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Plants - a picture entry
By no1likeme1414 from the Mark E department, Section Diaries Posted on Sun Apr 30, 2006 at 10:07:42 PM PST

I have been on a photographic kick as of late. Don't worry, I have photoshopped these down to about 50k apiece:

I am beginning to plant my main tank, a standard 20 gal. tank. Below is the planted part of my tank. As you can see, I have installed a Nutrafin CO2 injector, which is economical and easy to use because it runs on sugar, yeast and water (and something called "Stabalizer"). You can see its diffuser in the back of the tank:

After getting some snails from plants that I've bought from Petsmart and Petco (have I mentiond that you should not buy live aquatic things from these fine establishments lately?), I was turned onto these dry bulbs that sprout into plants by a coworker. They come in a package like this:

So you drop these things into your tank, and they sprout after anywhere from a few days to a week or two (if they don't, pluck 'em out because they probably won't at that point). I also planted some in my little 10 gal. quarantine tank, but they have not really blossomed like the ones in the main tank have ... I suspect that the higer ammonia and CO2 levels from the fish alone has influenced this growth and lack thereof in the QT. I have since added said CO2 injector and an iron nail or two to both aquariums.

These two were about three weeks (I think?) or so old when I took these pictures:

On Thursday of this past week, one of them started to shoot this long tendril out; it didn't open into a leaf as the others shoots had. Over about a day and a half, it went from about three inches (~7cm) tall to this:

It had grow a rather phallic looking thing on the end, which evidently changed from green to white and split, like this:

Here's another shot, on another of the shoots:

Eventually, today (Sunday) it has morphed into this (sorry -- it's hard to get a good pic of these things):

I assume these are some kind of flower/reproductive organ. They have these tiny spikey structures on them, and each of the tiny spikes has an even smaller sphere on the end. Very sci-fi and scary.

Does anyone have any good links for where to look to try to identify these kinds of plants?

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Plants - a picture entry | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)

Re: Plants - a picture entry (none / 0) (#2)
by J-ME on Mon May 01, 2006 at 01:17:52 PM PST

I have the same plants and they don't change from what you have. Mine have looked like that for over a month. I was kinda disapointed in them.
Happy fish keeping :-)

Neat shots. Maybe the hour, I don't recognize (none / 0) (#1)
by unclescott on Mon May 01, 2006 at 02:54:53 AM PST

the species, but they are of the genus Aponogeton. If you do a Google image search for that, you may find your plant(s).

Previously from Guppylog:

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2006/3/28/151522/573
Plant Bulbs
Diary By barnprincess81 Watch for softness in bulbs for sale. Recently, she didn't get as good a package as you. Your nose will know if you open the package and poke around...

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2006/2/5/141032/7340
Jaymi's wonderful deal

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/4/28/2418/46883
Miskairal’s Corel and Aponogetons. Fertilizing them What is growing in her creek?

Christel Kasselmann's Aquarium Plants (c. 2003) the new "Bible" of aquarium plants has quite an essay on Apongeton. She noted that there were many good for aquaria. She delineates four specific habitats (though there is quite an overlap in species found in them) and debunks some mistaken info long floating around in the hobby in a great essay on them.

Karel Rataj's Aquarium Plants; Their Care, Identification and Ecology (c. 1977) favors crosses for the aquarium. Quite a bit on where they are from.

Both books are "keepers" by the way and somewhat to very expensive. Probably available through inter-library loans.

.........

The Aponogeton don't mind more light (though I burned the ends of leaves of a Madagascar lace in Sunlight) but may need only half the lumens/ lux that is the minimum for sword plants. (One of Miskairal's posts has me revising a broader generalization there.)

Some of them come from temporary ponds and waters. Seasonally they die back to bulbs - much like our spring bulb plants. The most common in stores are Apon. chrispus and its hybrides. (There are also chrispus cultivars, known only to the hobby.) Kasselmann, when considering the bulbs easiest to dry and peddle, also includes A. abyssinicus - a very distinctive plant from Eastern Africa, A. decaryi, A. natins (one of many great plants from Sri Lanka, but over collected and A. ulvaceus, a convoluted stunner from Madagascar.

The dual blossom spikes may indicate an African/ Malagasy origin. To fertilize them, they may have to be forcibly rubbed against each other or better yet, against the blossom of another plant. Watch for the development of seeds/ corms. Those could be plants in a shallow container (plastic shoe box?) in a window when small. Make sure they don't cook there.

Hope this is a start!
unc

Plants - a picture entry | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)

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