root question

[fredenj]

Found out that some of the plants in my aquarium, Java fern and Anubias have holdfasts rather than typical roots, and that if you bury the holdfast they don't do very well. If I planted their roots into the gravel will they do alright? What are you supposed to do with these plants if your not supposed to plant their roots in the gravel?

 

[Patty1980]

We are in the same boat! I bout a piece of driftwood today. I've heart to secure the plant using a bit of fishing line. I'm gonna give that a go.

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[Brookster123]

Found out that some of the plants in my aquarium, Java fern and Anubias have holdfasts rather than typical roots, and that if you bury the holdfast they don't do very well. If I planted their roots into the gravel will they do alright? What are you supposed to do with these plants if your not supposed to plant their roots in the gravel?

you'd be best tying them off to a rock, decoration, best of all driftwood, they will not like having rhizome buried..

 

[fredenj]

Well whatever if they die then I'll get swordplants

 

[fredenj]

so basically their roots like to pick up nutrients through water flow but are still also for holding on to something?

 

[Mebbid]

so basically their roots like to pick up nutrients through water flow but are still also for holding on to something?

Their leaves pick up the most nutrients.

 

[fredenj]

so they're roots are for latching but they still need to be exposed despite the fact that the leaves take up the most nutrients someone please make sense to me.

 

[Rivercats]

Roots on anubia, java ferns, and bolbitus are mainly for gripping but they do absorb nutrients along with their leaves. I don't like planting the roots in the substrate but technically it can be done as long as the rhizome is not planted in the substrate. Anubia's really do best when tied onto a rock or DW and depending on where it's attached roots can eventually grow down and into the substrate on their own. Java ferns seem to do alittle better when roots are planted in the substrate than Anubia's. I prefer attaching all of them to rocks or DW. I've tied Anubia's onto smaller rocks and sat them on the substrate and over time they fill the rock and begin to creep off of it and across the substrate on their own.

 

[Mebbid]

so they're roots are for latching but they still need to be exposed despite the fact that the leaves take up the most nutrients someone please make sense to me.

Like rivercats said, they are mainly for latching on but they do uptake nutrients in the same way as stem plants like ludwigia and cabomba do. The majority comes through the leaves but the roots do gather some.

 

[fredenj]

well I've got a little hollow jaguar skull with eyesockets so I put my anubias and ferns in the eyesockets and I'm just going to let them do what they want to. What part is the rhizome?

 

[Rivercats]

The rhizome is the horizontal growth like a pencil from which the white roots grow out of the bottom and the leaves grow out of it on the top.