Emersed or submersed

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yohann976

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
Messages
212
Currently, I have about thirty Anubias nana 'petite' plants. I started out with just two plants and just divided the rhizomes over the years. As with other species from the anubias genus, growth is rather slow. I would like to speed up their growth rate.

I'm thinking about putting my plants into a 10 gallon tank with 55 watts. I know that I'm just asking for algae, but I would probably dose Excel to combat this as well as add a carbon source. Even if a use Excel, will I still get algae?

The other method that I'm thinking about doing is growing my plants emersed. From what I've read, many marginal plants grow much faster when their leaves are exposed to the air. I think that some anubias plants grow extremely large when emersed, will my plants do the same? Obviously, I want my leaves to stay small on the 'petite.'

I just want faster growth, so which method should I use?
 
they grow it emersed in fl and over seas its the fastest way to go. just have to make sure the leafs dont dry out. why not try both see for your self it would be nice to doc that kind of thing.
 
I'll give it a shot; I'll try both methods. I'm just not sure how to keep the leaves from drying out when the plants are emersed. I've kept a lid on the tank before, but the leaves still dried out. I wonder if I could get some type of automated spray system going so everything stays wet.
 
I have heard the emersed growth does not transfer to the submerged growth with many species of plants. I am not sure about the anubias, but would look into it further before switching to emersed.

And for me I actually wish my anubias would grow slower, and keep smaller leaves (I do not have the nana variation). I like to treat my anubias as a decoration rather than a plant, similar to driftwood, rock, etc. I get frustrated when I have to prune it once every couple months!
 
I have heard the emersed growth does not transfer to the submerged growth with many species of plants. I am not sure about the anubias, but would look into it further before switching to emersed.
you mean that will die off or something? there is a transition period. some is harder then others. like with swords the leafs grown out of water looks way different then the ones under water.

i wasnt 100% sure what you meant on that but would like to follow up on it so others can know also.
 
you mean that will die off or something? there is a transition period. some is harder then others. like with swords the leafs grown out of water looks way different then the ones under water.

i wasnt 100% sure what you meant on that but would like to follow up on it so others can know also.

Yes. I have heard that some species will lose their emersed leaves when submerged again after the out of water growth period. But I cannot remember if the anubias is one of them.
 
no anubias isnt one of them. stem plants and swords might be the worst. if done right there shouldnt be a single problem.
 
A quick google search came up with some great info (old but still good).

Anubias

Seems that 1-2" of water (low dose of ferts) and a sealed top to keep the humidity at near 100% will work great and there is virtually zero chance of algae if it wasn't present before starting to grow emersed (ie do a bleach or peroxide dip prior to emersed growing).

I just found a coworker who is going to take a large multi-stem piece the size of a volleyball off of me that has completely outgrown my 20 gallon tank. It would probably fetch a pretty penny if a LFS was selling it!
 
If you decide to try the 55w over a 10g submerged.....use some co2. That will help you avoid or atleast cut down on algae....Excel won't help that much IME with that much light.
 
I'm definitely going to purchase a misting system. I've attempted to grow anubias before in my paludarium, but the humidity wasn't high enough. To compare the growth between submersed and emersed, I'll just leave a few plants in my 20 gallon fish tank which has 55 watts of lighting.

Something rather interesting happened to my plants last week. I had to go out of town for just two days for a meeting. Since my fish are healthy, I thought that I wouldn't need anyone to feed them. I didn't take into account that my red-claw crab is a glutton. When I got back, I noticed that he ate about 15 of my Anubias nana 'petite' plants.
 
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