OK, .. How do YOU plant stems in a dry start?

pat w

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I know how I did, and it's working out fine.

I have a collection I received from Wet:
Lindernia rotundifolia 'Variagated'
Rotala indica
Polygonum sp 'Sao Paulo'
Hemianthus micranthemoides

With the exception of the Rotala all had new roots growing from nearly each of the segment joints. Like I said they're doing great so far with the method I used but I'd like to know the generally accepted method or methods and why you prefer each.

I felt like I took a chance with the method I used and really lucked out with the results, so I'd like to hear how it 'should be done' According to Hoyle. I'm holding out so as not to infuence the responce.

Pat
 

jonny_ftm

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There's a stickie for the dry start method, maybe you should take a look at it

Growing stems dry is not any more complicated than carpetting plants, crypts, swords... It's even much easier as they have a fast growing behaviour. I growed P. Stellatus, P. helferi (yes, it is a stem) and R. Wallichii without issues

They do grow slower than in water

We don't use them in dry start because they grow so easy immersed, so why bother with their inconviniences when emersed: trimming and curving if you let them grow high, they take place... Emersed start is meant to avoid algae and have quiet 0 work to do during that phase

All plant producers grow them emersed also, so this is really not an issue. It will be much harder to get carpetting grass plants emersed because of mold issues if you don't take care
 

pat w

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jonny_ftm;48401 said:
We don't use them in dry start because they grow so easy immersed, so why bother with their inconviniences when emersed: trimming and curving if you let them grow high, they take place... Emersed start is meant to avoid algae and have quiet 0 work to do during that phase

Right with you, there, but I recieved the plants in the first week of the dry start for my HC and didn't have another place to keep them, so I went ahead and planted with good results.

I'm more interested in the actual techniques used when you DO put them in the ground. Your reference gave one, trim the bottom few leaves and plant deep to aid in root development. Are there any other favored methods out there. My technique was different, well suited to dry start for stems, it seems and, as I've stated, has worked out very well so far. (about 2 weeks in). I was just curious if I took a real tangent or if I just stumbbled onto an established method accidentally. As I said, I'm not tring to be mysterious. I'm holding back on stating my method so as not to influence the responce, or prevent getting back the ubiquitous 'whatever works for you is good' responce.


Pat
 

Philosophos

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I haven't done it yet, but I suspect starting with short trimmings would be the way to go. A lot of stems do just fine out of water, and very often they creep on line.

Pat, You must've gotten some nice, bushy growth when it went submersed if this is the method you used.
 

jonny_ftm

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I tried both: with roots and a small stem, no roots. I don't even bother to remove leaves, I bury everything in soil, they just love it same as when I remove leaves, but takes me less time :)
I try more and more to make it simple

Be careful once submerged, CO2 is very important, low light at the begining too as plants need to adapt and will take few weeks before resuming growth. A cycled filter on another tank will help during that period

Some photos from your setup would be welcome by the way
 

pat w

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Philosophos;48414 said:
I haven't done it yet, but I suspect starting with short trimmings would be the way to go. A lot of stems do just fine out of water, and very often they creep on line.

Pat, You must've gotten some nice, bushy growth when it went submersed if this is the method you used.

Not yet. Still in dry start for the HC. Want it to fill in a little more before I flood it. And yes, I getting very good growth and more fill than I would have thought possible with a more conventional approach.

I'm starting to think that mabye I did happen on a new twist, so here goes. Wet traded me some plants for two of my Fabco vernier mod dial sets. He was generous, but generosity goes just so far and I had a bit more tank (90 gal) than the cuttings would cover. As I said, most of the cuttings had root growth on nearly each of the segment joints. With my wife's green thumb seal of approval, I simply laid out the cuttings as if they were runners flat on the substrate and attempted to tease the root portions down a bit. I have kept the system humid, misting regularly, but dabbing up standing water in an effort to keep things moist but not quite wet. Now I have new shoots out of virtually every segment joint esp. the Polygonum, and the Lindernia, with the HM starting to come arround as well. The short shoots are going straight vertical and look like they will be ready for the flood around the same time as the HC. I'm as pleased with this as I can be, since this is my first planted tank attempt and I really am knocking around in the dark here.

jonny_ftm;48420 said:
I tried both: with roots and a small stem, no roots. I don't even bother to remove leaves, I bury everything in soil, they just love it same as when I remove leaves, but takes me less time :)
I try more and more to make it simple

Be careful once submerged, CO2 is very important, low light at the begining too as plants need to adapt and will take few weeks before resuming growth. A cycled filter on another tank will help during that period

Some photos from your setup would be welcome by the way

Sometime in the next couple of weeks I plan to get a handle on just how repeatable I can get my CO2 system to respond using the vernier mod. If I can manage I may even do a sort of mini guage R&R on the system through the full op range and see if I can get approx. settings via a curve fit equation. As far as light is concerned I have a 4x54 watt, 2 by 2 from Catalina on two seperate timers and if needed I can remove one of the bulbs. No other tank at my disposal, so cycling will have to be done the old fashoned way. ... Pics this week end if I can find the time.

