Opinions and pictures of Anubias strains pls...

[HiJaC]

Hi,

I have been building up my knowledge and selection of plants in my corner tank for a while.

Recently ive been getting "into" dwarf clovers and carpeting.

Now i'm looking for a plant to tie in the scape, for a busy area at once side reaching towards the back a height of about 30 cm but also to go cover the stems of the large amazon swords of the other side of the tank.

After studying the excellent Amano books i noticed he used the Anubias Nana plant alot. This looks like it could be the plant i need.

Cross referening plant geek tells me this is a good plant for low medium low (1.8 wpg) tank (with pressurised CO2).

What are everyone's experiences of Anubias Nana and other variations of this species?

Plant Geek makes reference to the slow growing nature and thereby tendancy to get algae, this is putting me off slightly as i'm struggling with BBA atm.

Thanks in advance,

John

p.s Piccy's of your plants would be appreciated as I don't know how many I should buy in to fill the spaces I want it for, or how it grows and spreads.

[7Enigma]

Anubias is a tank....literally. It will survive in poor lighting, no CO2, no ferts, and still keep on kicking. Honestly there is no need for high lighting or CO2. It is a slow but steady grower. I've had a small anubias (probably 2-3" rhizome) when I started my tank in March 06. Today I have split it once and the split piece is about twice the size of the original plant I bought, and the old large piece is huge (probably 7-10" or so and has branched).

It has survived my first attempts at a planted tank, algae, my BN pleco munching on it, peroxide treatments, variable levels of light and CO2, and it just won't look bad.

What's interesting is this was the "normal" version (A. barteri) but the small propogation I cut off is growing more like a v. nana (ie very small leaves close together). The main plant is still putting off huge 3-4" diameter leaves and I have a tough decision soon where and how much to cut off since its taken over 1/2 my 20 gallon tank.

The best thing about this plant is its denseness. That is it takes a lot to cause any damage. I use it in areas of high flow that my other more fragile plants would blow around in. This is the perfect plant to shoot a PH against (say for instance from a CO2 reactor/disperser). It won't budge.

So bottom line is this is a perfect decoration that requires little to no maintainence, and will stand up to the worst of conditions. A staple IMO for any tank!

HTH

[Purrbox]

Great plant and highly recommended. I've got both Anubias nana and Anubias nana 'Petite' in my tanks and love them. While they are algae prone you can generally clean the leaves off fairly easily. For things like BBA a toothbrush dipped in Flourish Excel does a great job. If the leaves are covered for too long, they'll become damaged and have to be removed. Even then, they can come back quite nicely (even if slowly) when you have to remove a lot of leaves.

[7Enigma]

Yup, their rhizome is like a bulb from a traditional garden plant (potato/carrot/tulip). They store a tremendous amount of energy in them and can come back from almost any clipping/damage.

[HiJaC]

Do i bury the rhizome fully or partially or not at all?

I presume the plant stays sunk.

[Jchillin]

No, don't bury the rhizome. The rhizome sends out roots which grab onto and wrap around most anything you attach it to. I have one that is wrapped around my driftwood.

[7Enigma]

It's tough at the beginning to keep these buggers down. They tend to be more buoyant than most plants IMO. Hopefully your rhizome has some roots coming off of it. They are sturdy little things that can be held down with rocks or other heavy objects without injury to the plant. In a couple weeks/months there will be many white and darker roots that will root into the substrate.

If you move the anubias after a couple months you will be shocked to see just how many and how long those roots have become. I wanted to rearrange my large anubias and give it a bleach dip for some algae and when I pulled it out of the substrate I swear it was like an iceberg, almost as much root below the substrate as plant above. In order to get it back into the tank in the same spot I had to trim a good bit of these off, but it didn't seem to be bothered at all by the trim, bleach dip, nor shock from the move.

A tank I tell ya!

[HiJaC]

5 plants on order now!

Hopefully that will be enough.

Thanks for the chat,

John

[majolo]

I don't know if I misread your original post, but if your looking for a plant to reach 30cm tall, Anubias nana won't do that. It's a foreground plant, doesn't get very tall. But it is very nice and very adaptable, as others said. You asked for pictures, so here's one:



My bamboo shrimp on the nana. You can also see a couple of its flowers, one not yet open. I think it's flowered for me about five times now.

[black hills tj]

Majolo, what are the specs of that tank?(size, lights, ferts, co2, etc)

[7Enigma]

Originally Posted by black hills tj

Majolo, what are the specs of that tank?(size, lights, ferts, co2, etc)

With anubias, I honestly don't think it matters...

[majolo]

Originally Posted by 7Enigma

With anubias, I honestly don't think it matters...

True, but for the record...
55 gal, 2x65W dual daylight power compact, EI lite ferts (from some article around here), Flourish Excel 5ml daily + 25ml on PWC day. No CO2.

[7Enigma]

Whoops I misread blackhills post. I thought he was asking the OP the tank specs, not your tank with shrimp.

[black hills tj]

No worries Enigma. I only asked majolo because it looks like a very healthy tank.

[HiJaC]

Hi,

Just to updated.

Ordered the plants last week on Tuesday to have them dispatched to me the next day. They arrived this morning due to the joy of the UK postal strikes.

Expecting that they were lost forever or after a week in the dark with no water would be dead I ordered another 5 (plus a few more Greenline chucked in because they felt sorry for me) yesterday.

The first batch finally arrived this morning and to my surprise only a few leaves have melted. The plants look fine!!

Reading the label I can well believe the suppliers comment "Little Tough Plant is almost indestructable".

So its looking like i'm going to have a bucket more Nana then I expected.

Oh well.

Best Regards,

John