Anubias identification

[jolt100]

Can anyone help to identify my supersized anubias . Sorry for the poor pic but there isn't much room in my fishhouse and lots of reflection.
I have had it for 20 years and it came as a small cutting from a friend and it had not grown much in the time he had had it.
I could see it was a different shaped leaf to the barteri and nana that I had as it formed 2 lobes where the stalk meets the leaf. In my tank in my fishhouse it started to grow, low tech with 2 T8 lamps and eventually grew out of the water up to the top of the stand, about 60cm. The rhizome was about 4cm. As the leaves got burned by the lights I tried various ways to keep the size down without success.
I transferred a cutting to the current 90cm x 40 cm high tank with the intention of keeping it trimmed to see if that would keep the size down but when the cory Gossii started breeding I didn't want to disturb them and finished as you see below. I keep a cover on so the leaves don't get too dried out hence the bent and twisted stems.
Tank currently has 2 T5's and only gets occasional ferts but 50% change every week to 10 days.
I had thought it might be A. Gigantea but the only image I can find looks a different leaf shape. Could it just be a strain of Barteri that has adapted to grow large??
I know it's not just the light or fertilisers as other tanks, low and high tech, have Anubias that don't grow to this size.
Sorry for the ramblings but it would be interesting to know what I have got and what to do with it
Cheers
John

 

[Mick.Dk]

If your friend's plant grew 3-lobed leaves, this could very well be A. gigantea. It is defenitely not a common plant in the hobby, though.
It is suspicious that it does not grow 3-lobed leaves now. Different leaf-shape of young(=juvenile) plants is generally quite common, but having grown to this size and growing leaves out of water, it should defenitely grow the caracteristic (= 3-lobed) leaves by now.
The size of your plant does not exclude the common commercial species, though. ...... the A. barteri var. barteri and the A. caladifolia can easily grow this big, given the right conditions, and even the A. 'coffeefolia' can grow considerably bigger, than the plants you can usually buy.
The leaf-shape is, like you allready know, not really "spot on" in resemblance to A. barteri......... but this species is encredibly prone to produce variations in leaf-form and -size, so an A. barteri would still be my best guess.
- unless the 3-lobed leaves suddenly appear.. . ......

 

[jolt100]

Thanks Mick.dk, the leaves are "heart shaped" but perhaps it doesn't show very well on the photo, I will try another shot of an individual leaf tomorrow .
The pictures I have seen of A. Gigantea don't seem to have these lobes.
If it's a Barteri variant would cutting off old leaves reduce the size of the new growth?
I know I need to take a lot of the Anubias and crypt Affinis out of the tank so the fish can see each other but I don't like throwing anything away and unfortunately have run out of tanks to move them to, no no no. . Don't suggest another )

Cheers
John

 

[tam]

I know I need to take a lot of the Anubias and crypt Affinis out of the tank so the fish can see each other but I don't like throwing anything away and unfortunately have run out of tanks to move them to, no no no. . Don't suggest another )

It looks pretty happy growing emersed, could you raise it higher so the rhizome was near the surface, freeing up all the space below. Even go higher and put something like a trickle box on the back and grow it like some people do peace lily.

 

[jolt100]

Unfortunately there is no headroom to have it sat near the surface. It's either another row of tanks or the ceiling of the shed above the tanks its in.
Tried to get a better pic of the leaf shape and flower ..
Cheers

 

[Mick.Dk]

A lot of hybrids have been produced from crossing Anubias species for very many years. (Mr. Windeløw from Tropica participated, delivered species to some of the hybrids). Given how easy many Anubias are to care fore, I would suspect very many will have "survived" being passed on, thereby still going around in the hobby! - so your plant may well be a hybrid.
Flower does not really look like A. gigantea. It look quite much like A. hastifolia, which is also a triangular/3-lobed species and quite common in trade. This species has longer leaf-stalks, then I see on your plant, though, and the species do not really grow well submerse for a longer period.
Flower is not really "spot on" in resemblance to A. barteri. ........but close enough to make me stick to my original guess: A. barteri.
The heart-shaped leaves would indicate the variety Anubias barteri var. caladifolia (of which there are again several "under-varieties" - ex. the one, simply named Anubias '1705' from the laboratory number). Flowers of those may well show small variation from standard A. barteri.
The intense growth of your plant is a tribute to your "tender love and care", so you should consider this a compliment *ss*. The only way to make your plant smaller would be to start "starving and mistreating" it (which I do not recommend!!! ). I sometimes get extreemely small anubias plants (usually called 'pico' or other funny names) grown submerse, from private people, for testing ..... ..but given good fertilisation and general conditions, they usually develop into very nice, but standard type plants *lol*

 

[jolt100]

Thanks for the info Mick.Dk, the pictures on the Web of A. Hastifolia do look like the original cutting but I can't see any large leaf pictures to compare.
I will carry on calling it " large anubias " and assume its Barteri.
Unfortunately I can't take credit for TLC, I hardly give it any fertilisers and my tapwater is very soft, hence the reason I was thinking it must be something other than Barteri which in my high light, CO2 injected EI ferts tank just grows sideways.
It's not a commercial plant, you need a large packing case to send a cutting

Thanks again for the assistance

John