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Your Views On Banana Plant Please

Smells Fishy

Member
Joined
25 Oct 2015
Messages
474
Location
Scarbourgh, UK
I've seen pictures of Nymphoides Aquatica and fancy buying some from Aquarium Gardens. Before I do though I would like to know a bit more.

My temperature is 26c and I use Waterlife TropiFlora every 2 weeks. I have x2 T8 lights that are on normally 5-7 hours a day.
 
I don't know if Chuck Gadd is still active online but I thought this was one of the best "banana plant anecdotes"

Copied over from the krib (thank you Eric!)


Banana Plants
by Chuck Gadd <cgadd/cfxc.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000

Jim wrote:

> I too have an interest in reproducing Banana Plants, so I was hoping
> someone who had actually done so would answer this question. What I know

> Can anyone tell me anything about the life cycle of banana plants?

I've had my banana plant flower in my tank. There are pictures up on my
website (watch out, the page has way too many small images on it, so
load time is horrible. I'm fix that problem in the near future)

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/plants.htm#banana

I can relate my experience with it:

Planted it, with the bananas half buried in the substrate. The plant rooted,
and sent up runners to the surface, with floating leaves. I was normally
leaving just one of two of the floating leaves attached, and removing the
rest so that it wouldn't block too much light.

The first way I reproduced it: Take a floating leaf. After it's been at
the surface for a few days, clip the stem about 4 inches below the leaf,
and let the leaf and it's attached piece of stem float. After several
days, roots will form at the end of the stem attached to the leaf. Let
the roots develop for a few days, then you can snip the leaf off the
stem with it's new roots, and plant the stem/roots. It won't have a
banana bunch, but it grows just like any other banana plant.


The second way I reproduced it, by pure luck: After a couple months of me
clipping off the floating leaves, I noticed that one of the runners to
the surface had a "lump" a few inches below the end of the stem. Once the
leaf reached the surface, from this lump emerged a couple small stems. One
of these stems produced a small floating leaf. From the same spot, a small
stem went to the surface, and a flower formed. A week later, a banana
bunch forms from that same lump. Once the bananas are pretty well formed,
the stem will rot just below the bananas. Now the floating leaf, and the
new attached banana bunch can float around free. In the wild, this leaf
could now be carried by the current to a new location. About a week
after the stem rotted, the leaf will start to rot, eventually dropping the
banana bunch down to the substrate, where it will root, and start over!

It's a very cool process to watch, and the flower is VERY nice looking.

Unfortunately, I've got no idea what actually triggered the flowering.
It's been flowering for several months now, and seems to be slowing down,
in fact, I haven't seen a new stem in a week. Once it started sending
up the runners with the "lumps", every single stem had a lump.
 
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