fish_4_all

I have the plants I want now to grow from submerged to emersed. The way I am going to do it is to just let them grow right out the top of the aquarium and lay on some egg crate. The lighting is easier that way I know as it doesn't have to go through the water and I will still dose the tank to feed the roots and lower parts of the plants.

I have Bacopa Australis and Ludwigia Repens that I am going to do this with.

The question is, when the two plants start to grow emersed, what will happen to the lower parts of the plants? Will they still grow or should I expect them to lose their leaves and the roots stay in the substrate? Or will I be left with submerged roots only with the stems dying off? I hope to get the plant to the side of the tank so the light can still penetrate for the bottoms of the plants so that shouldn't be an issue unless I can't do it.

Any help would be appreciated. I will be setting up the tank in about a week or so.

cs_gardener

First, do you have a way to keep the humidity high for the emergent growth? When I tried to allow Ludwigia repens to grow out of the aquarium into the open air I kept getting dried out leaves. It didn't matter how may formed on the emergent stem, they all just dried out and looked awful. When I dropped the water level in one tank 4" and let it grow into the airspace under the glass lid it thrived. I'd given it an open weave net (1" squares) to grow through and hold itself up and it did, with a little help from me poking it back into the net when it tried to grow out to far. Then the leaves fell off what was submerged and the submerged stems disintegrated while the emergent growth thrived and there were tons of roots formed near the water line. Eventually I got tired of fighting the robust growth and decided to completely revamp the tank. I put a few bits of the emergent L. repens in a casserole dish with about a half inch of wet soil, propped the lid up about 1/4" on one side for air circulation and its been growing slowly, but steadily ever since.

fish_4_all

Well my idea was to make a large vinyl tent that will hold the tent and light fixture which will serve as a heat source and serve to keep the humidity way up. I like your idea better though. A shorter tank of some kind with some soil and really damp which I can put in the tent and let it grow through the egg crate until it wants to take over the entire tent.

Ultimately I want it to flower and have flies pollonate the flowers. Yes I said flies, blue bottle flies to be specific. They work almost as well as bees and don't sting. Hopefully resulting in seeds that can be shipped like bulbs and not have to pay a fortune for shipping.

I think now that 4, 5 gallon tanks would be best to grow different species and just forget the fish. Either that or create my own short tank, about 8 inches tall and 10x20 or so to grow a lot of different plants if I find some others to try this way.

Thanks for the info for sure. It is good to know that at least the repens will lose all submerged growth and only have roots in the water. Gives me some things to contemplate about my final setup.

cs_gardener

Ummm, flies? Where are you putting this setup? Do you have your own fly colony? In my house they'd be endless hours of kitty entertainment as the cat's hunted them down and killed them one by one.

Anyway, the vinyl tent should work fine, its just open air that's a problem. I've found L repens to be virtually indestructable. It may look a bit worse for wear sometimes, but its always come back. How well do the seeds germinate? Are there any special considerations or just drop them in and let them grow?

fish_4_all

There is aplace in Idaho that sells the flies for pollonation. I would just keep the flies in the tent and let them do their thing.

I have no idea about the seeds. I can not find anything about them nor how well the plant grows from them so this will all be new information, if it works. I don't see why it shouldn't otherwise why would the plant flower at all?

I may just use a small paintbrush to do the pollination myself. Would be just as easy and would make sure that they all get pollinated. Will be interesting to see if they even produce seeds because I have nothing that says they do, but again, why would they flower if they don't?

cs_gardener

Did a bit of a search on google and L repens does produce seeds but I didn't find anything about how to germinate them. Wet soil would probably be good as I kept seeing mention of it being a bog plant.

This sounds like an interesting project. I hope it turns out well for you.