Ephiphytes on the mountain before and after trimming
The bucephalandra and anubias have both done really well, overachieved in a some ways in fact. The caterina at the top of the mountain in particular is close to the light and grew across to make an impressive sombrero hat that did a nice job of shading most of the aquarium below. This shading has been a challenge in particular for the new cryptocorynes on the right, nevelli at the back and wendtii ‘Flamingo’ in the front, but also I suspect for the Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’ over on the left side.
After repeated struggles to grow emersed plants on the Shrimphaus river using a variety of substrate set-ups, I’ve switched over to actual LECA – lightweight expanded clay aggregate. For this experiment, I’m going with two reputedly robust to low(er) humidity emersed growth anubias: Anubias coffeefolia, and Anubias gracilis. This is the second attempt with Anubias coffeefolia, but the previous go seemed encouraging, with some new leaves forming before ultimately the plant was done in by rhizome rot.
Adapting plants to grow in LECA
Anubias gracilis in rockwool
Anubias gracilis in LECA
enhanced humidity chamber
top view
old A. coffeefolia – A. gracilis – new A. coffeefolia
side view
Although aquarium plants are generally grown in emersed form in the nursery, they are typically potted in rockwool in a near 100% humidity hydroponic ebb and flow environment. Transitioning terrestrial plants to LECA can be challenging and there are a lot of helpful resources with great tips available including to make sure every last bit of non-LECA substrate has been removed from the roots before planting in LECA. The process seemed straightforward but the plants started wilting almost immediately. It’s pretty well established that misting plants directly doesn’t meaningfully raise humidity so I did an improvisation with the conical plastic sleaves the plants shipped in. Cutting off the bottom of the cone to fit snugly halfway up the pot gave a large surface area on top that could be misted to both keep a lot of water droplets around for a reasonable length of time close to the leaves and to provide a locally semi-isolated environment. I kept the plants in the enriched humidity setup for three weeks, misting a couple times a day. That seemed to mostly do the trick to give the plants enough time to adapt to being rooted in LECA; the gracilis didn’t really lose any leaves to wilting, and although the new coffeefolia did lose half its leaves it seems to have stabilised (hopefully).
Repotting to get rhizomes out of substrate
Five weeks after planting, it was time to take the plants out of the LECA to see how the roots were doing and repot if necessary. Pretty much things were looking good, with healthy looking whitish roots with good structure. There were however some brown rotted aspects in places, in particular where the rhizomes had been embedded in the substrate. I used pinsettes to trim off those portions and gave the root systems a good rinse. Then I replanted taking care to have the entirety of the rhizomes out of the LECA. This meant essentially having the plants growing on the side relative to how they arrived in rockwool. Possibly an ebb and flow hydroponics system in the nursery is more permissive since plants can dry out during the ebb phase, compared to the steady-state semi-hydroponics method of sitting LECA embedded plants in the Shrimphaus river. The repotting process was easy and the repotted plants look good so far, but the real test will be whether the rotting stops and we start to get some new growth.
I’ve been looking for a red plant to replace the Ludwigia palustris mini ‘Super Red’ which is an awesome stem plant, but which comfortably exceeds 50 cm in length and so is really too large for the Fireplace Aquarium – keeping it trimmed was just too much hassle. Previously, I had a go with Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rot’ which started out promisingly, but then never really made a recovery after the usual ‘cut off and replant the tops‘ process. Further reading suggests that may have been where I went wrong – leaving the rooted bottom section to resprout new growth after trimming may have been a better approach with alternanthera, in contrast to approaches with many other aquarium plants. I’ll keep that in mind for the ‘Rosanervig’. Rosanervig is supposed to be an intermediate sized alternanthera growing to 20 cm or a little larger.
Adapting Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’ to submersed growth
pot from the nursery
individual plants
in the Fireplace Aquarium
I received in from Pro Shrimp a quite large portion of Tropica-grown Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’ potted in rockwool. Removing the rockwool carefully with pinsettes gave six healthy-looking emersed-form plants. I planted the Rosanervig in the middle left of the Fireplace Aquarium, in front of a developing back curtain of Vallisneria asiatica, and behind a foreground patch of Cryptocoryne parva. The emersed form leaves really aren’t very happy when fully submersed and several were shed straight away, or started developing some rattiness. Some of the amano shrimp may even have had a bit of a go at nibbling the straggly looking leaves.
