Help with Emersed HC

[fish_4_all]

Awesome HC emersed

I have been trying and trying with very little luck. I have managed to keep enough alive to keep it growing but not enough to start cultivating and sharing. Does anyone have advice that might help me get mine to grow better? I am using Miracle grow soil right now but it isn't enough.

I have asked for help from the ones who has that sweet setup and massive growth but all the help I can get would be appreciated.

 

[yohann976]

I am currently growing some HC in my 150g palladium with miracle grow soil. The HC came from a failed attempt to grow it in my discus tank. Honestly, I think that it is very easy to grow emersed.

My tank has high humidity (85%-90%) with a misting machine. I don't think that a mist machine is necessary. A closed container should work well enough to keep up the humidity. The temp is around 84. I have 4 55w pc lights along with 4 60w 'grow' lights. The closer the HC is to the lighting...the more compact the growth. The HC that is further away from the lighting has more length between leaves, but still grows fine. As far as soil moisture goes; I don't think that it is necessary to keep it totally wet. I have some HC in soil that is saturated and some that is in soil that dries out between waterings. Also, I use water from my aquarium to water the HC.

One issue that I had when I first transferred the HC from the aquarium to the soil is that most of the leaves yellowed and fell of in the first couple of weeks. It took awhile to acclimate, but now it is starting to grow fast.

 

[fish_4_all]

Yah, I have finally gotten some vinyl and covered the entire setup so it hold the humidity better. Don't know if it will help but had to try something. Hopefully I will have a massive amount of it in a couple months.

 

[7Enigma]

I found this to be a finicky plant in my submerged setup. It would grow incredibly fast with huge beautiful leaves and then stagnate. Seems to be suceptible to low CO2 levels or cannot compete as readily as other plants (my theory behind why it stopped growing while the rest of my plants were fine). It just started to grow great again in my tank after basically doing nothing for a couple weeks/months.

This obviously doesn't directly apply to your emersed setup, but just wanted to mention...

 

[yohann976]

Just be careful about the temperature in your enclosed system. I would definitely monitor it for the first few days. My tank used to get too hot before I put in a rheostat to control the temp. Well, I have 460 watts to deal with though. You shouldn't have a problem if the light is outside of the vinyl.

 

[7Enigma]

whooops, mis-post.

 

[fish_4_all]

No problem Enigma, as a matter of fact my emersed HC seems to do the same thing. Really grow fast for about 2 weeks then go dormant long enough for mold/algae to grow and make it struggle. My best luck has been floating on some plastic canvas in my fish tanks but only after algae got growing really well. Maybe there is simbiotic relationship in there somewhere, who knows.

As for my lighting, I only using 18 watts of NO flourescent and 40 watts of screw in compact so no temp issues here. It all sits about a foot above the containers.