I am wondering why my nursery grown Anubias and Buce have changed in leaf size drastically after acclimation. My broad leaf Anubias barteri has replaced with miniturized leaves no larger than nana. My “Red Mini” Buce, on the opposite direction, have replaced with leaves 3 times as large.. In either case, they look like different plant I bought into.
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Leaf size transformation
- Thread starter tiger15
- Start date
kadoxu
Member
What do you mean by "nursery grown"? Grown emersed?
zozo
Member
Bucephalandra is still a fairly new plant species, many names out there are fantasy names given for example from the region where it is found or the way it looks Blue wavy green with purple dots etc.. there is a enormous range of Buce spp. in the trade that are collected in nature by amateurs for the trade and not scientificaly determined or categorized. That makes it very difficult to come up with any conclusive answer.. 
Anubias is a very popular plant sp. in the hobby already cultivated for a very long time. The longer it is in cultivation the more var. appear. Most popular Anubias var. are actualy for its majority a spinoff from the Barteri. Names like Bonsai, Nana, Nana petite, golden and few others are all Barteri spinoff. In the nursery they seperated small staying strains with specific grow characteristics like the barteri nana petite to finaly grow a rather stable small staying var. But in the end it geneticaly stays a barteri with the genetic abbility to grow to it's full size again. This obviously works also the other way around as well, that a large barteri shows new dwarfed growth. It could be that surtain conditions trigger the plant to do this. If so nurseries growing it or the nursery that discovered it doesn't reveale this. DOn't know but never found any reference of conditions to make a anubias stay smaller. But i guess it was just a mater of chance discovey by a nursery that some parts of the plant stayed rather small, they devided the small var. from its mother and vegetatively reproduced a smal strain that originated from a big one.
For some new crypt spp. it is the same story, for example the Lutea Hobbit.. IS a dwarfed spinoff from i believe the C. Walkeri, that has rather potential to grow big. The lutea hobbit is rather new in the trade and i bought a few pots.. A few of those plants didn't grow at all but also a few forgot they were dwarfs and grow full Walkeri size. The longer it is in cultivation the higher the chance that the dwarfed strain becomes stable.. There is no 100% garanty..
Anubias is a very popular plant sp. in the hobby already cultivated for a very long time. The longer it is in cultivation the more var. appear. Most popular Anubias var. are actualy for its majority a spinoff from the Barteri. Names like Bonsai, Nana, Nana petite, golden and few others are all Barteri spinoff. In the nursery they seperated small staying strains with specific grow characteristics like the barteri nana petite to finaly grow a rather stable small staying var. But in the end it geneticaly stays a barteri with the genetic abbility to grow to it's full size again. This obviously works also the other way around as well, that a large barteri shows new dwarfed growth. It could be that surtain conditions trigger the plant to do this. If so nurseries growing it or the nursery that discovered it doesn't reveale this. DOn't know but never found any reference of conditions to make a anubias stay smaller. But i guess it was just a mater of chance discovey by a nursery that some parts of the plant stayed rather small, they devided the small var. from its mother and vegetatively reproduced a smal strain that originated from a big one.
For some new crypt spp. it is the same story, for example the Lutea Hobbit.. IS a dwarfed spinoff from i believe the C. Walkeri, that has rather potential to grow big. The lutea hobbit is rather new in the trade and i bought a few pots.. A few of those plants didn't grow at all but also a few forgot they were dwarfs and grow full Walkeri size. The longer it is in cultivation the higher the chance that the dwarfed strain becomes stable.. There is no 100% garanty..
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Yes, I mean emerged grown plants from nurseries.
I understand Anubias nana, petite, gold, round leaf, broad leave etc. are all cultivars of barteri. I bought the largest leaf cultivar with big bold leaves that are gradually replaced with nano leaves 1/3 the size. The leaves look healthy, so not a sign of deficiency of something.
On the opposite trend, the petite leaf Buce I bought were gradually replaced with larger leaves 3 times the original size.
