# Vivs with planted water features, Plus Brom pics 56K beware!



## Guest (Nov 28, 2005)

Here is a question for those of you who have nice water features that are capable of supporting plants, and that actually do have plants. Latley I've been looking at the aquatic plants central forum

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/index.php

and am now wanting to plant my water features. Does anyone here keep heavily planted water features in their frog vivs? If so, do you use any fertilizers (I almost scream in terror at the prospect of using chemicals with frogs). What kind of substrate do you use? Hows the lighting?
Right now I have, in my new 55 gallon, a 12" wide, 12" long, 3" deep water feature (ended up being more square than I wanted). In this water feature I have 2 dwarf grass(I think thats the name), two nana Anubias barterii, and two cuttings of syngonium ( I swear the plant grows every where!!). I'm planning to go aquatic plant shopping again in ten mins, and was wondering what your thoughts on these questions are. Thanks all.

Cesar


----------



## Biznatch (Aug 30, 2005)

The chemicals are basically what the fish waste/water filter produce just in higher quantiaties. You are basically adding nitrates, pottasium and phosphates. I'm going to just go with low light plants like crypts and anubias to avoid having to add ferts. Plus without the introduction of CO2 your plants will be limited anyway so they won't make much use of the stuff added to the water.


----------



## Guest (Nov 28, 2005)

In both of my water features I have aquatic plants but most have grown emersed. I have ammania senegalensis and java fern growing in both my terrariums. The ammania seems to grow real well even in low light although it seems to get thicker and sturdier under bright light (and bright pink/red too) . Java moss is the only plant that is totally submersed. In my other terrarium I have floating riccia. Also, I have bacopa carolinia, mangroves, alternanthera reinecki and scarlet hygro. All seems to do ok but usually tip over after they have grown too tall 6 or more inches and are also prone to tipping after misting when the weight of the water pushes them over. Not sure if this is what you had in mind with plants in your water feature, anyways.


----------



## Guest (Nov 28, 2005)

Ammania senegalensis, never heard of it, but it looks like a real nice plant. The kinds of plants I was looking for, and found are anubias, cryptocorynes, anything that grows low and close to the substrate. I got something that looks like an amazon sword but is red, and has the word red in its name. I forgot the name already,  . Today, I got that plant, two anubias, & two cryptocorynes (not sure if they are the same species or not, but they are both much larger than the Cryptocoryne wendtii I have in my 29 gallon. I don't want Cambomba or Ludwigia, becuase I think they would tend to trail all over the surface of the water, I want plants that grow straight up, or become ground cover. I'm not sure why, but I don't like the look of java moss, or those green moss balls they sell at LFS'. In anycase, I'm not going to put any fertilizers in there for the sake of the future frogs. 

What other plants do people have in their water features???


----------



## grech (Sep 15, 2005)

hey ive had riccia, salvinia natans, water lettuce and duckweed before as floating plants. Ive also had some bamboo (the one sold as lucky bamboo - a dracaena species) which did pretty well but which grows rather too large. All these were in red eye and other treefrog vivs ive had (see pics below)

Ive never used fertilyzer since i almost always had a couple of small fish and lots of snails in the water area which along with the fish food produced enough nitrates for the plants.

However I dont see how a fertilyzer for use in a tank full of fish can be detrimental to the frogs (though this is my assumption - I cannot confirm it)

The red sword plant you had is possibly a variety called rubin red or ruby red, or a red ozelot (these are produced mainly by tropica)

I have one question - how do you get cryptocorynes to grow emersed?

Is there a process or do you just buy them from a fish store and then plant them into a shallow water feature?

Also are some species or varieties of crypts more adaptable than others?


















sorry for the quality of the last one (I just had to get that pose before he moved!) but you can see the bamboo in the background


----------



## grech (Sep 15, 2005)

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/foru ... 469&page=2

I just answered my own question :lol: 

Thanks for the link btw - thats a cool forum

Anyone have any other methods of growing crypts emersed?


----------



## Guest (Nov 29, 2005)

Should this topic go in the plants section?? I'm not sure at all, it seems advanced to me, but very green in nature. Anyway, I bought two types of cryptos yesterday, but were submersed completely, and they were way too tall to be submersed in my water feature. So I just left them to fend for themselves, with their roots and rizomes underwater, and leaves above water. I will post pics later. One of the crypts, the little one, is doing just fine, no shriveled up leaves, of drooping leaved neither. The bigger crypt, which is a good 6" tall underwater, drooped immediately, and this morning I found one of its leaves dried up. The other large leaves are fine, and its medium sized younger leaves are fine too. I figured if you can do it with anubias, why not crypts?


----------



## Guest (Nov 29, 2005)

Those were nice tree frogs. I also have the lucky bamboo, I took it out of my 29 gallon, and am not going to put it in the 55 gallon. Its still in the ten gallon tank, somehow it actually looks good there. 

You are right Grech, I will try to get some fish and hopefully that should be enough fertilizer for the plants. 


Has anyone ever tried using fertilizer :? on any of their viv plants??


----------



## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

Cryptocoryne wendetii grows well emersed. I simply took some out of the aquarium placed the roots in the bog area under my waterfall, and let it go. It grew like a weed (literally, had to tear pieces out to keep it from taking over) until a large Dendrobium started shading the area. Now, the growth has slowed significantly . . . which is fine by me.


----------



## Biznatch (Aug 30, 2005)

The problem with crypts is they get very mad when you move them and drop all of their leaves half the time. All of the ones I have ordered online have done that, but they all grew back. Now I have a giant wendetii that is like 10" tall and prolly the same in diameter.


----------



## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

Biznatch said:


> The problem with crypts is they get very mad when you move them and drop all of their leaves half the time. All of the ones I have ordered online have done that, but they all grew back. Now I have a giant wendetii that is like 10" tall and prolly the same in diameter.


