Getting MC to lie down!

[Ben C]

OK, so my MC is growing fairly healthily - nice green leaves, is not straggly (internodal length is reasonably short) but its growing vertically and refuses to lie down.

I have 24W over an 81l tank - used to have 48W but things are growing much better since reducing the light. Injected CO2 via SodaStream and inline UP! Atomiser. Flow is good - all of these stems of MC are swaying in the current and I can see the mist of CO2 circulating around all of them.

Any ideas?

Many thanks all,

Ben

 

[Tim Harrison]

IME the likes of MC only lie down if the light intensity is high enough...

 

[pepedopolous]

I have the opposite experience to Troi. MMC can grow horizontally in low light (less than 30 PAR).

You may be able to see lots of CO2 bubbles but it how much CO2 are you injecting? I would be worth making sure that you are really getting a pH decrease of 1 unit from when the CO2 comes on to when the lights come on.

Dennis Wong made an awesome video on growing HC but it applies to MMC and others as well: -



It really is the CO2.

P

 

[Tim Harrison]

Haha...I knew that someone would pick me up on that and suggest it was CO2 as well...I don't disagree

 

[Ben C]

Fantastic - many thanks both. Just spent a fascinating half an hour with Dennis Wong on YouTube - just found this as well. Both well worth watching for anyone struggling like I am..

Time to find a pH meter..
Thanks again. Videos like these are so motivating. I need to watch more, more often.

Ben

 

[Martin in Holland]

I even had MC growing nice in medium light and low CO2, it seems a fairly easy plant to grow.
I like the way Dennis Wong explains things....even easy enough for me to understand (most of the time...LOL)

 

[zozo]

My MC does both.. it creeps where it has room to do so and at some patches in the carpet where young shoots grow very dense together they support each other to grow upright, they prevent eachother from bending to the substrate and so will keep growing verticaly. In this case it needs a trimming.. It's not the stem that bends al they way by itself. It forms new roots below new leaf axil, if this root reaches the substrate it will pull the stem down and make it creep. But you will always see the new tip pointing upwards. In very dense patches i see less new root development in the lower plant section, i guess thats a light isue because of the density. if you run your tweezers trough these dense patches you might notice some rather young shoots reaching towards the substrate. But if you dont trim they tend to start melting after some time because of less light reaching it.

I see the same ting happening with the Rotala Mexicana Goyas. Its a creeper in the same way the MC does, but in very dense patches giving eachother the support they easily grow 10 to 15 cm upright.