water bamboo? and dried plant bulbs

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

hc8719

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jun 23, 2006
Messages
2,108
Location
Toledo, Ohio
saw some water bamboo at petco, is this bamboo really aquatic, i had been told it is/isnt

i remember someones post saying lucky bamboo killed their fish, anyone know about aquatic bamboo?

also, those dried plant bulbs petco sells do they really work?
 
I have a bamboo stalk I bought at pestmart simply for its novelty. its all right, but it does'nt grow at all! I have seen some grow theirs out of water in a kinda marshy like pot of soil and stuff.

I am hesitant of the dried plant bulbs they offer. As I propagate and divide my own plants, I guess I have never really had any desire to buy one. I bet they are a tad more expensive than the traditional pluck from aquarium gravel ones.
 
hc8719 said:
saw some water bamboo at petco, is this bamboo really aquatic, i had been told it is/isnt

i remember someones post saying lucky bamboo killed their fish, anyone know about aquatic bamboo?
if it is the kind of bamboo i think it is, it is not even REALLY bamboo, it is a marsh plant from africa..not aquatic, as Far as i know, it will not die, but it will not grow either it really needs to have most of the plant in the air, just the roots in the water...
also, those dried plant bulbs petco sells do they really work?
i have probabaly tried to grow around 20 of them and gotten two to root, if a 10% success rate is what you are looking for then go for it :D
 
it doesnt look mushy like what you guys described, it looks like normal bamboo, which is what is throwing me off
 
What I've seen sold at Petco looks exactly like the same plant sold as "lucky bamboo". That is actually Dracaena sanderana, which is a terrestrial plant which can be grown hydroponically. I don't know if it would cause problems in your tank (other than not growing well and potentially rotting eventually) but it does pop up on lists of plants poisonous to cats and dogs...for what that's worth. I personally wouldn't put it in my tank.
 
I moved this too planted. I have never gotten one of those bulbs to sprout. As far as I know that bamboo is not an aquatic plant. It needs to grow emerged.
 
The "bambo" is a marginal plant, as already mentioned it need to be partially above water to thrive. It will survive and even grow for a while underwater. In the long run it is not a true aquarium plant at all. It might look awsome on the edge of a pond though.
The bulbs, I have had success with them. So they can grow. The ones I bought were a mix of apogonetons, a barclaya, and Lotus plants.
 
I bought the bulbs at Petco and out of 6 or 7, all of them except for one sprouted and became quite beautiful plants although not really for a 55 gallon aquarium. Most of them were Aponogeton crispus which became very large and its long leaves began to cover most of the water surface. The other plant was something like a tiger lotus except much larger and unlike tiger lotus it shoots leaves all the way to the surface which grow rather large and it does this every 2-3 days. Nice plant for a pond maybe but for aquarium it puts many plants in shade because the leaf gets very large. The last plant that grew is some Aponogeton but is very small and went down into my 20 gallon. It took the bulbs to sprout a while...some of them over a month so be patient. If they get soft and mushy they are kaput...
 
I have found that the bulbs do best if they are sprouted in a tank without fish in it. The first shoots are very tender and get eaten quickly. Always buy the fatest bulbs, and not the package with the most in it. If any don't sprout, send them back in and they will send a bunch to replace them.
 
Back
Top Bottom