🌿 True Salvinia (Floating Fern) – Fast-Growing, Beautiful, High-Value Water Plant

Ideal for Aquariums • Water Purification • Ponds • Eco-Towers

Price: R40 per 250 ml portion (fresh scoop)

⭐ What You’re Getting

This is True Salvinia (Salvinia spp.), a soft, velvety floating fern with oval leaves that form attractive surface clusters.

Unlike tiny duckweed, Salvinia has larger, textured leaves that naturally link together into a lush floating mat.

It’s a rapid-growing plant capable of:

Expanding its surface coverage every few days under good conditions

Absorbing nutrients efficiently from the water column

Forming a thick, stable “living green surface layer” that’s both beautiful and functional

🌱 Why Salvinia Is So Valuable

✔ Fast, Controlled Growth

Salvinia grows quickly without becoming difficult to manage.
It spreads steadily across the water surface and can be thinned simply by scooping off clusters. Perfect for beginners, tanks, or outdoor buckets.

✔ Natural Water Polisher

This plant absorbs nitrogen, ammonia, and phosphates, helping stabilise and clear water. Ideal for:

Ponds and bowl ponds / Aquariums / Aquaponics / hydroponics pre-filtration

Eco-Tower reservoir polishing / Holding tanks or nutrient-rich runoff areas

✔ Great for Fish & Micro-Life

Fish love Salvinia. It provides gentle shade, reduces stress, and creates micro-habitats for fry and shrimp. Especially useful for:

Minnows / Guppies and livebearers / Shrimp colonies / Betta setups / Small pond fish

✔ Helps Reduce Algae Naturally

By shading the surface and locking up excess nutrients, Salvinia suppresses algae and keeps the system calmer and cleaner.

✔ Low Maintenance, High Benefit

No soil, no fuss — it floats, multiplies, improves water, and adds a natural aesthetic to any system.

🌎 How It Fits the MaterialCycle Vision

Our regenerative design approach is rooted in small biological loops that clean water, cycle nutrients, and create useful biomass.

Salvinia fits this perfectly:

a floating fern that captures excess nutrients, moderates light, and stabilises water while contributing to the overall balance of the system.

These same principles drive the MaterialCycle Towers:

lightweight systems, simple materials, fast biology, low inputs, and circular flows.

When you buy Salvinia from us, you’re supporting — and participating in — that broader regenerative model.

💧 Ideal For

Aquarium surface cover / Pond shading and cooling / Water polishing / nutrient removal

Natural filtration systems / Shrimp and fry refuge / Eco-Tower reservoir experiments

Backyard buckets and micro-ponds / Decorative bowl ponds

📦 Availability

Harvested fresh from clean, circulating systems.

Pickup in Cape Town.