Vals

[tedr108]

For those of you who keep Vals in your tanks:

How do you keep them under control? At one point I had like 6 corkscrew vals in my tank and I felt like I was getting 2 new runners sprouting up each day. I felt like they were going to overrun all of my other plants. Do you just pull up the runners and cut them off?

I like the look of the plants and their vigor, and, besides, I've never had algae on any of them.

 

[Tom Barr]

They are nice, the short ones, not the ones that turn into tape straps of doom.
You can simply cut the runners using a scraper under the sediment to keep them in place and plant the runners back in the main groups to get a dense patch.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[VaughnH]

The shorter corkscrew vals can easily be sold for enough to justify the trouble. When I had them I had to remove a dozen or more a week to keep them under control. I didn't try selling them, but I notice that people still want them. (I was one of those who wanted them and paid well to get them.) Even my LFS was happy to trade store credits for the extras I gave them.

 

[tedr108]

I didn't think of that, Hoppy. Who would have thought these were hard to come by ... they are worse than rabbits! Mine are the short ones (rated to 12", but with my hi-lite tank, they usually stick to around 4 to 6"). I'll check with my LFS for sure -- not sure if they do anything like that, but it's worth a shot.