Submersed form leaves start to look good after two weeks
submersed growth after two weeks
new submersed growth detail
After a couple of weeks, it’s clear that new submersed form leaves are developing nicely on the Rosanervig. Emersed form leaves are a blotchy light green with hints of red undertones on the top surface with pale pink/green undersides. In contrast, the submersed form leaves are deep red with bright pink veining structures on top and bright red/pink underneath. Previously the slow growing alternanthera had issues with algae collecting on the upper surfaces. Algae hasn’t been a problem since the revised estimative index dosing scheme was implemented in the Fireplace Aquarium so I’m optimistic for the Rosanervig’s prospects.
It’s been difficult with the emersed plants on the Shrimphaus shelf. Some descriptions of the tribulations below.
Growing on the slate surface directly (doesn’t work)
First I tried simply tying Chirstmas moss down in the flow on the riverbed to see if they would grab onto the river bottom, but that didn’t really work – it seems they need something for the roots to hang onto. Even though Christmas moss roots can grab onto surfaces, they didn’t do that in this context and the green parts didn’t really thrive either. I’m now growing Christmas moss completely submersed in the Shrimphaus and it seems to be doing reasonably well.
clay balls
Clay balls roll away (doesn’t work)
So, this could have been obvious, but nearly perfectly spherical clay balls won’t say put in a swift-flowing water current. They all immediately washed away into the tank. Also, although these are sold as ‘hydroponic grow media’ what I was hoping for was LECA – lightweight expanded clay aggregate – which is frothed up with air holes and texture to retain water, but these clay spheres are smooth and solid and don’t seem to hold much moisture.
Lava rocks don’t stack and stay too wet (doesn’t work)
lava rock
The next attempt was small pieces of irregularly shaped lava rock. The lava rock doesn’t just instantly roll away and can be successfully piled up. The odd piece does come lose and escape, but at least you can make a pile of lava rock in the current. The issue with these is that unlike the clay spheres, the lava rock stays really wet. I made as high a pile of these as I could without them falling over into the tank and the top of the pile was still completely saturated with water. I tried growing both Echinodorus grisebachii ‘Tropica’ and Anubias coffeefolia sitting on top of the lava rocks, but the wetness was rotting both of these plants and I suspect also drowning the roots. This was at least partially successful for a while as both the echinodorus and the anubias put out a few new leaves (before the rot set it) so at least there is some potential promise. I think the top of the plant needs to kept drier as do the upper parts of the roots for this to work.
Aquaponics
wick hydroponics – wick ‘feet’ sticking out the bottom
Combining an aquarium type system with a hydroponics set-up is termed ‘aquaponics‘. Since it is the emersed plant part that has been problematic I’ve been browsing literture on how to have a successful hydroponics part. There are a number of proven techniques, none of which resemble the setup on the shelf of the Shrimphaus, naturally. I’m giving a go to passive wick-system hydroponics, where inert media, in this case the clay spheres, is kept moist by the proximity of a wick that can carry water from the base of the container to the top. The wicks used here are cut up strips of an automobile synthetic chamois cloth – this part seems to be working really well. Three wicks seem to be needed to keep the clay balls reasonably moist/damp without being altogether wet. The echinodorus and anubias look pretty sad in these pots so far, but they might rally…
I’m becoming more fond of Cryptocoryne as submersed aquatic plants. They come in a wide variety of colours, sizes and textures, tolerate low light and are pretty much maintenance free. I always plant these after cutting off the emersed leaves to promote faster Cryptocoryne adaptation to submersed form growth whilst avoiding ‘crypt melt’.
Cryptocoryne walkeri in a low tech aquarium
C. walkeri raised by Aquadip was sourced from Pro Shrimp and has been thriving in the Shrimphaus for a little over three months now. As usual with potted Cryptocoryne, you tend to get many individual plantets in a single pot.
rockwool grown
plantlets
ready to plant
I may have shaved these down a little close to the crown. Going forward I’m going to leave a small amount of the emersed form stems on to avoid scalping the new plants.
newly planted
+5 days
+38 days
+61 days
Aquadip says C. walkeri is ‘easy’ and that has certainly been my experience. The submersed form has attractive medium-dark green leaves. Walkeri and most other crypts are generally considered to be slow growing, but I have found the growth rate to be pretty reasonable even without injected CO2 gas in the ‘low tech’ Shrimphaus.
