E. tellenus as background?

**Mr.XP** · 13th Sep 2009, 16:09

Hi looking into the possibility of starting a small, low maintainence planted setup. A friend of mine recommended that i use E. tellenus as background for my planned 1ft cube. Anyone tried tellenus as background plant?

And also i heard light conditions would determine how tellenus would grow, tall or short would like to know how true is this?

**Puffer** · 13th Sep 2009, 17:01

I grow my E tenellus as background plant for my 3 feet planted tank. They grow up to 5-6 inches long, but the problem is the trimming part, and also some tend to creep runners to the front which I forbid!

Many people say that lighting determine the colours and height and it is true to some extent. I used to have the plant with bronze or reddish hue under strong light. Now most of my background tenellus are long but dark green, because I place my light on the middle and front portion of the tank. As for trimming, I'm now to lazy to use scissors to trim, instead, I just my fingers to pluck them off and remove the unwanted runners.

**pustefix8965** · 14th Sep 2009, 09:35

I have tenellus in my office 1 ft five-plan tank with 9W of light and it is growing pretty tall, about 4 inches. However those taller leaves are becoming bronze as they are nearer to the light. If you want them to grow even taller, maybe you need even less light.

At home, my tenellus are bronze and only 2 inch tall. As said, your main problem could be the runner as they will grow everywhere.