Kagome Goes Live

[kagome]

So I have quite a lot going on with my aquariums right now. I decided to do something with all of my tanks that I have never done before, I wanted to add live plants to all of my tanks instead of fake ones. Until recently I was even somewhat anti-live plants because of negative things that I had heard about live plants in an aquarium. I guess I had it stuck in my head that they were a huge pain that needed huge amounts of extra care and they made the tank really dirty with leaves falling off constantly. Then I got it into my head to do some actual research and look into the different species of plants available locally. I came across web images of some truly stunning planted tanks and very happy looking fish living in them.

After further research I decided to try 4 different species: java fern, water wysteria, amazon sword, and anubis. I bought 3 amazon swords, 4 java fern, and 2 starter bunches of water wysteria from Petsmart. At the time they didn't have any anubis. I started out with only putting plants in my 20g but then quickly figured out that 3 amazon swords in a 20g is really not a good idea. So I put 2 of the swords and the water wysteria in the 40g and put all the java fern and one of the swords in the 20g. The water wysteria was constantly coming out of the gravel and floating around the tank and the leaves kept clogging up my filters so I yanked it all out and gave up on that species altogether. When anubis was finally available again I got 3 of them and have them anchored to stones w/ hemp thread. The live plants looked so much better in the tanks than the fake ones that after 2 weeks I cleared them out completely from both tanks and only have live plants. These are some pictures from early on, hopefully I'll be able to take updated pictures tomorrow.

[kagome]

OK so I got impatient and took some pictures tonight
















This is my 1gallon tank that is home to Diego De Betta. I've been putting all of my tiny baby java ferns in here and they have been growing very well.

[parker002]

Totally awesome.

I recently made the leap to live plants - I have myriophyllum, red wendtii, java fern, amazon sword, water sprite, corkscrew vallisneria, water sprite, and anubias.

I also have some aponegeton bulbs that I've sprouted but they're not ready to plant yet.

My daughter also did live plants in her 14G - red ludwigia, water sprite, japanese moss, corkscrew val, rose sword, anubias, and cabomba (despite my protests).

[Suzie Q (Lori)]

Lovely!!! I love my live plants!!! I buried the roots to my anubias in the soil instead of tying the root to an anchor. I left the ryzone(?) above the dirt.

[kagome]

I'm going to have to bury the roots of my anubis too because my pleco apparently thinks the hemp string I tied them to the rocks with is really tasty. He ate the strings on two already. I'm going to climb up on the ladder and reach in there and try burying the roots today. Once I've got some money coming in again I'm going to order some driftwood from Carl for him to browse on because the pleco obviously thinks he's missing something in his diet.

[babygeige]

Your plants look really great kagome!
It never occurs to me to bury the roots of anubias plants. I think I'm going to do that with some of the ones in my 50 gallon. Mine are all tied to a rock or wood.

[parker002]

Is this a chance for me to FINALLY offer someone else advice here?

For rooting Anubias, I found it's far easier to work upwards than downwards.

Instead of trying to poke the roots in while not burying the rhizome, instead dig a little hole and bury the WHOLE THING.

Then GENTLY pull up on the plant until the rhizome is no longer buried and voila - all of your roots are set.

[kagome]

Awesome advice Parker! Thanks!! I'll be burying the roots today and I'll try that. Hopefully I'll be able to upload updated pics today as well.

[parker002]

Also, I bought a pair of these:



They're hugely handy, especially for planting bunch plants like Ludwigia...

[kagome]

I tried planting the anubis the way you suggested parker and it worked great!! How messy is the ludwigia?

[kagome]

Ok, so replanted the anubis in the way parker suggested and it really turned out great. Here are updated pictures. You may notice that my pagoda is gone. It had an unfortunate accident when I was cleaning the tank and broke into about a billion pieces. There is no money to replace it right now so I rearranged the plants to fill in the gap. I also got a pretty good picture of my high finned spotted pleco, I call him Rocco and he can be a naughty boy about the plants but I love him anyway.

Here's an overall shot of the tank as it is now.


Here's Rocco behind a small amazon sword plant.


This is a java fern that is a totally different variety from all of the others I have so I put it in this tank right by Buddha.


Here are the anubis in the middle of the tank.

Here are two amazon swords and the third anubis on the left end of the tank

[parker002]

Feb 15, 2011 17:29:30 GMT -5 kagome said:

I tried planting the anubis the way you suggested parker and it worked great!! How messy is the ludwigia?

It's not bad. It loses a few leaves at first but they're easy to cleanup - nowhere NEAR as messy as hornwort, milfoil, or water sprite in my experience.

The reason my daughter wanted it is because it's got a great shade of red in it. It does look pretty good.

Speaking of looking pretty good, those pictures are awesome!

I'm going to have to take some pictures tomorrow...

[kagome]

I've never had it before so I was wondering whether or not anubis is fast or slow growing? My husband loves it, it's his favorite plant that I've bought so far.

[parker002]

Pros:
1) Looks great! Very green.
2) Doesn't need much light or special water qualities.
3) According to Carl and other places on the Internet, VERY hardy (can even survive out of water for long periods of time).

Cons:
1) Grows very, very slowly. All of my plants have new leaf growth since purchase except these (they've grown new roots but that's it)
2) Very susceptible to black algae. Mine look "antiqued".

Some advice based on the #2 Pro and the #2 Con together:

Give them some shade. Plant them in the shadow of an ornament or other plant. They don't need alot of light and it might help slow down the algae.

Of course, my daughter has two oto catfish in her tank so her Anubias are SPOTLESS.

[babygeige]

My anubias plants grow in spurts. It will just have the same leaves on it for a few months, then all of a sudden, a new one will appear.

For example, just this week I noticed a new leaf starting to pop out of one of my plants on Tuesday or Wednesday and last night I saw another one coming out too!

[Carl]

Feb 19, 2011 11:40:19 GMT -5 babygeige said:

My anubias plants grow in spurts. It will just have the same leaves on it for a few months, then all of a sudden, a new one will appear.

I have noticed this too with Anubias.
I also have observed that Anubias seem to grow more after water changes/tank cleanings.

Carl

[parker002]

Feb 19, 2011 11:40:19 GMT -5 babygeige said:

My anubias plants grow in spurts. It will just have the same leaves on it for a few months, then all of a sudden, a new one will appear.

For example, just this week I noticed a new leaf starting to pop out of one of my plants on Tuesday or Wednesday and last night I saw another one coming out too!

My Amazon Sword sprouts a new stalk/leaf on a daily basis it seems.

[lordlady]

Thanks for the advice. It was very useful for me