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Advice on what will happily grow on top of floating cork bark.

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Kev_M

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8 Oct 2013
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I'm in the middle of setting a tank up for some Channa spp. They love floating cover and they're great jumpers so I'll be lowering the waterline significantly. In order to fill in the space and provide some cover, I'd like to grow some plants on top of floating cork bark tubes. I usually just go for Anubias spp. and the like, but I'm wondering if there's anything more interesting I can use this time. I'm going to attempt to drape some Hydrocotyle spp. over some of the cork bark, in the hopes that will take off as it did well on a riparium raft for me before. Will it be possible to grow an interesting compact carpet near the front, such as HC? I'm just wondering if it would establish without soil, etc.

Any ideas welcomed.
 
Thanks for your reply. The tank is 24" tall and the water line should be between 12" and 16" depending on the season. That shouldn't be too close, should it? I was planning on drilling some holes to make it easier for some of the plants, but hadn't thought about doing so for HC. How close together would you drill the holes for the HC roots, then?
 
Hi Kev_M,
I've done rafts of cork bark (from the flower arranging section of garden centres) and Java moss and Hydrocotyle grow fine on it, I've currently got a tiny Cryptocoryne willisii and a java fern sp, growing on some, The moss tends to draw up water to keep the other roots damp through capillary action, but 'Martin in China's' idea of holes would help while the cork is new and dry, as would spraying.

you probably know anyway, but even cork will get waterlogged after a year or so and sink.

I've used small bits of plant that were too fiddly to plant and just dropped them on the damp pieces of cork to see what happens, but I reckon a lot of plants would work.
cheers phil
 
If you cover the cork in moss, anyway - Utricularia gramminifolia will likely love to be tugged into this "ground" and spread happily. supposing humidity is quite high, ofcourse. If they establish, this will make a dense, low, bright green cover. UG grow quite fast above water, actually.
 
Wow, thanks for all of the replies, guys! I'm really looking forward to getting started. Please keep the suggestions coming, if you have any.
 
Adding some pieces of foam (polystyrene) could keep it from sinking after becoming waterlogged;) (Sometimes you can find actual pieces of bark (round, as taken of the tree) will you be using that or pressed pieces (like used on backgrounds in the old days)).
full31177240.jpg
 
I have a mix of tubes and flat pieces. So what's the least visibly obtrusive method of preventing them from sinking?
 
I did something like that whit a piece of drifwood, initialy it floats but as said soaks and sinks after a while. You actualy need quite a larger volume of floating material to create enough buoyancy to keep the soaked part up, that spoils the fun. Also if you just like it floating it will float around and go with the flow and maybe end up in the opposite corner you like to have it. And over time get top heavy and turn over on you, upside down. :)

I took 2 little sucker cups, placed them on the outside of the tank in the corner i like it to have and stay. Bought some 0.6 mm dynema at the local anglers shop. Denyma doesn't rot over time and doesn't snap, you need something realy sharp to cut it. So any movement or rubbing over the glass edges doesn't damage the dynema. I secured the drifwood with this thread at each end to the suckercups. If you buy it in the anglers shop the color will be Army green and since it is 0.6 mm it's nearly invisible so it doesn't distract the view.

As long as your humidity is high enough for the plants in question and your water is rich enough in firts, you can put anything on it you like. You just need something for the roots to grow into. Sphagnum is ok, but living sphagnum is hard to keep alive in our parameters, dead sphagnum will slowly disolve. Best is life moss which likes to stay alive and dosnt mind to grow emersed as well.. My piece of wood is like a holowed out tree trunk, like a canoe. I stufed the crack with Ricia Fluitans and it worked out great, the Ricia attaches to eachother and is growing out and creating a floating island around the wood. Did put HC in there and that's doing realy good, it likes it very much emersed, doesn't even need transition from sub to emersed. also got UG in it, but it seems Ricia and UG don't mind together but the Ricia is so hungry it competes with everything else and UG slows down it's growth. Got staurogyne repens on it and this also doesn't mind being there, slowly grows towards the surface. Also got a few stems of Rotala Mexicana goyas growing up there. And that's a funny one, it started out with very small young cuttings and it realy refuses to grow emersed, it just kept creeping till it reached the water line and than dives under the surface and happily grows on. Also experimenting with mosses on it i find in the forest. Some with succes others not so happy.

This is how it started.
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/drift-wood.37395/

This is how it looks now when i do a water change. :)
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/growing-mosses.6848/page-8#post-408288

It's doing great and love the idea even more than the day it came to me..
 
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Here you see how it looks today from above. :)

At the left end you see the Staurogyne Repens slowly popping emersed and the desperately refusing Rotala Mexicana Goyas. And to floating Ricia hooking in to eachother, growing away from the wood and creating an island.
mYizKMZ.jpg


:)
 
Hi all

This is what I did some time ago. Inside there was a mesh of Hygrolon. The setup was sat on a dish with RO water and the mesh in contact with the water.

https://flic.kr/p/p8ghnQ

It worked very well and as Mick mentions you could actually grow whatever you want on the moss once well established. My guess is that it should do well on a tank

https://flic.kr/p/pagmyE

Jordi
 
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