Taro Plants/elephant Ear Plant

[Mothi]

Hi,
 
Does anyone have any experience in keeping taro plants in fish tanks? I tried searching the site and google for some information but can't find anything on keeping them in aquariums.
 
I'm currently growing 3 taros in some wet soil in my 25 litre tank. I've been told that part of the taro plant needs to be out of the water. I'm guessing that once they grow leaves and grow out of the tank, I can slowly add water to the tank?
 
If someone knows of a site with information on keeping taros in fish tanks then please post here.
 
Thanks.

 

[Mothi]

Hi,
 
I thought I'd give an update on the taros I'm trying to grow in case someone out there now or in the future seeks information on growing taros in aquariums. Since I was unable to find much info myself, I don't know how successful I will be in growing these.
 
I started off placing clay in my tank and then planted 3 taros in the clay. I then added water to make the clay wet from one of my other fish tanks. I made sure to keep the top part of the taros out of the water as I was afraid it might rot or something, I don't know, I just did it
 
It's been about 3 weeks now and one of the taro has grown like 6 inches and the other two haven't really grown much.
 
Here's some pictures to show how they look so far.
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 
I'm not using much light for these, I'm using a clip on led light that I bought from ebay some time ago.

 

[Mothi]

I added more water to the tank last week and here are some update pics.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Waiting for the two smaller taros to grow so I can fill the tank up with water and decide on which fish to go for.

 

[Mothi]

Big leaves are starting to come out now and kinda looking good. The two smaller taros have started to grow a bit too. Hopefully in a few more weeks they will be taller than the tank and I can fill the tank with water.
 

 

 

[Mothi]

These plants got too big for my 25 litre tank and I realised that there wasn't enough substrate so I moved them into one of my spare tanks that was sitting in the attic. Also added a lot more clay and some crushed slate on top.  Now there's over 5 inches of substrate.
 

 
Yesterday I got an amazing deal on cardinal tetras. This guy sold me 30 young cardinals and a Betta for £30. I ended up adding them into this tank. But took out the betta since it attacked one of the cardinals and ate most of it
 
Not sure if you can see the tetras in this picture.

 

[DrRob]

I love emersed sets. I have many plans but not room at present to mess with them, so you've just added an option to my lists that I hadn't considered. I thought taro's were a type of yam.

 

[Mothi]

I don't know anything about yam so I can't say if it's a type of taro. I also love emersed setups and the good thing about planting taros so far is that they hardly need any care. I just used some api root tablets and use 20 watt t8 light, and they are growing pretty fast.

 

[Mothi]

Just a quick update. I moved my betta back in the tank and watched him closely to see if he goes for the tetras but he seems to ignore them now. he's been in there with the tetras for like 2 weeks without causing any harm to any of the tetras.
 
I'm actually really glad I planted the taro plants. They have been growing really fast and give out a leaf more or less every week. Down side is each plant only keeps 2-4 leaves at a time. I was hoping for a lot more leaves but I think it still looks great.
 
Here's a video of what it looks like right now.
http/youtu.be/Ay9KhYYm6xQ