Thanks to you both for the help.
Pat
 

Biollante

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Hi Pat,

I am with Jonny I stick the stems in deep. I use Bamboo skewers to support the plants as necessary, usually I break them up into 8-10 cm lengths. Most stem plants will develop multiple new plants if you lay them down. :)

This is one of my “domes” (lack of humidity is a problem here), a 2-liter soda bottle, bottom cut off and slits cut in the inverted bottle so what was the bottom now becomes a cap (or dome).

The LoudCreatureWhatSharesMySpace and the ThingWhatSpawnedTheLoudCreature will use these in their tabletop bog-scapes.

I use a mix of Miracle-Gro potting soil, kitty litter with a dollop of B-1 Vitamin and Alaska Fish Fertilizer.

Stems tend to grow quickly. :cool:

2010-03-25.jpg

Biollante

2010-03-25..jpg
 
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Wet

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I've never dry started, but when starting stems that look good in bunches (ie Rotalas), I like to lay them horizontal to the substrate whether I'm starting submerged or emergent. Cavan Allen does this too with fine-leaved plants, by the way. I eventually get lots of new growth at each node and nice bushes to work with after a month or so. With stuff that doesn't look so good bunched or need side-to-side space, like Polygonum sp. or the big Pogostemons, I'll do similar to the method you described of removing leaves (maybe three-five nodes worth) and pushing into the substrate. If I stunt at any point I cut at the node below the branching and split and replant the branching growth, then use the original stem as a propagation point and repeat until I get the bushes I want.
 

pat w

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Bio, Wet, Dan, All;

Nothing new here I guess. I just hadn't heard of the technique before. Anywho, here's some guick pics I took with my cell phone on the way out the door to work. (note the day)

Rotala indica - with some HC and HM
0328100816.jpg



Polygonum sp 'Sao Paulo' - with some HC
0328100815.jpg



Lindernia rotundifolia 'Variagated' - and my buddy 'Al'
0328100814.jpg


Thanks again, Wet, for the plants.

Pat
 

jonny_ftm

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I think you'll soon get into trouble. Read the dry start method. No water should be left on surface. You'll soon end up with mold, fungii and algae. Once mold kcick in, it's really hard to recover the tank
 

Philosophos

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Maybe nothing new to some of us in concept, but rarely tested. It's valuable to post this sort of thing.

For my own part, I found enough of what I'm fairly sure is Ludwigia repens or a similar species to bottom a few swimming pools with. It creeps quite nicely out of water; I was growing it in an emersed tray with soil for a few months just to check it out. I'm betting it would pop out some nice growth off lateral buds when flooded given what I've seen. R. rotundifolia and any of the bacopas would be other candidates that tend to creep in emersed growth.

Emersed glosso is infamous for forming dense mats then going vertical when flooded... I'm coping with my mistakes from forgetting that right now :)

Did you know that glosso can grow 4 inches straight up in a week under about 1wpg of T5HO? I sure didn't.
 

pat w

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jonny_ftm;48550 said:
I think you'll soon get into trouble. Read the dry start method. No water should be left on surface. You'll soon end up with mold, fungii and algae. Once mold kcick in, it's really hard to recover the tank

Thanks for the heads up. All standing water removed with a sponge.

Philosophos;48554 said:
Maybe nothing new to some of us in concept, but rarely tested. It's valuable to post this sort of thing.

....

Emersed glosso is infamous for forming dense mats then going vertical when flooded... I'm coping with my mistakes from forgetting that right now :)

Did you know that glosso can grow 4 inches straight up in a week under about 1wpg of T5HO? I sure didn't.

I tried to find some confirmation on the method and couldn't, so I just crossed my fingers and went for it. Glad I did. I should get some good stands out of this, I hope. Oh, ... and vertical is WHAT I'm going for.:D

Links to some higher res pics:

Rotala indica;HC;HM
http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad91/PLW2010/IMG_3159.jpg

Lindernia rotundifolia 'Variagated'
http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad91/PLW2010/IMG_3158.jpg

Polygonum sp 'Sao Paulo';HC;Lindernia rotundifolia 'Variagated'
http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad91/PLW2010/IMG_3157.jpg

Pat
 

jonny_ftm

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Philosophos;48554 said:
Did you know that glosso can grow 4 inches straight up in a week under about 1wpg of T5HO? I sure didn't.

