mrkookm

I recently got this plant and today when I got home I was pleasantly surprised to see new growth! It had me a little worried for a while as they say it's a picky specie and it did take a little for it to respond . Not only was I happy that it put out new growth, I also 'was told' its difficult to get that deep black color and the new growth is doing exactly just that!

Anyone else has this plant to share their experiences?

mrkookm

I don't know what going on these days with my picture taking abilities I'm no expert but I was way better than this, I need to work on getting my picture taking skills back up...been too long

Anyway, heres the update to the Aflames new growth that appeared 2 days ago after 5 days of nothingness. Clearly its very happy as its maintaining the black color and that makes me really happy

armedbiggiet

Yeah cool stuff. You got it already before I can releast them out this Fall!! hahaha there are not that hard, it is the people in Asia having problems with the temp. Also have to do with how much wild "blood" that is in your Aflam, less wild less color.

here is my Aflam http://importology.com/?p=172

mrkookm

Excellent info armedbigget! I was kinda wondering about the hard part lately because it seems to be taking off well now. It is super is really cool looking and I'm not a fan of these types of plants but the black/deep maroon sold it!

Interesting tidbit about the wild part, I thought these were *man made* by Aquaflora? At least this is what I gathered from a google search on the Internet not much info appears to be out there on these.

Did you get yours all green?

armedbiggiet

I don't know it is by who but I do know it is man made in lab. The wild one is more maroon and dark purple that is almost black. I am talking about including the stems are also that color but less wild less the of those red and purple on them and they become easier to stay in our fish tank. Cause I know they are a few people had atten to "re-program" them and I have to give this guy in Taiwan credit that his version was so good that Tropica was trying to buy it from him...

Anyway that is a very long story and now I just discover they can handle high temp.(discus tank) as well but it could be just me and I don't know where you go them from and how they would react to the heat plus I had a few dozen of them to play with.

mrkookm

Interesting info Armedbiggiet, it really helps! The stems has some color and the leaves are much smaller than yours too. Maybe the size will change in the future but from what I see so far it doesn't seem as if it will get as big as yours, then again maybe yours will change as well Was yours grown emersed and now converting to 'water leaves'?

See the link below for coloration of the stems mine is beginning look like.

http://www.zoonar.com/img/www_reposi...51bea43d81.jpg

armedbiggiet

Yes they were. And that is exactly what mine looks like now like the link you got there. But I did see some really dark black one in Taiwan and Japan last time i was there. Above water the leafs looks just like melon sword which short and round except the black lines were showing. Now Under water it is much much longer and bigger in size, they are in aqua soil now so I'll try to post some pics later to see what it is like under and without.

T

Tex Gal

This really is a beautiful sword. I can see why you'd make an exception. Where do you guys get these unusual plants?

mrkookm

armedbiggiet,

When I received the plant initially the leaves were definitely black, but my first pictures were horrible now that I'm looking at the them and its hard to make out the correct color The new growth that was shown then and the one popping up now takes on the color shown in the link above, but now it's turning more black'ish in color! Its hard to get the right color so I posted a couple of pics, the first is a tad on blue'ish side but closer to what it looks like in person and the other 2 are more on the yellow'ish side, but I hope you get the idea of the color. I'm going to say lighting is a factor too, what's currently your experience?

Its also appears to be a slow'ish grower with a new leaf now coming up after 11 days later, then again my substrate is not nutrient rich as your aquasoil so you might get faster growth. I'm curious to know your experience here as well. I just hope it maintains this nice pace and low growth. The curl of the leaf is also very cool and I'm happy about this as I am not a fan of the typical oval shaped sword leaves.

As you may notice I snipped of those old leaves they were covered in algae (not from my tank) so they had to go, plus and they were bent out of shape too and took away from the beauty of the plant...snip ...snip....snip



Texgal,

The plant is breathtaking and the pictures really does nothing for it! The color is just straight up wow! Definitely a show plant no doubt! Family & friend connections.

Tex Gal

I think you need to adopt me! LOL

I'm gonna watch for these when they come out on the market.