Corkscrew Val Questions

[Shiba]

Hello! I have three shoots of corkscrew val and they are very green twisting and happy. The question I have is, has anyone been able to get them to sprout more leaves or runners? I'd like to have a nice little carpet as my mid ground but I can't seem to get them to grow for me. They're roots are nice and long and white but I can't seem to make them happy enough to want to sprout more. Has anyone else had any luck doing this? And if so, what do I need to do to give them that extra push. My lighting is 20 watts in total. In a ten gallon tank. They get light about 8 tp 10 hours a day. I give liquid fertilizer once a week.
Any suggestions?

 

[jsoong]

I don't know what I am doing right, but my cockscrew val grows like weed & put out runners all over the place. I have to keep cutting things back or they will take over the whole tank.

FWIW - I have 4*32 W T8 (~ 3 wpg) of 6700 K light, 10 hours on a day. I do have lots of goldfish fertilizing the plants .... and even then I have to add nitrates to keep it around 5 ppm (so the plants are taking up lots of nitrogen.) Also, the goldfish do nibble on the tops, maybe the pruning is making them bush out??

 

[Shiba]

Hmm. Your wattage is higher than mine. Maybe thats what I'm missing. I have no CO2 pump for my tank. Because the other plants that I have don't really require that much to need one. Do you think that'll make a difference. I put in some aquarium plant fertilizer as my substrate the other day. Maybe that will help. Is there anything that they really like in particular?

 

[BigJim]

No corkscrew vals here, but I've got jungle vals that are taking over my 40B. I've had them in the tank for months and they're just starting to get tall, but they put out new runners every couple of days. I've got a crappy 2x40W T12 fixture on the tank and a weekly dose of Flourish. Tank is lit about 8 hours a day.