My tank has co2, medium light, and I dose macros, micros and glut regularly. What I bought and what turn out is different. Why?
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zozo
Member
Obviously there is no minimum leaf size the plant has to grow to be what it is. It's next one might be bigger.. The other barteri cultivars do the same.. I have bought nana petite that grew into the same size as the bonsai var. and others don't grow bigger than a 10mm leaf. By now i've lost track of what is what and also don't always trust the lfs label blindly.. Very often plants are wrongly labeled.. And next to that emersed leaves commonly grow faster and bigger than submersed leaves, in some plants even with complete different shapes.Not so long ago i ordered Hellantium tenelum, labeled as the South American var. And i got the North American Parvullum var. The LFS simply says my labels go as i get them from the originating nursery. SO he keeps selling them as the SA var. but it isn't.. it has an obvious different flower and leafshape..
What we you do?
peaches
Member
My anubias nana had new leaves that were smaller. I put this down to it being in a shop in a Tropica blister pack for a while, no water just moist rockwool. I'm hoping all future leaves will increase in size.
zozo
Member
Months ago i had a leafless rhizome of a A. Barteri nana Bonzai.. The mother grows leaves in about 30mm size.. I left a piece of rizhome to long outside the water and all old leaves dried out and died off. I glued this rhizome to a piece of wood close to the water surface.. It is on there now for about 5 months and this is what it grew into till now.
See the red arrows pointing to duckweed as size comparance.. The biggrer somewhat heart shaped leaf is Adiantum fern and is about 10x10mm..
I think i discovered a new variation.. The super duper petite?. The leafless rhizome i planted grew about 15 new leaves in this time, all are tiny and non is bigger than duckweed. The biggest about 3 x 3mm. One should expect the plant growing almost emersed having all the co2 available it can get would grow bigger. But till now it doesn't it keeps on growing new super tiny leaves. I have absolutely no idea what is triggering this rhizome to grow 'm this small. It has no obvious reason to do so, on the contrary. It's mother is a foot deeper down submersed growing 10 x bigger..
Anubias barteri is a plant with so many variations, it can grow into anthing from tiny to full size it has it all in its genes.. But it stays a A. Barteri. The names Nana, Nana petite, mini, Bonzai etc. etc. All are fantasy trade names for the same plant. And it doesn't give any size garanty obviously..
See the red arrows pointing to duckweed as size comparance..
The biggrer somewhat heart shaped leaf is Adiantum fern and is about 10x10mm..I think i discovered a new variation.. The super duper petite?. The leafless rhizome i planted grew about 15 new leaves in this time, all are tiny and non is bigger than duckweed. The biggest about 3 x 3mm. One should expect the plant growing almost emersed having all the co2 available it can get would grow bigger. But till now it doesn't it keeps on growing new super tiny leaves. I have absolutely no idea what is triggering this rhizome to grow 'm this small. It has no obvious reason to do so, on the contrary. It's mother is a foot deeper down submersed growing 10 x bigger..
Anubias barteri is a plant with so many variations, it can grow into anthing from tiny to full size it has it all in its genes.. But it stays a A. Barteri. The names Nana, Nana petite, mini, Bonzai etc. etc. All are fantasy trade names for the same plant. And it doesn't give any size garanty obviously..
I use LED light, and all big leaf A barteri I bought transformed into nana and petite size after replacement of new leaves. One person I bought the plant from grow them in T5, and he said that light quality can affect the leaf size. I know submerged and emerged growth can make a difference, but don’t know if it is true that T5 and LED growth can be different.
zozo
Member
In intencity it definitily can, you need quite some led power to challange a desent T5 tube. Depending on watage and tank size of corse.. Shouldn't be a problem with the correct leds, but there are so many out there of which only a small part is up to it. And many factory made tube light LED replacement are oldfashion outdated led versions. Still see them for sale with the SMD5050 build in. And that's realy a crappy performing LED compared with the more recent designs. But regarding spectrum i have to quote the professional web sites and they state LED covers a wider and more complete spectrum than any other artificial light source.