‘Pangolino’ from Dennerle is thought to be the anubias with the smallest leaves and thereby very suitable for nanotanks. I’ve been looking for this plant for a long time but it has been consistently unavailable until very recently when I noticed some in stock at Horizon Aquatics. As a bonus Horizon is also a sponsor of the UK Aquatic Plant Society so I was happy to be able to pick up some Pangolino and support the society at the same time. The pots arrived promptly and in great condition.
In vitro Anubias barteri nana ‘Pangolino’
individual plantlets
tissue culture debris
Preparing tissue culture plants for the aquarium
As usual, tissue culture plants arrive in sealed pots suspended in a nutrient jelly. You rinse off the jelly, separate out the individual plantlets, cutting them apart if necessary and trimming off any debris, then you’re ready to plant. I have noticed that it’s not unusual to get some strange growth patterns included in amongst normal growth form plants with tissue culture pots, presumably because the plants don’t always grow completely correctly in culture. There was a pretty good mass of this material to be removed with the Pangolino, but not to worry, there were still a lot of quality individual plantets to be had.
emersed and submersed Pangolino
Planting emersed and submersed
My main goal with the Pangolino is to try to grow it emersed in the river run of the Shrimphaus, where the hope is the small compact leaves will keep it from drying out and will also maintain a reasonable size anubias for the space. Eight of the pangolino plantets are planted emersed in lava rock on the shelf of the river run. With so many nice plantlets I couldn’t resist also planting some submersed – these are the five circled in cyan in the picture. Tissue culture plants are something of a hybrid situation between emersed and submersed growth so we’ll see how those compare as the plants develop.
The Marsilea hirsuta has been a wonderful carpeting plant, but it first went into the Fireplace Aquarium nearly 27 months ago and has started to become problematic. Over long periods of time the marsilea can build up into a mass, I think as newer individual stems try to outgrow the existing carpet layer, so there had been a gradual creeping upwards. Since the marsilea grows as single leaves at the end of a stem it can’t really be trimmed effectively. It is possible to pull out interconnected strands as the plant propagates using runners, however, that tends to drag up surrounding marsilea where it is impossible for the uprooted material to be effectively put back down on the surface. Still, two-plus years is a good run!
Removing aquarium plants can make a huge, but temporary, mess
(Pro tip: don’t worry about it)
Pulling up the marsilea also released a huge pile of floating debris of all sizes. Part of what might be happening here is that debris becomes trapped between the layer of carpet leaves and the substrate, being very difficult to remove whilst the carpeting plant is in place. In my experience, even though so much rubbish suspended in the water column looks dramatic, it does not adversely affect any of the animal life, and indeed the fish, shrimp and snails seemed quite unperturbed. I followed the uprooting with a large water change (80%+) which cleared quite a bit of suspended debris out, but even so things were pretty opaque. Not to worry and no special measures needed though, the fine debris inevitably clears itself in a day or two.
the day after
the next day
Looking for replacement (aquarium) carpet
I’m going to let things settle for a bit and then probably put in some new carpeting plants where the marsilea was. One consideration is that since the carpet will be inconveniently behind and underneath the mountain, regular trimming will be difficult or impossible. That means some of the fast-growing carpets that need regular trimming to stay nice such as dwarf hairgrass (Eleocharis parvula) or Monte carlo (Micranthemum tweediei ‘Monte Carlo’) would not be good choices. I’m also shy about plants that can get very leggy under lower light conditions. One possibility would be to simply replant some fresh Marsilea hirsuta, or its smaller relative Marsilea crenata. I’m also toying with giving Littorella uniflora another try, where the compare/contrast between growth under low tech (no injected CO2 gas) and high tech (with injected CO2 gas) conditions might be interesting.
