Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Tank Plant Advice => Topic started by: Helen on March 25, 2018, 09:54:12 AM
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@TopCookie , I hope you don't mind me picking your brains about this plant. I've tried to take a quote from your snail thread and start a new one, so as not to highjack your thread.
@Helen
Here ya go: http://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Nymphoideshydrophylla'Taiwan'(041BTC)/4463
:)
It's a favourite snack for the Amano shrimp at times... They don't all munch on it and those that do don't do so all the time, but the little blighters will eat the leaves...!!!
Thank you for the link. I've had a look at it and am seriously considering it for my tank. The only thing making me hesitate is it's growth. All the descriptions are that it is fast growing. I've tried to avoid particularly fast growing plants, because I have soft water and I've found that fast growing stem plants need / use quite a lot of calcium. Also I'm trying to minimise my tank maintenance.
What is your experience of keeping this plant? Do you add CO2, fertilisers? What are water parameters - hardness etc? How often / much do you have to cut it back? Or do your nibbling fish do this for you?
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No worries H... :)
Parameters: 0-0-10 with ph 7.5 - gh 7.5 - kh 6
I don't use CO2 but do use liquid ferts, having started with TNC Complete, switching to Lite but then switching back to Complete...
Substrate is "Walstad Method" style: John Innes #3 capped with pea gravel (aside from an area of sand only)
In my experience, it's much slower growing than the Elodia pond weed and the Sessiflora and I personally would say that it's nearer medium speed, or has been in my set up... Those Amano shrimp have nibbled fairly significantly on the younger leaves, usually victimising one leaf at a time until it has completely gone... Obviously not damaging the plant to the point of killing it though, plus they tend to leave it more alone since I switched to full size algae wafers (from the micro sized ones)...
The only trimming I've done so far is of a few stalks where the leaves were completely eaten... So again, in my experience I would definitely describe it as an easy plant - however there is one caveat which you may have picked up on in the Tropica link... It is a plant that needs a lot of nutrition for the most vigorous growth and my TNC dosing is a fraction of the recommended amount and probably why, combined with the Amano shrimp, it appears to grow at a fairly modest rate...
On a more personal note, there's something about that plant that I really like... It has a delicate character, even though the leaves look so large - if you look at the stem thickness you'll see they're quite thin really... If you were to ask my opinion, I'd say "go for it"... :)
Last point that may or may not be significant, but mine was from a tissue culture pot...
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Thank you @TopCookie . You've said all the right things to remove my doubt. :cheers:
My substrate is not as nutritious as yours (though it was more nutritious before I refurbished it), but that is something I'm already working on for my other plants. Having said that, I don't want vigorous growth!
The product I'm looking at is the Tropica 1-2 grow. I'm not sure whether that is a tissue culture. If it is I might be coming back to ask for help on planting it.
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You shouldn't have any problems with planting Helen, but by all means feel free to come back and ask for help, any time... :)
And yes, by the way, the Tropica 1-2 Grow range are tissue culture plants, guaranteed to be free of pest snails, algae and pesticides etc...
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The product I'm looking at is the Tropica 1-2 grow. I'm not sure whether that is a tissue culture. If it is I might be coming back to ask for help on planting it.
The tissue culture plants such as Tropica 1-2-Grow have very helpful instructions on their pots which even I, still not a plantkeeping natural (and doubt I ever will be), can follow.
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How's the Taiwan going now Helen...?
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I saw this thread being updated. I actually ordered 1 of these plants yesterday (12/06) as I decided to give it a try in my aquarium with the CO2. I hoping that my Amino’s won’t tear it apart as they have the Java Moss and Algae wafers etc as an alternative.
I have a space just in front on my Nymphae Lotus and I think it would look good in contrast with the red leaves of that plant.
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My Amano shrimp left it alone for a while, then they slowly started picking on it, building up to an all out assault...!!!! I would guess that if there's enough favourable food, they'd leave the "Taiwan" alone, but I'm too unreliable for my lot, and they just attacked it all out in the end.... That could easily be tank dependant though... :)
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Nymphoides came this morning. I’ve had a few attempts at trying to plant it, but it ends up back at the surface. I thought it had a tuber unless it hasn’t developed yet. The roots have been ‘trimmed’ so there’s nothing to hold it in place.
I’ll tie a small stone to it and sink it. It should take root then.
Actual plant looks very healthy though.
