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How on earth do I plant this?

Wisey

Wisey

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Joined
19 Jul 2014
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1,061
I bought a load of Tropica plants for my rescape, all from TGM as I wanted to be sure I had Tropica plants and they could get what I wanted in stock.

One plant is Limnophila sessiliflora. The Tropica plant handling video shows a nice fresh pot with plants about 10 cm tall, easy to plant. What I got was straggly stems about 40+ cm in length, wrapped together with a crypt, neither plant in great condition. The tops are green but the root end looks straggly and poor.

What on earth do I do with this? Do I try and plant as it is, or cut the tops and plant the top 10-20 cm? It's all matted and tangled together, not really impressed.

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This is why I don't use TGM as they have very little quality control, for such a big player you would of thought that they could get fresh products out.

Limnophila sessiliflora is one of my favorite plants and is in both my low tech setup. I usually trim it back around 15cm from the top and trim the leaves back on two nodes before replanting. I would probably plant the rooted stem in as well but don't cut it into 3 as from experience the middle nodes don't propagate as well.
 
Ok, thanks guys, I'll be planting tomorrow afternoon after getting fish out, cleaning the tank and rescaping in the morning. I will follow your advice and trim the tops. Is it worth cutting back hard to the roots and putting the roots in my propagator to see if I can get new plants growing from the roots that I can transfer in to the tank in a few weeks, or am I better just trying to put the roots straight in the tank with the tops tomorrow?
 
As for the TGM thing, yeah, I'm a bit annoyed. The service I had with the last order was poor, but the plant quality was excellent, so I complained and got a discount off my shipping this time and they also had the 15% discount on plants at the moment. The problem I had was none of the sponsors had everything I wanted in the same place, so multiple orders would be required. Also, TGM seemed to be the only place that had Echinodorus quadricostatus available, so to get that I would have had to order from TGM, plus order from Aqua Essentials and maybe another sponsor too. That just didn't make financial sense.

I should also add that apart from this plant and a Crypt that is not the best looking plant, the rest of them do look in fantastic condition, which is what I have come to expect from Tropica usually which was why I wanted Tropica plants. I have bought plants from CO2Art in the past and they were not bad, but when compared to the equivalent Tropica plant, they were much smaller and did not appear to be as good a quality plant. I would really like to try Aqua Essentials at some point as they get great feedback, but they just didn't have what I wanted.
 
Just want to addd, that Lim. sess. is one of the easiest stemplants at all, to grow - including grow back from "neglect/poor treatment". Off-cuts will readily root from nodes (=where leaves are attached) and grow happily on. The cut stems, left after trimming, will usually grow new branches, too.
- and yep; it is not the easiest plant to grow emerse.......😉
Lim.sess. is extreemely fast-growing submerse, very often adding more than 30 cm. a week - which will explain the very long plants, often seen in trade..............
 
Last edited:
Mick.Dk said:
Just want to addd, that Lim. sess. is one of the easiest stemplants at all, to grow - including grow back from "neglect/poor treatment". Off-cuts will readily root from nodes (=where leaves are attached) and grow happily on. The cut stems, left after trimming, will usually grow new branches, too.
- and yep; it is not the easiest plant to grow emerse.......😉
Click to expand...

Great, thanks for confirming Mick. I take it it looks straggly like that is its hard to grow emmersed then? I was really surprised it was that long!
 
Wisey said:
Great, thanks for confirming Mick. I take it it looks straggly like that is its hard to grow emmersed then? I was really surprised it was that long!
Click to expand...
No - the straggly growth is from growing so fast in a holding tank at the shop. The growth emerse is different from your photo. Your plant is clearly submerse growth.
 
I'd written a reply & then deleted ... basically just surprised that a reputedly knowledgeable shop chose this particular plant to ship out & then chose to pack it so poorly 😕

As many comment, plant will recover etc but that is really not the point ... I'd like to see OP receive a compensatory gift card on this one ... and know a few shops that would've offered it already 🙂
 
Has to be said it is not doing well, it was so brittle it was really hard to do much with it. I have planted tops and root ends, but so many leaf nodes are just falling off and floating round the tank and occasionally stems just giving way in the middle and floating off. I have a few longer stems still planted then managed to plant two bunches of shorter tops that I have rescued this evening, but I have about half what I managed to plant from the pot left now. Hopefully I can just get a few stems to take and get it to expand over time.
 
I can ensure you........that IF it takes, it will expand - and expand - and expand - and expand.....................:woot::lol:
 
Mick.Dk said:
I can ensure you........that IF it takes, it will expand - and expand - and expand - and expand.....................:woot::lol:
Click to expand...

Haha, fingers crossed then! It has Tropica soil, so a good nutritious substrate, EI dosing, enough light that most plants are pearling for the last few hours of the photoperiod and pressurised CO2. Let's hope it hangs in there! I'm determined to be able to post a picture in that give nature half a chance thread! How long should a cut stem take to establish a reasonable root?
 
I would still dose some ferts in water-column (if you are not).
Lim. sess. appear to be very good at taking ferts from water-column (which is why it is soooooo good as a helping plant, to start up a new tank).
It can vary, how slow/fast a stem will produce new roots - poor health does ofcourse not speed up the process........
edit: sorry, I didn't see the EI dosing :shy:
 
I sent a mail to TGM with a picture of the plant they had sent and a picture of the plant on the Tropica website as comparison. Their response was:

"The sessiflora was in excellent condition when shipped but in fairness does look to have been somewhat bashed about in transit

It was grown on in a deepwater unit to a larger size and this is something many of our customers appreciate due to the larger number of stems available"

They have said they will refund me for the plant though, so that's positive! I have enquired whether it will be possible to get the same plant without being grown on if I can't get what's left of this one to grow, so will see what they say.
 
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