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Thread: Taming N. japonica

  1. #1
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    Taming N. japonica

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    N. japonica has a tendency to crawl around as it grows. This is because of its rhizome which grows horizontally under the substrate. As it moves around under the substrate, it sprouts new leaves from eyes on its rhizome. The one I have has grown at least a total of 4 feet in the last 2.5 years.

    I'll like to share an idea to confine the plant to it's planted location. I've not tried it yet and I'm also not sure how it will impact the plant.

    The basic idea is to pot the plant and restrict where the rhizome can grow. When the rhizome outgrows the pot, one merely has to remove the pot, together with plant from the tank, shorten the rhizome, re-pot and then place it back into the tank with minimal mess.

    A fairly deep container will be needed as the plant has long and wide ranging roots. To minimise the lost of height, the pot should be placed deep into the substrate. But that means removing the pot will cause a huge mess in the tank. To overcome this, a second pot is placed in the substrate as a placeholder. The first pot with the plant is placed within this pot.

    My concern is that the roots of this plant are very long and the restriction may actually stunt the plants growth.
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  2. #2
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    That sounds like a good idea. But would you share from your experience with the plant, how big the pots should be?

  3. #3
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    They are growing well in my 3" to 4" thick substrate. So I'll be looking for plant troughs of about that height. And roughly 12" long and 6" wide for the scape I have in mind.

    I'll be using pond potting soil topped with gravel.
    Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
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    Do you think the plant will crawl towards an additional light source (such as a window), or is it fairly random? I am thinking that a 6" by 12" is quite a large trough unless you intend keep a number of NJ in the same trough. Otherwise, would a circular pot (assuming it is big enough for the tuber) do? I mean, can we make the plant crawl in circles?
    Last edited by Johnc; 30th Apr 2005 at 00:15.

  5. #5
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    My NJs are at the end of my tank that is near the balcony... so far they don't seem to be affected by that... or maybe my balcony doors are dark enough.

    I might have more then one NJ in the new set up, maximum 3. The 12"x6" trough isn't that big for a 6'x2'x2' tank.

    You could possibly make it crawl in circles. It grow in a random direction and when it hits the pot wall, it'll probably grow along the wall, if not do a deflection.
    Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
    Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:
    A woman, without her man, is nothing.
    A woman: without her, man is nothing.

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