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I got a tissue culture, whick had very few roots, I think. I broke it into pieces and kind of stuffed the stems into my substrate, pretty much as far as i could. I used planting tweezers and have a very fine gravel / Eco complete substrate, which is easier to plant in than sand.
Here's a view of my tank that i don't often show, but you can see the different bits of nymphoid and how they have grown different amounts. All the nymphoid is from the same tissue culture pot.
Hope that helps give you some ideas about planting it.
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Mine was tissue culture as well. I just assumed it was one plant. I’ll have a look at breaking it up and replanting the pieces tomorrow. Thanks Helen.
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The instructions on mine said to break in into 6-9 pieces, which i thought was a lot. But I think I ended up with maybe 10 or 11 little clumps that seemed ok sizes. Once it was broken up, I thought it looked like a stem plant, so I treated it like one when planting it.
It said it'd grow about 30cm in 30 days, which I was a little worried about. It hasn't gone quite that mad, fortunately. But that's probably because I've got a pretty low tech tank.
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Your plants are definitely looking "lush" Helen... all of 'em, I mean... :) What's that dude front & centre, maybe a tad left of centre, in the photo...? Love the big, broad leaves... :)
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The penguin? :rotfl: Ha ha ha. The only concession to my 'natural' tank. It was a gift from my daughter when she was pretty little, for mother's day. I couldn't not put him in the tank. So he got a spot in the back corner where the kids can see him easily (eye level), but he doesn't otherwise impose on the look of my tank. ;) I think he is a character from the film Happy Feet.
I had to fend of Anna and Elsa at the weekend when I was sorting out my hospital tank. And a neon pink 'fluffy' plastic cactus! ::)
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Pingu is certainly impressive, lol, but actually, I did mean the plant... :)
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The plant with big green leaves is anubias bateri. It is planted on the substrate with the rhizome above the substrate and the roots making a good cave. That is the original rhizome that I bought. I had about 5cm and put it down the as that was a sort of 'dead' zone where i couldn't get any plants to grow. I had hoped that it would grow taller, but it has gone a bit mad in my tank. I've cut off 4 large bits. I've been able to make use of a couple, but the other two, both bigger than the original piece, are now in my hospital tank.
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Your tank is looking great and the plants look as if they are doing really well. :)
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The plant with big green leaves is anubias bateri.
Great looking plant Helen... whole tank is looking nicely vibrant in fact... :)
Pingu looks like a happy camper too... ;)
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Got the Nymphoides in. Ended up with about 7 plants in the substrate. Let’s see how long they stay there !!!
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Hope they get settled in nicely... :)
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I agree - plants, fish and the happy-looking penguin all look great. :cheers:
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Been away for the weekend came back to see most of the leaves on the new Nymphae plants shredded. Obviously by the Amano’s and possibly RCS. I’m not too worried at the moment as I can see new shoots appearing. The shrimp will get their normal fill of wafers tonight so I’m hoping they will leave it alone. I think once it’s established it will probably hold its own.
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Hope the plants are recovering @daveyng ?
This got me thinking... when you say shredded what do they actually look like? I have Amano but have never associated them with eating my plants... what are the warning signs?
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I’ll get a picture of the damage later. I’m wondering if the leaves were starting to ‘melt’ as the plant is presumably grown emersed. If that it the case the Shrimp are only doing their job and eating the dying tissue. I can see some new growth which is promising.
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I suspect that you may find that once they latch onto the Nymphoides being edible, the writing may then be on the wall... My lot would oddly leave one, or more, leaf alone for a while, instead preferring to work on a leaf that had already been started upon etc...
Easy to see when they have a go at the Nymphoides because the stalks are long and flexible, so the sheer weight of an Amano on a leaf would bend them over significantly...
I recently added an Alternanthera reinckii Pink to the tank and was (still am) worried that with having similar bendy stalks, it too may come under attack - but nothing so far, thankfully...
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I have a backup plan in case the Nymphoides doesn’t make it. I have purchased 1 Aponogeton Henkelianus bulb and will plant that in the space behind the Nymphoides. The leaves on that are hopefully less prone to a full blown “Shrimp Assault”.
I have also got some Echinodorus Tenellus to add in the foreground. I am going to prune back the Crypts at the front left of the tank to allow for this addition.
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I will be really quite envious if the Nymphoides does get left alone in the long term and "makes it"... Fantastic looking plants, for sure... :)
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This is really interesting. I don't have shrimp in my tank. I'm sorry (for you guys) to say tbat my nymphoides is looking famtastic. It obviously has thinner, more delicate leaves than any of my other plants. Perhaps that is what makes it attractive to shrimp?