True. Most Crypts don't like extreme changes to their water chemistry when submersed, and may resent being transplanted. However, the strain of wendettii I have doesn't seem to mind, and it seems to be less fussy when grown emersed in high humidity.

I have some C. usterianum that really doesn't care for being emersed, but does fine submersed. Additionally, I understand beckettii is a fairly easy Crypt.


----------



## Guest (Nov 29, 2005)

There seems to be a big Cryptocoryne fan following. I wonder why? I like it because its an aroid. Plus it looks good. It seems to be managable, like most aroids. Do your crypts flower? To me aroid flowers are the most interesting, and among the most beautiful out there, so I'm crossing my fingers that one day one of them will flower in my tanks. The only aroid I have flowering in my tank is Anubias which I grow emersed.


----------



## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

Khamul1of9 said:


> There seems to be a big Cryptocoryne fan following. I wonder why? I like it because its an aroid. Plus it looks good. It seems to be managable, like most aroids. Do your crypts flower? To me aroid flowers are the most interesting, and among the most beautiful out there, so I'm crossing my fingers that one day one of them will flower in my tanks. The only aroid I have flowering in my tank is Anubias which I grow emersed.


Crypts have a broad spectrum of leaf shape, color, and sizes. I have had probably 10 different species or varieties over the years (I used to be into killifish), but many were just starts from friends or other fish keepers who had forgotten the names. I have not had my wendetii flower in my dart tank, but have had usterianum flower in an aquarium that was partially filled . . . pretty neat little calla lilly type flowers.

As was said above, Crypts can be finnicky. I have made 25% water changes only to find the leaves on all the Crypts wilted and slimy 24-48 hours later. :x


----------



## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

Homer said:


> As was said above, Crypts can be finnicky. I have made 25% water changes only to find the leaves on all the Crypts wilted and slimy 24-48 hours later. :x


Really, thats really good to know.


----------



## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

Ok guys, here are the pics I promised. Again, this is all in a 55 gallon tank. I just started this tank so be kind  

This is the unkown plant I was talking about, that I think had the word red in it. Memmory sucks now in days. 









Here is the same plant with flash









Here is a small cryptocoryne I got. Can anyone ID this?? It looks like my wendtii, buts its much taller.









And the next few pics are all the same Large Cryptocoryne (I hope im spelling that name right).

















































Here are some plants I got for the tank. All the ferns I got from biology classes that they arent using no more. They were marked as "Fruiting Fern", I know some are maidenhairs. The other two (ones not pictured I dont know what they are). 
The one on the left is Dorstenia turnerifolia, and the one on the right is a Tacca plantaginea (Mini Bat Plant), both from T & C Terrariums. I should say they are nice online source to deal with. I was not dissapointed with either the plants or the service.









Here is a side view of the above









And finally the left and middle section of the tank, showing the entire water feature. The "pond" is filtered by an external 501 Zoomed canister which I got from Big Apple Herp, you can find the link on the links page on Dendroboard.









PS, here is the Cryptocoryne wendtii "green" that I have spreading in the water feature on my 29 gallon viv at home.









Thanks all.


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

looks like you have some duckweed in there, near your salvia natens....unless you want that to completey overrun your water feature better get it out of there, it will grow fast, and way out pace the natens...and once it does its very hard to get it all out with out tearing down everything.


----------



## grech (Sep 15, 2005)

or you could leave it in there and just thin it out periodically, i think it looks great and by removing a bunch every now and then you will also be removin nitrates from the system which the plants will have taken up.

Your unkown sword is a rubin/ruby red produced by tropica.

check out their site (i think its tropica.dk) and you can make sure and also id the crypts, theyve got a very good plant id section


----------



## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

It was a mitake to put in the duckweed. I always have to take out as much as I can, plus it even stays alive on top of emersed moss near the shoreline. But for now I've got it under control, but I cant get it all.

Thanks for the ID. I didnt even know, or wasnt sure that it was a sword. Ruby red sword? Is that the same as amazon sword?? Thanks all. 

How about other people post their planted water features.


----------



## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

grech said:


> check out their site (i think its tropica.dk) and you can make sure and also id the crypts, theyve got a very good plant id section


gonna want to throw a www. in front there, otherwise it goes to their webmail system


----------



## grech (Sep 15, 2005)

oops missed that  

Khamul im not sure if its the exact same species as what we commonly call amazon sword plant but its closely related - it is in fact a cultivar of one or other wild species (dnt knw which)

it stays relatively compact compared to otehr swords and i suppose the more lighting it gets the redder it will become (red aquarium plants generally need very bright light to keep the red colour - even terrarium plants like broms it seems (thanks kero :lol: ) )


----------



## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

Speaking of Broms, I just recieved my first for broms. I put them on the tree branch that magiacally protrudes from the back glass of the 55 viv as seen in pic # 12. I got two Neoregelia lilliputiana X fireball
and two Neoregelia 'Midget'. They are all about 4" tall, and I did my best to tie them down. They should root themselves so well that they cant fall off after a few months, right  :? ????


----------



## JoshKaptur (Feb 17, 2004)

Just my gut but your smaller unkown crypt appears to be a type of anubias to me, not a crypt.


----------



## Guest (Dec 1, 2005)

Really, you think so? The thought had crossed my mind. I'll take more pics tomorrow to settle this and show the new Broms.


----------



## grech (Sep 15, 2005)

that is actually a crypt not sure which species though. ive got some like it


----------



## Guest (Dec 3, 2005)

OK, here are some pics of my new broms which I placed in my 55 gallon tank. Ever since I did this, people have commented alot on my tank! 
I tied them down onto the fake branch that magically floats in mid air.


----------

