Plants harvested locally, experiences?

[schoeplein]

I spent the day at Schlitterbaun, a water park in New Braunfels, TX, that is along the Comal River. While floating down the river my aquarist mind kicked in when I saw masses of plants in the water and thought, "ooh, I wonder if that would be OK in my tank?"

I managed to leave the park with a handful of stems. They wreaked like the stuff you'd bring home from a beach before bleaching. Nature smells nasty, ya'll.

Based on my research, most likely what I snagged was ludwigia repens, or more of the same stuff I already have. But could also be the invasive hygrophila polysperma... The leaf structure make me question that alternative.

I'm surprised the stems made it home, since I didn't have a plastic bag with water to make the hour trip home, then an hour bath in peroxide with glut and prime. The water itself seemed to spruce them back up. I rinsed them, trimmed and planted the best stems.

We'll see what I have when they take to my tank's environment.

I know other folks have pulled things from ponds or beaches. What are your stories?

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[Puckhog429]

Lets see some pics


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[schoeplein]

I intend to snap some tomorrow when the lights come back on.

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[BBradbury]

Using Native Plants

Hello schoe...

Been to New Braunfels several times. Nice place. There's a bakery there that's a special favorite. Can't recall the name right now though. Anyway, tried this and the native plants grew very well, but only for a few weeks. They eventually died off. I figured it was the temperature change of the tank water. Could have been other reasons, like water currents delivering specific nutrients my water didn't have. Whatever the reason, I couldn't get the native plants to grow in my tanks for very long.

B

 

[schoeplein]

Here's a couple pics of what I picked up, 24 hours after being replanted. These were "healthy" looking floaters that sat in the back of our car out of water for an hour back to town, then sat in a 50/50 peroxide water mix for an hour before being planted. They were grey white yesterday, and a pale green grayish brown today. We'll see!

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[schoeplein]

All stems dumped their leaves and I lost two of the stems. The remaining stems have produced some pretty solid runners. Still crossing my fingers...

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