Java Fern Outgrown Tank - What To Do!

[voo]

I've had my java ferns attached to wood for about 2 years now, with CO2 and EI they've grown nicely. However the leaves on it are huge now, and the space it takes up is easily the size of a magazine, which is a 12g tank is about half the space!!

So i dont know what to do with it. It is taking up too much space, but i've nurtured this from when it was small.
I've had tons of cuttings off it, so i could try start again, attach those to wood.

However my kulhi loaches and shrimp love playing amongst it. Then there's the problem of what to do with this java fern. It's far too good to throw away, but it's too big to post too. Plus it'd dry out. So would i be able to just chop off the larger leaves, let the small ones grow through again?

Any ideas? Thanks

 

[lljdma06]

In my experience, I have found java fern to post very well, when packaged properly. Wrapping it carefully in a very wet paper towel soaked with aquarium water and then sealing it in a large freezer bag with a little more aquarium water does the trick very well when posting Priority, which takes about 2-4 days to arrive at its destination. It's propogation is simple, as you already know. You can also cut the rhizome in half and remove any unwanted leaves. That should make things a little easier to handle. With a bit of effort, the fern should come off the wood, and you can replant. I must regularly do this with my Bolbitis, so I understand where you are coming from, otherwise, it overuns my tank. I ship my Bolbitis in a very similar fashion, as it also has a tendency to dry out quickly when exposed to the air.

Good luck to you. A picture of such a large fern would be great to see.

 

[jimbooo]

in my experience removing the largest leaves will not cause a problem at all, I have had to do this with Georges huge fern i now have in my rio180 (40G) at one point the leaves were touching the surface and filling half the tank just as you have experienced. i just chopped the biggest leaves and let it recover naturally. it has continued to thrive with no adverse effects.

one other thought though what else do you have in the tank. with such a mature plant you could rescape using that as a single focal point. say the fern offset centre, sand substrate and floating riccia (to shade the fern a tad). or use a plant friendly substrate and make a glosso carpet kind of like in georges Rio125 fern/glosso layout.

for that sort of aquascape you need the main plant to be rather large for the effect to work.

just a thought..

good luck in whatever you decide.

sample pics below to illustrate my idea

this was taken just after i rehomed it from georges tank

my 180 after removing the big leaves (Georges fern is on the far right)

this sort of illustrates the big fern and glosso idea but i obviously have other stuff in there as well.

 

[Themuleous]

Yeh just cut the larger leaves off, I did that with the java fern in my work tank as it too was huge in my 40lt and its grown back fine, I even cut some of the rhizome off as it was getting to cover the wood so I cut loads off to give it move growing room its still growing strong a few months later

Sam

 

[voo]

Thanks for the ideas.
I'm thinking of maybe changing around my other tank and placing the java fern in there. Then with bits i cut off and the millions of plantlets i have, try attaching them to a new piece of wood.