Category: Plants
Staurogyne repens
Staurogyne repens in vitro plantlets
Staurogyne repens is an ‘easy to grow’ and popular aquatic plant. I have been resisting trying this plant for some reason… too easy, too popular? Anyway, it has a low growth habit but isn’t a carpeting plant, so seems like it might be right for the Shrimphaus. I usually prefer potted plants, but at the time could only find S. repens as an in vitro pot, so picked one up from Aquarium Gardens, as grown by Tropica.
Replanting actually… I was looking for something that could grow submersed in the back right corner of the Shrimphaus that might be able to break the water surface and grow emersed. Amazon sword plants (Echinodorus species) are sometimes able to do that and I looked for an intermediate sized one with interesting aspects and came up with Echinodorus chrileni. I first picked up a pot from Pro-shrimp grown in rockwool by Aquafleur about 8 months ago. The plant arrived in great shape, but then gradually rotted away over several months, with no evidence of transitioning to the submersed growth form. This was back when I was using the Asta point-source lighting that was at the exact opposite corner of the tank so the spot for the chrileni was pretty shaded. When I switched over the Shrimphaus to the more even lighting from a Week Aqua S-400 Pro light, I figured let’s give the chrileni another try.
It’s been a challenge to find an epiphyte that looks good on the mountain. I tried Anubias nana ‘Snow White’ which failed to grow, and the similar Anubias nana ‘Pinto’ which grew fine but looked too big for the nanotank. Also in the mix was Bucephalandra caterina which grew well and kind of resembled a sombrero hat after it really got going, and Anubias barteri nana ‘Pangolino’ which was more rhizome than decorative leaves. Now I’m having a go with Anubias Barteri ‘Mini Coin’ which I sourced from Java Plants (a new vendor for me). After the great epiphyte tear-out of last year there was prime epiphyte real estate available on the mountain. Continue reading “Planting Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’”
I have been considering floating plants for a while, but they always looked kind of big and dangly and nasty to me which has put me off. Then the Aquatic Plant Society had a get together at Aquarium Gardens and I saw this pretty new (to me) much smaller floating plant from Tropica: Salvinia minima. I picked up a pot to try it out in the Shrimphaus.
It’s a floating plant, so “planting” Salvinia minima is dead-easy. Starting with an in vitro pot, you rinse off the media it came with and then I floated it in a bowl of clean water and forked it over into the Shrimphaus.
Salvinia minima in vitro pot
rinse off the media
fork lift
floating!
I like the look of the Cryptocoryne nevelli and the Schismatoglottis prietoi as well, but it seemed like they were on the wrong sides of the tank. The C. nevelli got larger than I thought it would so blocked the view of the Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’ and the recently re-attempted Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’. (Must… get… Alternanthera… to work!) Meanwhile the shorter S. Prietoi left a lot of empty vertical space on the right side.
before rescape
cleaned out
rescaped
excess biomass
A good amount of the original biOrb ceramic filter media was pulled out by the roots of the plants being extracted. I replaced the lost volume with aquasoil. Pulling up major amounts of plant mass like this always releases lots of fine debris and it took several large water changes and repeated cycles with the portable filter to get these particulates cleared up.
Sold by Tropica in a tissue culture cup as ‘Cryptocoryne nurii‘, this small crypt is doing very well in the Fireplace Aquarium. Unlike the smaller bright green leaves in the tissue culture form, the new growth submersed form leaves are larger and have a very pretty mottled dark green and dusky rose colouration. Sometimes this plant is sold under the name ‘Rose Maiden’ which does seem suitable.
I was hoping for a cryptocoryne with some red colouration but after the disappointment of pretty much no red at all on Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘flamingo’ , and a prominent striped light and dark green pattern but no actual pink on Cryptocoryne petchii pink confidence was not very high…
According to the British Bryological Society (naturally), Riccardia chamedryfolia, also known as ‘Jagged Germanderwort’ is a liverwort with a thalloid growth form and is naturally occurring in most parts of the world including commonly in the UK. There is a lot more biology-talk about liverworts vs. mosses vs. hornworts that I don’t understand, but I did manage to pick up an in vitro pot grown by Dennerle from Aquarium Gardens and thought I’d give it a try growing on hardscape. The secret hope is always to find something that will be able to grow in the Shrimphaus river even though many, many plants have failed there. It turns out that always wet with flowing water slate chippings exposed to typically low humidity indoor air is a quite austere environment. Still, hope springs eternal and I thought I could try out both the Shrimphaus river and also that wedged into cracks of the Fireplace Aquarium mountain would make a nice effect.
Two months after the massive pruning of the Bucephalandra caterina and the Anubias nana ‘Pinto’ in an effort to control the black beard algae (BBA) that was colonising them, the battle is lost. Further, inspection showed the BBA had thoroughly colonised the Cryptocoryne parva as well.
BBA on B. caterina
BBA on C. parva
I have come around to thinking of BBA as a symptom rather than a problem – in other words the BBA indicates something is wrong that needs to be addressed. In this case I believe it is a build-up of organic waste in the aquarium, and also perhaps the natural life cycle of some of the plants. The caterina was planted 2.5 years ago and the parva 2 years ago where a gradual loss of fitness means they have a hard time fighting off algae.
The last massive epiphyte trim was nearly 10 months ago, so time to go at it again. I didn’t actually mind the overgrown appearance and the fish seemed to like hanging out under the middle layer of Anubias nana ‘Pinto’. There was considerable shading of the bottom of the Fireplace Aquarium but I didn’t notice that particularly being a problem for either the Cryptocoryne petchii pink or the Microsorum pteropus ‘Windelov’ so that was ok. What finally pushed me to get the scissors out was the increasing amount of black beard algae that was growing on the leaves of the Bucephalandra caterina at the top of mountain on the side in the middle that gets the most light. BBA that gets established is notoriously difficult to get back under control so I figured the best way was to remove it physically altogether.
I haven’t had much luck growing plants on the Shrimphaus river. Mostly they dry out either immediately or eventually, or sometimes they rot away. This roots and bottom bits wet all the time but leaves out in the air niche is pretty challenging. Some internet digging revealed plants that thrive in this setting are called marginal plants: those growing on the margins of bodies of water, and they are popular for people with ponds. Ok, so that’s the right setting, but outdoor ponds are much larger than the Shrimphaus so only the smallest marginal plants might work. Some shopping around led me to try Bog Arum (Calla palustris), Golden Buttons (Cotula coronopifolia) and Golden Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’). All of these are listed as growing to a maximum height of about 6 inches.
newly arrived
Golden Buttons
Golden Buttons
Bog Arum
Golden Creeping Jenny
Golden Creeping Jenny
The plants arrived well-packed in wet newspaper and the first surprise was how big they all were. The pond world operates on a much larger scale than the aquarium world!