New Tank

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It's interesting that a lot of non-aquatic species appear to survive long term in an aquarium... I always thought that non-aquatic plants only survived for a limited period of time when fully submerged. Although I suppose a lot of these mosses would naturally occur in areas that would partially flood for some of the year. So they would have mechanisms for coping with life under water!

Many plants that we use for the Aquarium come from bogs and wetlands; they can just addapt to a submerged life very quickly and are able to grow well in such away...

Woah that's an amazing tank.

I love the pictures too, the one with the armoured shrimp on the lace plant is stunning, I've come across a couple of these pics before on an other forum too, and thought 'wow'!

Sure do take it a compliment Miss Wiggle, good luck with your new low maintenance set up, looking forward to the pics.

Yeah Corin the Lace is something else, they can grow even bigger according to Tropica site, one good thing about it is that you can move the leaves about and they stay in place, but I would prefer it to be smaller and the older leaves have a little algae, not too bothersome yet.

Thanks for the info I did read it Xauto it seems a very adaptable moss a drought resistant moss in an aquarium does sound odd, think it would be worth a try and that site has a good reputation. As Corin and Andy said lots of plants can change and adapt to living under water, most of the plants we get form Tropica are grown out of the water.

Cheers Three-fingers, I really like trying to get good pics and take a lot so I just post the decent ones, yeah I like the armoured shrimp too they don’t often come out from under the wood so they are hard to photograph. Yeah I post some pics on the shrimp forum too, very good shrimp info there.

Here is a pic of spiky moss, a slow grower in this tank, it looks kind of like a coniferous tree the way it grows out from the wood.

hmmmm not strictly aquatic you say..... very interesting, i was just playing with ideas and thinking about dropping the water level a little and having some branches coming out of the water with moss and anubius on them, was just wondering how well they'd grow as emergent plants

A bit late to reply Miss Wiggle, sorry, I have seen pics of moss and anubias growing well above the water.

Not much of an update except the lace is very big, the biggest leaves are over 15 inches long and six and a half inches wide. The longest leaf is two foot five inches long including the stem and the new leaves are going to be bigger. Tropica website says they can grow to 50cm, but this is already over 70cm. I will let it flower, if it does and die back then I think I want the tank back! I guess the tropica substrate is pretty fertile. The ferns and moss are still growing slowly but they are getting a bit squashed by the lace.

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that is a beautiful tank, i just got some lace plants, but 1 of the bulbs is covered in white mold.
the other 2 bulbs have started to send out nice big leaves. they were being eaten by my apple snails so i move them to another tank with 12 watts of light.

Hope they look as gorgeous as yours

xautomaticflowersx said:

It's interesting that a lot of non-aquatic species appear to survive long term in an aquarium... I always thought that non-aquatic plants only survived for a limited period of time when fully submerged. Although I suppose a lot of these mosses would naturally occur in areas that would partially flood for some of the year. So they would have mechanisms for coping with life under water!

Click to expand...

Incredible tank Liam, that lace plant is HUGE!

I have sucessfully grown emersed moss that I found in my woods in my tank. In my high-tech tank it was actually pearling! Also in my woods, I found a similar moss species to Star moss. I think it is Tortula marginata, I might see if I can grow that.

Anubias grows well even out of the water. In the African exhibit here at the Calgary Zoo they have a stream that goes through it and they have anubias growing in it with just the rhizome in the stream and leaves out of it, I could get pictures of you want

Any updates on this tank Liam?

Thanks Mike for the interest, there isn’t really much to update. The tank looks much the same except the oversized lace plant looks more squashed in the tank, its getting a flower now and I have been cutting some leaves off as there is no room for them, its about four feet from the substrate to the tip of the biggest leaf. The moss is a bit shaded but its still growing. After the flowering I will cut the leaves off the plant, don’t think I could get the bulb and roots out it must have a very big root system and some of the shrimp species wouldn’t appreciate the upheaval. Maybe I will be able to bonsai it . Its still got a little Co2 and no ferts, 15-20% water change pw, bumble bee and crystal reds are not reproducing very fast while the cherries are more prolific than guppies.
I will do a bit of arranging after the flowering when the lace gets chopped.

close up of leaf.

Fantastic Pic, Liam...

Bonsai lace plant, should be able to work.

Try and get some pics of the flowers if you can.

I like the macro pic of the leaf, very nice