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i recently added one bunch of each of these plants to my tank and they look fantastic! how fast do they usually grow? (in other words, how long will it be before i can fill out some more of my tank with them ?) and what's the procedure for replanting them - clippings etc? 2.4 WPG, dosing traces and flourish excel (until i get a real CO2 unit, hopefully w/in a month or so) thanks!

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Back in the saddle!

With hygro you should be able to just take a clipping and plant it in the substrate. Mine falls over from the current and plants itself .

^_^
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I found myself pruning the Hygro weekly myself in the old days if I wanted them up round close to the height of the tank (keeping them lower slows 'em down a _bit_ (well did for me, you have more WPG...), but since it's usually a background plant...) - the constant pruning was one of the reasons I ditched it... being me and insane, I recently bought some more though

(Learnt my lesson and am keeping it to a smaller group this time however.)

I pull it up and just lop of the bottoms, then replant the tops... if you trim the tops it does get a little bushier though (each cut seems to send up two new shoots if your lucky). Gets a little ugly round the pruning point (in my eyes) when you do that though, as the new shoots come up from the lower leaf nodes and leave the "stump" in between or to the side.

Mind you, you could always prune the tops, replant them alongside the existing bottoms, and before you know it you'd have a forest going (As Babel said, propagation is easy; so long as the cuttings get light they will grow from almost nothing in no time flat)

Dex

and what about the a. ambulia, any experience with that?

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Back in the saddle!

I'm pretty sure I had some, honestly I have no clue where it went ...but it does work the same, cut and plant.

^_^
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Both the plants you've chosen are very fast-growing, easy-care and quick to reproduce. The other thing I like about those choices is the contrasting foliage - the ambulia light green and fluffy, the hygro darker with bigger, broader leaves.

Like the hygro, if you snip off the top of the ambulia and stick it in the substrate, it will soon grow into a new plant and the bottom will also keep growing. Eventually the original plants will tend to get a bit battered-looking and lose their freshness, so just pull them up and replace them with top-clippings.

As babel indicated, if the hygro is laid horizontally on the substrate it will produce roots & shoots from each leaf node and you'll end up with lots of new plants which you can seperate if needed. But I prefer to plant cuttings as you can choose where to plant them more easily.

Also if the hygro is left to grow without pruning it will grow emersed (sticking out the top of the water) then the stems thicken up, the leaves change and it flowers. Kind of a novelty if you have an open-topped tank, but a bit of a pest if it's not the look you're aiming for!

Prune often to keep both these plants looking tidy & fresh. Have fun with them!

Last edited by whetu at 30-Oct-2004 00:02

thanks whetu and everyone else

right now they're on the small side, probably around 6-7 inches, so i'd like to keep them at about double that height. hehe, it's funny you mentioned how nice the two contrast, whetu... my tank i smostly italian vals around the back and in one corner, but after adding these two in one corner and seeing how nice they look together, i realized i should have gotten more! oh well, that's the good thing about growing live plants - you always have a new supply (if youve got the patience ! )

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Back in the saddle!

Don't worry with you're light you'll have lots of cutting of both the Asian Ambulia and H Polysperma in no time
Nice choice the vals too.

With the Ambulia you'll have quite the jungle happening.

The Amazon Nut...