It is a struggle to find plants that can thrive in the Shrimphaus. The combination of low-KH high-GH “low tech” not-CO2 injected water seems to make things difficult. I recently gave up on the reputedly “easy” Staurogyne Repens. Still, lots of plants left to try. This time we’re having a go with another “easy” plant: Sagittaria subulata, otherwise known as “Dwarf sag”.
Dwarf sag in vitro pot
in vitro plantlets
Sourced from Dennerle, I picked up a healthy-looking in vitro pot and installed it liberally around the Shrimphaus. The plantlets came apart easily and there were beaucoup number of them. Dennerle knows their stuff!
Dwarf sag first 100 days
newly planted (left of tank)
100 days later
newly planted (right of tank)
100 days later
We’re now 100 days in and the Dwarf sag seems to be doing ok. It is growing although not all the plantlets thrived. It’s an open question as to the balance between plant growth and algae growth but seems ok for now – if you look behind it in the ‘newly planted (left of tank)’ picture you can see the struggle the S. repens was having. Reputed to be able to grow out of control and take over a tank, I haven’t seen much evidence of that in the Shrimphaus. I’d be happy with just “grows modestly and looks ok”. Low tech is slow tech so it’s important to have patience in this aspect of the hobby. I haven’t noticed the shrimp pay much attention one way or another (which is good).