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They are such a great looking plant, eh... Gutted that I can't have them now... :'(
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Definitely the Amano’s eating the Nymphoides. Spotted one chomping at a leaf. Weird thing though, the stems seem to still grow with no leaves. I have a couple of pics to upload tomorrow.
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Here are the pics of the Nymphoides. Bit blurred I'm afraid. One shows a shrimp (greyish blurred object) eating a leaf.
As you can see there's not much left. :(
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Thanks! I've never seen this in my tank... yet... it reminds me of what snail do to plants in the garden.
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Amanogeddon :yikes:
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Amanogeddon :yikes:
:rotfl: (http://www.cdv-forum.com/Smileys/default/thumbs.gif)
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I wondered if anyone can help solve my puzzle. I bought a tissue culture of Nymphoides hydrophylla 'Taiwan'. There was so much that I soread it around one end of my tank. Since then, there has been wildly different growth rates.
In the photo below, it is possible to see the huge plants at the back of the tank and the tiny little leaves on the far left. The latter appears to have not grown at all, nor has it particularly decayed, so must be alive. Any suggestions over which nutrients I need to supplement the tiny plants with the get them to grow?
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I wish I could help here... love that plant, but mine became a salad bar for the Amano shrimp very quickly once they realised it was edible...!!!
Mine did grow like mad with not much in the way of added nutrients, but what I was adding was TNC Lite at the time, if I remember rightly... I would have thought most water column fertilisers would do the trick though...
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The filter outlet goes across the back of the tank. Could the plants there strip the water of nutrients so effectively that the plants furthest from the filter don't get anything?
The other thing I have noticed is that there is quite a bit of mulm at the base of the tall plants. It is behind the bogwood, so pretty inaccessible when vacuuming (without damaging the plants). And although there is some visible amongst the gravel around the tiny plants, it doesn't really compare.
It is a pretty plant and I agree about it being fairly delicate. I have noticed some of my fish fighting over leaf shreds. But I think they only eat the leaves that have already started to break down. The leaves seem to disintegrate almost in the same way as the cattapa leaves.
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I'm not great with plants, so perhaps this is one for @Matt
It is a lovely looking plant though.
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Mine ended up as a feast for the Amano’s as well. However, I managed to save a plantlet and put it in the Pond. It’s growing albeit rather slowly.
I pretty much agree with the observation about the larger plants and the nutrient stripping. My Lily grows like wildfire. I am assuming that the surface leaves help it to absorb more CO2 than the fully immersed plants.
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The filter outlet goes across the back of the tank. Could the plants there strip the water of nutrients so effectively that the plants furthest from the filter don't get anything?
The other thing I have noticed is that there is quite a bit of mulm at the base of the tall plants. It is behind the bogwood, so pretty inaccessible when vacuuming (without damaging the plants). And although there is some visible amongst the gravel around the tiny plants, it doesn't really compare.
It is a pretty plant and I agree about it being fairly delicate. I have noticed some of my fish fighting over leaf shreds. But I think they only eat the leaves that have already started to break down. The leaves seem to disintegrate almost in the same way as the cattapa leaves.
Extra mulm will help the plant so no worries there. There is no way the other plants could strip the water of nutrients, else the plant next to it would also be suffering and the nutrients would only be available in the tank for a mayyer of minutes... there is no way this is the case. It is a very fast growing plant so does have a high nutrient demand... but only when it is growing!
The plant may well have been grown in air in the nursery and it is shedding its old leaves to replace them with new growth adapted to underwater life. This is a similar process to the quite widely known crypt melt.
What are your nitrate levels in your water?
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Having another look at the photo. I was wondering if it could be down to light intensity. It looks more shaded in the location of the small plant.
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The light is definitely not even in my tank. Mainly because I'm a total numpty and bought the wrong size LED units. So the lighting isn't likely to change anytime soon, because they also last for ever! I have 2 light units. The one at the back is as far as it can go to the left of the tank and the front unit is as far right as it can go.
I did wonder if light could be the issue, but it is only that front corner that has less light, the back corner should be fine and the tiny plants go all round that end of the tank - it is only as you get behind the bogwood that they've grown.
Perhaps it is just a combination of all factors.
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Could just be as simple as it's fighting to get established Helen... I half suspect that once it gets a decent foothold, it may burst into life... :)
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But all the plants were planted at the same time. And its been a couple months. :o
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lol, bang goes that theory then... ::) ;D