Giant Rubin!

PK1

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Oct 7, 2005
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I have a 90 gal. that is 24" high with a Ech. Rubin planted on one side.

The tank has been set-up for 3-4 months now, and the Rubin's leaves have always remained less than 24". For the past little while however the leaves are coming out at a ridiculously fast pace, and they are as long a 2.5 to 3 ft!

I guess this means the tank is doing well which is good news, but how can I get the leaves to grow less that 24" again? I should mention that I have not pruned the plant for about a month or so and only recently have the leaves taken on giant proportions.

Would a good pruning down make the plant smaller?
 

VaughnH

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Jan 24, 2005
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Re: Giant Rubin!

PK1 said:
I have a 90 gal. that is 24" high with a Ech. Rubin planted on one side.

The tank has been set-up for 3-4 months now, and the Rubin's leaves have always remained less than 24". For the past little while however the leaves are coming out at a ridiculously fast pace, and they are as long a 2.5 to 3 ft!

I guess this means the tank is doing well which is good news, but how can I get the leaves to grow less that 24" again? I should mention that I have not pruned the plant for about a month or so and only recently have the leaves taken on giant proportions.

Would a good pruning down make the plant smaller?

I had a 125 gallon tank, with a rubin in it too, and it soon exceeded the depth of the tank, along with my other echinadoras (sp.) specimens. Those are just naturally big plants, and while they look awful nice when young, they can really take over even large tanks. They also sent out many, many runners in my tank, each with at least one more plant on it. Those too soon reached the water surface. As you might guess, I eventually had a jungle, that even with weekly pruning kept getting much too big to manage. when I finally tore down the tank, in preparation for a move, the substrate appeared to have about 50% roots and 50% gravel.
 

srozell

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Jan 24, 2005
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Re: Giant Rubin!

After having a "Banana" plant grow 6" leaves on 24" stalks I discovered that lowering the water temperature and decreasing the lighting to simulate winter conditions can cause the plants to grow smaller leaves on shorter stalks.

I'm currently growing out a bunch of Rubins and was going to try the same thing on them. Perhaps you can beat me to it.
 

wapfish

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Sep 25, 2005
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Re: Giant Rubin!

I've got a pretty large sword in my tank too. It's not quite out of hand yet, but getting close.

There's a "trick" mentioned in the Optimum Aquarium for controlling swords that I wanted to try. Supposedly, removing the smaller leaves will force subsequent leaves to come in smaller than the current size. I'm quite curious about this, because overall, the plant is being driven by its large root system. Does it work as advertised? How long does the effect last?

Also, with regard to srozell's comment about water temp, I lowered mine about a month ago from 26C to 23C. The sword has slowed during this time period, but since I'm constantly messing with other things as well, can't say for sure if temp affected it or not.
 

Tom Barr

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Jan 23, 2005
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Re: Giant Rubin!

Most just peel off the outter leaves.
The other thing: buy an indian red hybrid.
These stay small, or switch to various red crypts.

I don't keep the larger swords as a rule, they get too darn big for most tanks.

It's fine in a non CO2 tank etc, but with CO2 and more light, they become too large in 3-9 months.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Cornhusker

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Jan 23, 2005
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Re: Giant Rubin!

Tom,i've been looking for a sword plant that stays small for a long time,where do you suggest i find this indian red hybrid? regards,cornhusker :) :)
 

Vladimir Zhurov

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Aug 25, 2006
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Re: Giant Rubin!

Tom Barr said:
It's fine in a non CO2 tank etc, but with CO2 and more light, they become too large in 3-9 months.

My sad story!

The last one I had was E. "Rose" and I was hoping it will remain "medium size echinodorus with nice pink leaves". The thing turned into the monster with boring typical echinodorus leaves. About 5 times larger than what I consider medium. So I gave it to the person who maintains departmental cichlid tank in the corridor - no CO2, no ferts, low light - damned plant started dropping its giant leaves and new growth was "medium size echinodorus with nice pink leaves"...

Regards.

Vladimir.