[nonamethefish]

Has anyone ever allowed these to grow floating leaves and provide shade. I did this with dwarf lilies in a ten gallon, until the greenwater outbreak fixed them. I plan to use banana plants for a similar effect in a 46 gallon bowfront.

Now for Q's

How many plants would you reccomend to shade one side?

How big do they get?

Has anyone done this before?

 

[tsunami]

I would believe that letting lotus/banana plants grow along the surface would be more attractive for people with biotope aquaria, paludariums, and open top aquaria mainly because there would be little to look at under all the floating leaves.

I think Phil suggested an African paludarium biotope with killifish, having lotus leaves cover the surface and Ammania gracilis creeping up a bank in its emersed state. It sounded great. I hope he does it some day.

Carlos

 

[nonamethefish]

Thanks for the info! I personally think it would be neat to look at the pads from under...and Im sure the fish would like it too(the hets did, they hung out right below the pads). This isn't going to be a formal tank, and I would like to add some shade to the left side. Its going to be come to X. montezumae 'Ivory' and possibly some bluespotted sunfish. I'd love to do a biotype, but there doesn't seem to be much from either N. america or Mexico, and its pretty restrictive for me. Possible thing for the future though.

Once again, thanks for the help!