The goal is to get epiphytes such as Anubias or Bucephalandra to grow emersed in the open-topped Shrimphaus exposed to normal room humidity. There is a lot of internet opinion, most of which says “forget it”, but some people have managed to make a go of it. My first try was Anubias nana ‘Coin’ which died gradually over a number of weeks as the submersed rhizome rotted away, but what didn’t happen was the leaves all instantly drying out, which lends some confidence. I’m going to keep the rhizome out of the water going forward and inspired by a report of success with Anubias coffeefolia, I plumped for a pot of that.
Anubias coffeefolia has interesting leaf texture
in rockwool pot
trimmed up
good root system
The leaves of Anubias coffeefolia have a striking resemblance to those of the terrestrial coffee plant (naturally), and even though Aquadip lists this plant as ‘caffeefolia‘ you understand what they mean. The plant arrived from Pro Shrimp in great condition, apart from one or two dead leaves which I trimmed off. Removing the rockwool revealed a very healthy-looking root system.
The initial concept for the aquaduct of the Shrimphaus was for water flowing over slate with epiphytic plants and mosses clinging to the slate under the water with leaves growing up out of the water. That didn’t work out very well. The underwater rhizome of the Anubias nana ‘Coin’ slowly rotted away, killing the plant. The Christmas moss and the Bucephalandra pygmaea ‘Bukit Kelam’ didn’t look brilliant either. Which leads to the new concept for emersed plants in the Shrimphaus…
Riverside planting
Emersed plants on land
Whilst leaving a channel for water flow, land is built out of black lava rock on the slate shelf. The lava rock is very porous and wicks up the water so staying continuously wet. The epiphyte Anubias coffeefolia (replacing the Anubias nana ‘Coin’) and the Bucephalandra have their roots down amongst the lava rock staying wet, but the rhizome and leaves of both are in the open air. The Christmas moss is simply placed on top of the lava rocks without any attempt at “planting”. I have tried to keep things moist topside with irregular (when I think about it) misting to try to transition the plants gradually to standard indoor room humidity, but I’m not sure that’s actually necessary. The wet lava rocks and moss will perhaps provide some degree of elevated localised humidity.
My wife suggested planting something “long and grasslike” so I straightaway thought of vallis. There are several species of Vallisneria commonly available and I plumped for Vallisneria asiatica as sold by Aqua Essentials. This is the second smallest vallis (Vallisneria torta being the smallest), and is listed as growing to 30 cm with pretty corkscrew twisted leaves that add interest.
shipping
two bunches
four plants per bunch
curtain of vallis
I ordered two bunches, each of which came with four individual plants ranging in size from 18 to 23 cm. These looked like they had been repacked from the original grower which I suspect was AquaFleur since the Aqua Essentials website picture is a match for the one in the AquaFleur catalog. The idea is to make a “curtain of plants” up against the left side of the aquarium and whilst this was the original purpose for the Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’, the lysimachia has proved to be too floppy to hold its upright position. I can say that upon planting the vallis, the otto catfish were immediately interested.
Vallis is considered a very easy plant to grow in aquarium, yet also has a reputation for being sensitive to liquid carbon. Initially I kept going with 1ml per 40L daily Easy Carbo I had always been using, but when the vallis showed signs of distress I stopped the treatment. Stopping the daily dosing of liquid carbon is something I had been thinking about anyway for a while so this was a good excuse to try something new around fertiliser dosing.
Vallisneria asiatica fourty-five day update
After fourty-five days in the Fireplace Aquarium there have been some significant changes in the vallis. Several of the plants towards the back have melted completely away. Others have had some partial melting as well. That said, there also appears to be some significant healthy looking new growth particularly in the front plants. Now that I look at it more closely, I think all of the original leaves are going to melt and be replaced by new, darker green, more solid leaves. Vallis does not grow emersed, so this is not a transition from emersed to submerged growth, yet different water parameters may have much the same growth state transition effect.
newly planted – side view
45 day update – side view
newly planted – front view
45 day update – front view
Vallis is reputed to like a lot of light and the plants at the back tend to get shaded by the fast-growing ludwigia. I did cut back the ludwigia quite drastically recently (it doesn’t mind that at all) so there will be a few weeks with essentially full illumination across the tank which will give the vallis an opportunity to do some consolidation and maybe build some new-growth height.
