When A Weird Plant Experiment Works!

[coolie]

You could say I'm very experimental when it comes to aquariums.

This is another way of saying I do everything the hard way!

In the attached picture, you can see a grass like plant, I got a small portion of 5 plants off eBay.

2 of the 5 varieties died quickly, the dwarf hair grass was eaten by my Barbs. This slightly larger grass also started

being uprooted and wasn't growing, so I took the odd shoot that was left and plunged it deep into this peat and aquarium water mixture.


It didn't do anything all winter on this cold window sill, then come Spring, it's burst into life.

Some might say it's gown well because it is submersed and out of the water. However bear in mind it was completely under the water for most of the time and has grown a good root stock under there, ready to try back in the Aquarium.

Does this prove anything about the value of peat (substrate) as much as anything else?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Peat will affect the pH though, so keep that in mind.
 
 
 
Cool experiment though!

 

[DrRob]

I have some hairgrass in my propogator on a windowsill, the cover seems to help with the humidity, otherwise it's prone to drying out, but it's taken off in the last couple of weeks as well. It's not an altogether crazy idea, a lot of these plants are short because they live on the shoreline, so are used to growing semi emmersed a lot of the time, which is also why they're quite keen on good CO2 and plenty of light. We tend to put them at the front of the tank at the bottom because it looks nice, but this is the sort of condition that they actually prefer to grow in. Many of the hard to grow plants of this type, such as HC, will do quite nicely in a heated propogator, so long as they don't dry out and you avoid mold.

 

[TheAquariumGuy]

What do you use as a propogator. Just a tub with water and a substrate. Do you add fertiliser?

Thanks, TheAquariumGuy