Hi everyone,
Whats the best way to trim stem plants?
Do you have to cutt 3/4 of the way down the stem then replant? Take it you cant just trim from the top
What plants are you wanting to trim?
Do you use root tabs?
And what are the plants in the far left and right corners? (Just curious, lol!)
Sorry i dont know what the stems plants are called. I get them from my LFS, they have them in tanks you can buy singly or in bunches of 4. Some look similar to ludwiga and hygrophila.
I do use root tabs but none are in this tank at the moment. I have tetra complete under the sand which is feeding the plants and will use the tabs every 3-4 months as a booster. (Thats the plan anyway) i have them in my smaller tank.
The plants on the back wall on the left and right corners are artificial. These replicate falling ivy which i use to break up the blue back ground and hide my air tubes for air stones.
Thanks for clearing that up Byron, thats how i thought i might have to do it but wanted to make sure before i started lopping them dowm.Stem plants grow continuously, and toward the light. As they are fast growing plants, they need brighter light than some other plants do, and more nutrients to feed the growth. The longer the stems grow, the more likely the leaves near the lower portions that are farthest from the light will yellow and die off, this is normal. To keep them bushy, you pull up the stems, trim off the lower portions (or cut off the upper portion, depending how you see it) and plant the upper cut portions in the substrate. When they get growing again you repeat as needed. If you just let the stems grow, the bottom portions will be completely bare and the stems will grow trailing across the surface.
hello guys
I got a lot of roots spurting out the sides of my stem plants is there something I can do to stop or slow this down