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.
I don’t know whether Tropica has changed around their in vitro system or not – usually the plants are embedded in a type of water-soluble agar gel – but these were in nutrient juice without all the jellied bits to be rinsed off / picked out which made for a better experience. The plantlets easily separated out into many healthy individuals with good roots. Sometimes I find these tissue culture plants grow in a manner where they seem confused between “up” and “down”, but not this pot.
Planting was straightforward. I put in a patch before the slate divider that tries to hold the aquasoil back from the deepest part of the tank where the pump inlet (and the heater) are located. A second patch went into the back right, around the long-struggling Echinodorus chrileni, to beef up that back corner bare patch a bit. As usual, I used a short set of ADA pinsettes to get the plantlets into place. For some reason the S. repens plantlets seemed easier to place in the aquasoil than some other plants I have tried.
S. repens on left
S. repens – mid left, back right
S. repens back right
We’ll see how this new plant gets on. So far neither the neocaridina or caridina shrimp have particularly noticed the new addition.