarium.

Make sure all roots stay in the water.

I have aquatic snails already in this aquarium.

We have made a fully functionable sustainable aquarium garden.

It already looks pretty as is.

Adding water to the level once a week or so is basically all the care it needs.

Here you can see a new leaf is about to open.

One week later, on January 25th.

Two leaves are wilting.

Let’s remove the wilting leaves.

Cut the stem at the base of the plant.

And pull the leaf out of the planter.

You may notice that in this example I keep all leaves of this Peace lily above the water.

The plant feeds through the roots on the nutrition dissolved in the water.

The nutrition is the waste produced by snails only so far in this example.

Let’s add fish.

I prefer to start with the youngest possible fish — guppy fry is the best.

A couple of young adult guppies also go here.

Moving into a new aquarium is always stressful for the fish.

The older the fish, the more stressful it is for the fish.

That is why I prefer young fish.

This one looks good.

I feed my fish a couple times a week with homemade fish food flakes.

It is supplemental feeding in addition to what the fish find in aquariums.

Eventually, the fish food will turned into fish waste.

And as we already know, plants feed on waste dissolved in water.

So, adding fish is beneficial for plants.

And plants are beneficial to the fish as they basically filter the water.

Put it all together and we have a perfect sustainable ecosystem.

Here you can see it on March 1st, 2021.

The fish are happy.

The Peace lily has new leaves and new roots growing.

It takes about a week or two for the new leaf to fully open.

Here you can see it 9 days later on March 9th.

The leaf is already fully open.

3 weeks later, on March 31st.

A new leaf is about to open.

This Peace lily plant produces one leaf a month through the Spring.

Here you can see the plant on May 8th, 2020

The Peace lily is growing healthy and the aquarium looks great.

A very important part of aquarium care is removing old aquatic plants to prevent algae bloom.

I explained it in my previous videos about algae — check them out for more details.

There are already too many aquatic plants in this tank.

So, let’s pull them out.

I will dry it and feed them to fish.

Let’s add new plants.

In this example, I add growing underwater land moss.

This sample I took in one of my livestreams about a month ago.

This sample has been underwater for about a month now.

It looks nice and healthy.

Here it goes.

Also, I add fast growing Guppy grass.

I keep different types of plants in my aquarium gardens.

The Peace lily looks great with strong roots.

Curious guppies are exploring new plants.

A week later, on May 15th.

This Peace lily already has 8 healthy leaves.

It means that I can make another cutting or two.

Let’s take a closer look at the base of the plant.

Accidentally, I damaged one of the leaves.

Let’s remove it.

The damaged leaf can stay alive in water for almost a year — I showed it in previous videos.

Now, let’s see where I can make a cutting…

Remember, we need a cutting with 2 or more leaves with roots.

Let’s slice the base right here.

Untangle roots.

Gently pull the cutting out.

Let’s put the old plant back.

This plant has 4 leaves now.

And the new cutting with 3 leaves goes into another aquarium.

There are different plants and guppies in this aquarium.

So, now I have 2 Peace lily plants.

I keep all aquariums with fish next to the window away from direct sunlight.

Two weeks later, on June 1st, the old plant looks good.

One leaf of the new cutting is turning yellowish.

The next week, on June 7th, a new leaf sprouted on the old plant.

June 28th, 2020

I cut off the yellowish leaf from the new plant.

Here you can see new leaves sprouted on this plant.

We can keep all leaves above water — they will grow fast this way.

Or we can grow the new leaves fully submerged underwater.

This way, the leaves grow slow and small.

I am going to keep them underwater for now just for an example.

A week later, on July 5th.

You can see a Ramshorn snail on the new leaves.

Snails feed on algae and organic detritus — they are not a danger for healthy leaves.

About two weeks later, on July 17th.

The new leaves have grown noticeably.

One leaf is already protruding above the water.

Let’s push the plant down to keep the new leaves underwater.

The old leaves above the water provide energy and oxygen for the entire plant to keep growing.

3 weeks later, on August 6th.

The old plant has 5 leaves.

I decided to make a new cutting.

This time I make a cutting with 2 leaves and the old plant gets to keep 3 leaves.

Pull out the new cutting.

The new cutting goes into an aquarium with fish.

So, now I have 3 peace lily plants.

July 24th, 2020.

I pull the leaves growing underwater off the second plant above water.

Now these leaves would grow faster and I could make another cutting before the season is over.

Remember, plants grow very slow through Winter’s short days.

So, the warm season is the best time for making new cuttings.

October 3rd, 2020

A couple new leaves sprouted on the 3rd plant.

October 20th, 2020

Notice that the new leaf growing on the 2nd plant is larger than the leaves grown previously underwater.

The first plant is doing just great!

November 15th, 2020

The first plant has 6 leaves.

I can make another cutting before Winter strikes.

Again, I make a new cutting with 2 leaves.

Though, it seems to me that cuttings with more leaves are more productive.

So, in one year’s time I made 3 cuttings from one Peace lily plant.

The new cutting goes into another aquarium with fish.

Here you can see the 2nd cutting.

Let’s pull it out.

This cutting has 5 leaves now.

So, I can also make a cutting from it with 2 leaves.

Peace lily is the easiest plant to grow with roots in water among all the plants I have tried so far.

And Peace lily plant has the best success rate growing in water from cuttings.

100% success growing rate!

And again, Peace lily plants also grow fully submerged underwater.

Though, slow and small.

Check my previous videos about it for more details.

Let me show you the 3rd plant.

It has new leaves growing.

I am going to pull the new leaves up above the water.

It helps leaves to grow strong before the Winter.

So, by end of the year, I have 5 Peace lily plants all started from 1 plant.

March 16th, 2021

The Winter is over.

All 5 Peace lily plants made it through.

The 1st plant has enough leaves to make a new cutting.

This year I want to grow this plant big to see if it will bloom.

I had a Peace lily blooming in the past — let’s see if I can make it happen again.

I remove a wilted leaf on this plant.

You can see a couple new leaves already grow here.

So, the plant is healthy.

In the past, I used roots of Peace lily to make decorations in aquariums.

You can see it in my previous videos.

With 5 growing plants I will have a Peace lily growing in all my aquariums by the end of this year.

And I have two dozen aquariums for that matter.

Peace lily is my first and favorite land plant to grow in water.

Highly recommend it for all freshwater aquariums!

Have fun and happy aquarium gardens :)