My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggestion?

[daniel19831123]

I'm just showing my emersed growth that I have for the first time. It's a simple setup with very little water changes and no water movement at all. Plants are mostly grown in filter floss and the scrap rockwool that I can find lying around. I've been keeping the humidity in the dome at 100% with very little opening.I don't dare opening the gap too big as I was afraid that the plant might dry up. I would like to grow the plant in the open eventually. Any suggestion as to how I should do this? Gradually opening of the gap?

 

[wearsbunnyslippers]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

thats really cool!

yeah, its a process called hardening off, can do it for cuttings seedling etc.

start by opening the gap a little a few times a day, or open it a small bit for the whole day and monitor it. then give it a few days, and open it a bit more, just keep an eye on your plants, dont want them going crispy

eventually you should be able to take the lid totally off, they still need to be in a humid environment though, around a pond, or marshy area. in a tray of water like a wabi kusa or similar.

 

[ghostsword]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

Hi Daniel,

Your plants looks very healthy, nice setup.

I got Hygrophila Polisperma growing on a goldfish bowl, with just wet soil, on the open air. I started by decreasing the humidity gradually and although some leaves dried out, the plant quickly recovered and now is growing quite fast.

 

[daniel19831123]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

I'm intending to grow everything on filter floss in the end. The Staurogyne is easy to grow and so is the prosepinaca and anubias. The only thing that is unpredictable is the utricularia. I started off with 4 pots and only 1 made it. I've now propagated another 3 more pots and see how it goes. AS you can see they are growing so fast in the rockwool pot that one of them is flowering at the moment!

 

[ghostsword]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

Is there any benefit of filter moss over rockwool?

I use rockwool on my pots, even on the ones immersed, and see no drawback, however I have not used filter moss.

 

[daniel19831123]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

Rockwool pH is 8.5 and need rinsing and pH adjusting. and if you have expensive shrimp in your tank, it's dangerous for the shrimp because of the small fragments of rockwool can cause them hazard when they graze on it. Filter floss don't post any of these problem. I'll be using lots of lava rock in the near future for moss propagation and fern and rhizome plants such as anubias, bolbitis heudelotti and bolbitis mini.

 

[ghostsword]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

Reason enough, I did't know that.

I will replace the rockwool with filter floss, it will work out cheaper anyway. Thanks for the tip.

A mix of broken lava rock and wood fragements for substrate for ferns and anubias would be a good idea, however they need lots of humidity, as I have not managed to have Anubias grown emmersed.

 

[TBRO]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

Cool set up Daniel, I've grown UG in normal room air but the leaves do get smaller with lower humidity. T

 

[daniel19831123]

Re: My emersed growth setup for the first time. Any suggesti

I'm trying to grow bolbitis heudelotti on rockwool. Looks like it's going to be a challenge to change from the submersed leaves to the emersed leaves. It looks like it's a slow grower too. My submersed plant grow much quicker.