Might Seem Silly

[james_fish]

I was just wondering, in my planted 55 gal. Several of my plants are growing really well, so well they are reaching the surface of the tank. I was wondering when I prune the branches wether they would develop roots or not to create a new plant if re-planted?

It might seem silly to some of the plants expert here, but im not great with plants dispite housing 8 different species now. If its any interest to anyone I feed my plants CO2 from a bog-standard depot, use Tropica AQUACARE Plant Nutrition fertilizer and use T8 lighting at 18000K, 30W. Lights are on around 8 hours a day.

Cheers for your help in advance

James.

 

[RadaR]

I was just wondering, in my planted 55 gal. Several of my plants are growing really well, so well they are reaching the surface of the tank. I was wondering when I prune the branches wether they would develop roots or not to create a new plant if re-planted?

What type of plants?
If stems, then yes.
Swords wont, they send out runners. Same for plants like Vallis too. Anything with a rhizome or rosette attached to it, then replanting the leaf wont do anything.
Hope I've understood you correctly.
Here is a guide on pruning.

 

[james_fish]

Stem plants, yes. Not sure on the speices though. I have swords in there aswell, but they are young. Not had them long.

I'm fine with the pruning, I just didn't want to waste the plants. Thought they would go nicely in my Betta tank.
Im going to bunch three/four stems together and wrap a plant weight around them.

Thanks for your input, James.

 

[RadaR]

Im going to bunch three/four stems together and wrap a plant weight around them.

It's usually not advised to wrap weights around the plants as this can stunt their growth or crush them. After all, the lead weights are only supposed to be there during transportation. You can try it though.

 

[james_fish]

Well considering some of the branches grew nearly a metre long, I hope it stunts their growth!
Im also looking to add some Riccia into the Betta tank soon, on slate.

James.

 

[stevereade]

Trimming promotes new growth, if you trim them a fair bit and plant the cuttings from the stem plants they will grow fine, mine don't need weights in sand but gravel you may need them. Once they have been trimmed to the length you want to keep them at then just keep trimming the top of the new growth once it gets started then they wont get longer they will just get thicker and bushy.