Your most difficult plant ?

[tcy81]

Hi all,

What is your most difficult plant that you fail to grow ?
lets share our experience and help each other out in growing it.

For me i guess its Didiplis diandra. Ever since i started out this hobby, i always have problem growing this plant as it always break off as the stem at the bottom turns black. I still experiencing this, having headache now how to solve this problem.

[chaosdiablo]

I have a tank that is 2ft high and I have problem with most plants as I can only afford PL light

[Ah_ZhaN]

Until now, I still fail to keep cryptocoryne pygmea and tokenisis in submerged form for long.

[Salphur]

Tonina Sp Belem for me.

[EvolutionZ]

downoi in ada soil

[Shadow]

growing healthy fern, no problem in growing them but there are always patch of green spot algae on old leaf.

[CK Yeo]

aka Rotala macrandra. Usually emersed with big round leaf.

ck

As for me, the only plant is in common to LSF name known RED BUTTERFLY. It is cheap but i never make it and have to replace ever 2 weeks.
Cheers

[aquanatix]

HC and most of the lawn flora...
Seems like the easiest thing for many hobbyist here but somehow i can't get them to carpet! Apparently all my 55W PL does is make them grow upwards instead of sideways in my 2footer!

[lorba]

For me, Rotala macrandra is quite difficult.

Apart from downoi, most of the problem can be solve if you use a MH and a Chiller. Of course, not forgetting the co2 and nutrients.

Place the crypts in high current region and most will not have problem growing vibrantly. Use root tabs if your tank is old 2-3 weeks after planting them as they would have rooted by them and able to take in.

[cairocks]

downoi...3 attemps and around $60. All ended up melting at the base of stem and disintegrating.

[lorba]

downoi comes from fast flowing stream and usually with sandy or even rocky substrate. I saw downoi creeping like anubias on rocks too (picture) in Thailand and even tied up like java fern on wood/rock in store.

So it may not grow too well in soil like ADA or GEX.

[crazzz]

downoi...3 attemps and around $60. All ended up melting at the base of stem and disintegrating.

Me thinking of getting Downoi also...
Can u share ur experience here?
Thx.

[tcy81]

For me, Rotala macrandra is quite difficult.

Apart from downoi, most of the problem can be solve if you use a MH and a Chiller. Of course, not forgetting the co2 and nutrients.

Place the crypts in high current region and most will not have problem growing vibrantly. Use root tabs if your tank is old 2-3 weeks after planting them as they would have rooted by them and able to take in.

i am actually using 70W MH with chiller, not too sure if i planted too densely or i place my light too high.
I planted 3 stalks of Didiplis diandra together with some spacing in between each planting.
Then my didplis diandra started to have some black stems.....

[lorba]

this could happen if your tank is not matured enough (new soil or sand) or the light is too weak. 2ft deep of water? How high is the light away from water surface?

For me, i have 2 x MH in a 3x2x2ft tank with Didiplis diandra. Bottom of light is 6inches away from water surface. Frequent triming is also required to maintain the lushness.

[stephen chung]

hahahaha...for me is java moss....YES java moss...

[tcy81]

this could happen if your tank is not matured enough (new soil or sand) or the light is too weak. 2ft deep of water? How high is the light away from water surface?

For me, i have 2 x MH in a 3x2x2ft tank with Didiplis diandra. Bottom of light is 6inches away from water surface. Frequent triming is also required to maintain the lushness.

its a new setup.
my tank is around 18x13x13 inches.
i place my 70W MH light around 12inches before.
after discover some black stems. i shift it lower to around 9.5inches.

should i place it even lower ?

[cairocks]

Me thinking of getting Downoi also...
Can u share ur experience here?
Thx.

Humm....it was about 2 years ago, so hopefully I can recall the conditions. First attempt, got some downoi from Tango. Can see my responds to his downoi survey after I got it from him.
The link is http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...light=cairocks
Not sure the name of my substrate but it is some branded stuff from petmart at north serangoon.

Cannot remember clearly my second attempt. Think also got it from some bros here. But they didn't last also.

The third attempt was last year May. Got the emersed form from Toh's farm. This round had a chiller and 3XT5HO 2ft lights. So now it's bright lights and cool water. Also read not to rinsed it with tap water before planting. For the 3 plants I got, 2 of them disappear in no time. but the third one end up as a floating downoi. Floated around the tank for a couple of months and even had a small offshoot developed and a single root. But it just refused to stay planted. After sometime, it just disintegrated. When planted, the part in the substrate would just melt and the whole plant would float in a couple of days.

One prime suspect I had was malayian trumpet snails. Had lots of them in the substrate. Haiz...could not get rid of them. Once I ambushed them over 4 nights and caught 300+ of them. But they still exist in huge numbers. So I had given up on Downoi until when I feel like clearing up the whole tank and changing all the substrate.

One note about Downoi is that Far East Aquarium at Simon Road is glowing them successfully in ADA soil. And the shop owner is quite proud of his achievement. He told me it is because his Downoi is from Tropica, but I till now still dare not take the risk of getting expensive Tropica downoi to try again.

[ranmasatome]

For downoi...Try this..
Don't plant them when you first get them... if you can.. get one of those "sucker" like things that stick to your glass...most commonly you can find those that are used to hold airtubes inside the water.. so one end would be the sucker and the other end will have a loop to hold tubing..

Instead of holding tubing.. just shove the downoi stem into the hole. The idea here is to get the downoi to grow underwater, without being in the soil.. so any other method you can think of to get the downoi to suspend in mid water and grow is fine..

Then... just let it grow... most of them will grow well this way...
Then.. when you get really long roots..about 4-5cm or so... take this downoi and plant it by the roots in the substrate.. still allow it to float around in the water..so the stem actually doesn't touch the substrate at all... only the roots are shoved in... then see if it works...

i've propogated tons and tons of downoi this way... once i even used eggcrate and shove into water..and plant downoi in the holes in the eggcrates in mid-water coloumn level. works great..

[jamesneo]

Mine is Gu Jing, spend quite alot of of $$$ trying. All melted

[plausible]

eriocaulon quite easy,the only plant that melted in my tank is downoi