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Your experience with Bolbitis heudelotii, hints and tips please.

Greengeek

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27 Mar 2020
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Fareham, Hampshire
How do I get the best out of Bolbitis heudelotii? I’m currently doing a Congo themed tank and really want a focal plant of Bolbitis. Like ADA tanks where it’s just gorgeous, lush and huge!

If you’ve had a lot of success with this plant, what do you recommend? What do you think are the keys to optimal growth and success?

Ive been growing it in strong flow, medium lighting, low tds, neutral water but no CO2 and it’s growth has been ridiculously slow, I’ve had it 6 months and it’s lost all its immersed leaves and regrown submersed, but I feel it could be better as it’s rather sparse, the leaves are VERY LARGE (foot long nearly) but no really density. I want really happy Bolbitis.

Should I add some CO2? What ferts do you dose? What’s your water chemistry? Lighting? etc

It’s positioned in front the outlet sump return and can get a little ‘dirty’ basically it’s turned into a filter that I regulary clean. Maybe that’s a sign I need more flow, or some sort of prefilter, it really seams too love detritus getting caught up in it.

Please feel free to show me your success stories!


 
I had a lot of it in my previous scapes and it was growing well after a while. That said, every growth is exponential, like Covid actually: at first it seems nothing happens an then suddenly it goes too fast. The thing with Bolbitis is that, what happens over 3 weeks with stems happens over the course of at least a year with Bolbitis. (Now that I think about it, I transplanted it from tank to tank so it may have been 3 years old). In ADA tanks they start with "mother" plants so they skip that low growth part.
That said, since they are epiphytes they only rely on what's in the water: CO2 injection and liquid ferts will have a strong effect on them. As for light intensity I'm not sure. I had them under quite strong light, and although they grew well they had a "curled" growth maybe due to too much light? ADA headquarters are said to drive their tanks at medium light, which I do not find consistent with the amount of solar rgb s we can see above the tanks, and the luminosity of their photos and videos. But maybe they "cheat" when they show off.

So my take would be to add more ferts, CO2 and patience :) (and maybe buy a couple of mature ferns)

Envoyé de mon KB2003 en utilisant Tapatalk
 
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Although they are grouped as epiphytes - mine have always done best as soon as they hit the substrate. I just pulled one out of my 1' cube (tank started leaking) which literally filled it and was growing in the fine gravel. All the times I've grown it well it's been along substrate rather than attached to rock etc. Obviously rhizome isn't buried but it had a lot of roots from that that were.
 
Thanks everyon, growth has been slow, but I’m seeing lots of new growth now, it’s literally done nothing for best part of 2 months. Just older leaves slowly turning dark and disintegrating. But looking close finally looks to be adapting and growing.

Ive been liquid dosing, CO2 injecting and it’s under medium lighting. Certainly other plants in the tank are thriving too, Anubias is happy, but especially the Crinum which are huge fert sucks! lol
Apologise for the reflections.
76F43874-207D-4FA3-878C-F38B6B72AAE7.jpeg
 
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