emersed plants

[JadeButterfly]

I've always wondered how ppl grow emersed plants.

they say tropica grows their plants emersed.
is it possible to make a submersed plant grow emersed?

cuz i have some nice ludwiga that I don't want to prune...but rather get it kinda growing emersed.

 

[chubasco]

Re: emersed plants

I've always wondered how ppl grow emersed plants.

Well first, you have to immerse yourself in the culture of emersed plants

For open-top tanks it's fairly easy to do: look at Tom's 90 gallon in his gallery.
The problem I have in growing emersed plants in winter where there is heat
on in the house, is the emersed portions drying/dying out on me Relative
humidity might play a role for healthy emersed growth..and....I also have to place my lights on legs to raise them up, so the don't burn the emersed portions of the plants. Your lights are already on legs so you shouldn't have
this problem. I'm thinking pendant lighting where you can lower and raise the
lights easily, would be a good thing.

Good luck with this,

Bill

 

[Gill Man]

Re: emersed plants

I've always wondered how ppl grow emersed plants.

they say tropica grows their plants emersed.
is it possible to make a submersed plant grow emersed?

cuz i have some nice ludwiga that I don't want to prune...but rather get it kinda growing emersed.

Once a plant reaches the surface, if it's supposed to, it will change it's morphology to leaves that look pretty different than the submersed kind. Lots of times, the plants will shed their submersed leaves once they get emergent ones. Another thing to think about is that emersed growth will block out some of the light getting to your tank. There's lots of good reasons to let a plant grow up out of the water (I've always wanted to do it), but it does change your aquascape if that's something you're after. One plant at a time might not be such a bad idea, albeit, Tom's tank with all that emergent growth looks pretty sweet. I always admired it when it was up at SFBAAPS.