Guillermo

Hi APC community, I've been reading this forum for some time but this is my firs post.

I’m by no means an expert, but I wanted to grow some emersed Hemianthus Callitrichoides, Tom Barr’s post encouraged me to try 4 different substrates to see how good/bad the HC grows with each one and sunlight.

I bought 4 rectangular plastic containers of 5” l x 3.5” w x 1 ¾” h, cut the lid and put a piece of transparent plastic (just cut some ziplock bags) to keep humidity in check and permits sunlight to be more effective.

These are the contents of each container:

1.- Regular Fluorite
2.- Miracle Gro Sticks (I cut 1 in little pieces)
3.- Black Soil ( Pot Soil )
4.- Mix .- The same mixture I’m currently using in other emersed setup (Coconut fiber, peat moss, Sera Super Peat, Vermiculite, Osmocote and Perlite)

I added a fifth container with the number 4 mix, it’s a Ferrero Rocher’s 16 pieces pack.

All were topped with regular fine grain gravel.

They are in my office’s windowsill where they can receive good sunlight. As they are in the outer side of the windowsill, they can’t be seen unless you are courious, lol.

I’m a bit doubtful about the containers’ depth… Do you think they are too shallow ? I’m concerned about the heat but we’ll see what happens, if I notice the heat affects the plants I’d buy some deeper ones.

Well, here are the pics, I will be updating this message. I hope it doesn’t take ages for the Cuba to grow. Any comments will be greatly appreciated.












I don’t know how could I’ve done the HC planting without these great tweezers, they are not the fancy ADA’s but they are very useful (an a lot cheaper) lol.









Thanks for reading and looking at the pics

 

---

To avoid seeing this ad in our forum please register at AquaticPlantCentral.com

By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features.

orlando

Wow very cool, keep us posted. Man I wonder what your office thinks. Very cool

Guillermo

Thanks Orlando, I don't have trouble at the office, in fact if it works I can use the whole windowsill, we have some blinds to cover the containers. I'm about to setup a 6.6 nano tank, I was allowed to do it, they even let me use a printer stand for it, lucky me, lol.

Regards

hoppycalif

This will be a very interesting experiment - and I'm betting that there will be very small differences, if any, among the various containers. Please do keep updating this.

One reason I am interested is that some people say HC is very hard to grow, needs high light, CO2, etc. to succeed. Others say it grows anywhere, low light to high light, and doesn't really need CO2. I'm still reluctant to try it in my tanks. But, my money is on the "easy to grow" side.

I suggest a few pin holes in the clear plastic covers, just to be sure there is always adequate oxygen and CO2 available to the plants.

Guillermo

Thanks for the input Hoppy.

The pin hole idea sounds nice, I will do it at lunch time.

I´m about to set up a tiny cube (8*8*8" = 5 gal) only with rocks and emersed HC, once the HC fills in the substrate I will fill the tank with water and put a little azoo mignon filter and a CF light, in this tank I will use the substrate of my windowsill experiment that works better.

So do I Hoppy, specially with a DIY Co2 setup. We'll see how this turn out.

You can count on it

jazzlvr123

Hehe Im one of the ones that say it can grow anywhere. Its a weed in my tanks, all you need is good co2 20-30 ppm. and it will thrive in 2 or so wpg no problem

Freshwater

Very nice, can't wait to see updates on this. Great idea, I'm one of the guys that is having trouble growing HC.

Jazz - Curious, are you not using Excel? I've been hearing some things about Excel stunting HC growth and am curious to your opinion.

Todd

jazzlvr123

nope no excel, just compressed co2

Guillermo

Thanks so much for your input guys, reatly appreciated you dedicated some time to read and answer this post.

Bad news, I was concerned with the heat for a reason... and it happened... the sun "cooked" the HC, but I'm not giving up yet, I planted new HC and put the containers on top of my emersed setup that receives indirect sunlight, I did it last Sat. Feb, 2nd. The only drawback is that this setup is in my step-parents house and I only can see/maintain it on Saturdays. I Didn´t have the camera, but I will take some pics this Saturday. I had a 2 gallon tank laying around and decided to plant it too, I put the mix. We'll see how this experiment turns out. I hope it does not dry up, fingers crossed !

Regards

lildark185

You can work and sell HC straight from your office at the same time!

 

To avoid seeing this ad in our forum please register at AquaticPlantCentral.com By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features.