4 inches/week? Are you sure? I doubt it and suppose a mistyped number?

In my very shaded nano in signature (0.9wpg) but good CO2, it grows tall but not at that fast growing stems speed!!!

Once trimmed short, it responds very well with side shoots helping to establish a carpet. It took months though to adapt, going into a dormant state, but without ever decaying
 

pat w

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jonny_ftm;48590 said:
4 inches/week? Are you sure? I doubt it and suppose a mistyped number?

In my very shaded nano in signature (0.9wpg) but good CO2, it grows tall but not at that fast growing stems speed!!!

Once trimmed short, it responds very well with side shoots helping to establish a carpet. It took months though to adapt, going into a dormant state, but without ever decaying

Whenever I would visit my grandfather, he would allways take me on a tour of his garden. He put in a 2 acre garden each year, with a 5 hp. front tine tiller, till the year before he passed at 84. On one visit he was particularly proud of his gourd vines. He took the time early in the day to mark the end of the current growth by tying a piece of twine on the line where the vines were growing. When it was time for me to head out he walked me back to his gourds and I was astonished to see the vine had extended past the mark by nearly 3 inches in a single day. That man could grow anything ... execpt watermelon.

Pat
 
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jonny_ftm

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H. Polysperma can take 8-12in/week, that's a fast growing stem in aquariums

Hopefully Philosophos gives us more info...
 

Philosophos

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4 inches a week, not joking. I just trimmed yesterday and I wish I had taken pictures. The stems are extremely thin though, and the internodal spacing is something between 1-2cm with zero branching. Besides being emersed I blame having to go from 2x54w emersed to 1x54w submersed which makes glosso push for the surface like crazy. I was planning on staging down to 1x54w for a month before hand, but I had a now or never situation on stock ordering with zero holding room for 50 blue pearl shrimp, 20 otos and 30 threadfin rainbows (mass deaths there, supplier shipped disseased fish, long story). Anyhow, that was a couple of months ago but the growth is still 4 inches a week on the faster growing stems of glosso. Right now I'm just trimming and re-planting, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel though; some of it is starting to lay down and the growth on it is very healthy.

H. polysperma is something I tried when I first ordered HC. I got rid of because it grew too fast for the little 20 gal I had it in at the time (most people thought I was making things up when I said an inch a day ;) ). Hygros are impressive that way; a lot of them push hard for the surface but retain a big thick stems, and they don't autofrag all over the place either.
 

jonny_ftm

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Do you have CO2 in that glosso tank? My glosso have 0.9wpg + lamp is opposite side + some mosses and floating plants shading it. it's rather dark where it grows (look last pics in my signature). It grows slowly, about 2in height but never trimed it except some plantlets to retop them and make the carpet denser. CO2 was yellow, at start, 2bps. Now, I'm at only 0.5bps (30 bpm) lime green, and it still does great. CO2 is sent via mist + glosso stems moving slowly in the flow from outlet. It's only a 12gal, so easy to manage CO2 and flow. Would be harder in a deeper tank I think.

Plants were from Tropica, so emersed. I didn't carpet them during my emerged phase though as they came later, once submerged. It could be a CO2 issue also...
 

Philosophos

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CO2 distributed by two needle wheel modded ViaAqua480's on a wave timer. I've got my CO2 cranked up; lime to yellow DC and it's a fairly open setup. I can actually watch the CO2 bubbles roll over the substrate and pile up at either end before getting re-distributed by a couple of koralia nanos.

I went nuts with my CO2 distribution on this tank; I didn't want it to be an issue.
 

jonny_ftm

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If you don't have fish, you can try crancking the CO2 to a strong yellow for a few weeks and watch the glosso. Once it adapts, you reduce CO2 over 2-3 weeks. But now, as you say, your glosso is going better. Maybe it took time to adapt to a lower CO2 compared to emerged phase!

The only difference I see with your setup is CO2 levels when I put my glosso in water. The plants were covered with fine bubble of CO2 stickied to their leaves. However, they took 2 months to start growing at a significant rate. Maybe the low light shock?

It could be light as you say in your case, but strange that I grow it wonderfully under even lower light! CO2 is sometimes hard to rule out completely.