# XL / mother plants - worth it?



## Surya (22 Aug 2018)

I am tempted by the selection of XL / mother plants for sale at Aquarium Gardens and Aqua Essentials. They are about 4x the price of their standard counterparts and much bigger. I don't mind paying for a centrepiece if it's likely to stay healthy and thriving, but I can't find any information on how they adapt to new tanks. Anyone got experience with them?


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## Siege (22 Aug 2018)

Depends on size of tank.

The ferns and sword plants that AG have in at the moment are huge. Better value than standard plants if you have a large space to fill. Will also give you instant large plant mass.

Will need to adjust to being submerged like most plants though so no difference .


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## Tim Harrison (22 Aug 2018)

Depends on what you have in mind with regards scaping. However, for me part of the fun is growing plants on. It's cheaper, especially if transition doesn't go according to plan...


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## Surya (22 Aug 2018)

Thanks very much both. It's a 240 litre tank (Fluval Roma) and I feel I am lacking height. Photo attached. I was thinking either a big java fern or big ozelot sword for the back middle / left area. Any thoughts welcome though. The idea of instant plant mass is very attractive as I am low tech and lack patience...


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## Tim Harrison (22 Aug 2018)

That sounds fine. But have you also given thought to achieving height with hardscape, like a bigger piece of DW that you can also attach epiphytes to?


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## Surya (22 Aug 2018)

Tim Harrison said:


> That sounds fine. But have you also given thought to achieving height with hardscape, like a bigger piece of DW that you can also attach epiphytes to?



Do you think that would work better? I'm open to anything. I feel that something is lacking but can't work out what! I've recently got a better light and started using Easycarbo so hopefully that will help the existing plants to grow.


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## Tim Harrison (22 Aug 2018)

For me the hardscape provides the backbone of the scape, get that right and everything else falls in to place, especially the planting. So yes I think more wood and maybe stone will help.


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## alto (22 Aug 2018)

Tank details might help,eg, lights, fertilizer, fish etc 

I’d be cautious in regards a large sword, all those emerse leaves will need to adapt to a low CO2 etc environment though if you have a heavy fish load, this can certainly increase CO2 & ammonia availability 

Large Microsorum would be slower growing & likely adapt “easier”

Just get on the phone with AG & ask , sometimes the regular pots that ship in from Tropica etc can be very large, I suspect 4 of these would provide more plant mass than some of the XL pots - and allow more “spread” of the plant mass through the tank 

You can also attach plants to smaller pieces of driftwood & suction these to the glass (Eheim suction cups are the best) - Tropica sells plants preattached as “Bankwood”, perhaps AG has some in stock


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## Surya (22 Aug 2018)

Thanks - my details are as follows:

- Fluval Roma 240 litre tank (4 foot long, approx 50cm deep) with a Fluval 406 external canister (upgraded from original 306), established for 8 months
- Fertiliser - Easylife Profito 4ml daily
- Light - newly acquired Fluval Plant 3.0 on the default "planted tank" setting, 6 hours daily, plus an hour of sunrise/sunset on either side
- Easycarbo - just started using, adding daily, working up to 8ml a day i.e. the "heavily planted" recommended dose
- fish - neon tetras, harlequin rasboras, honey gourami, otos and aeneus corydoras - fully stocked (Aqadvisor puts me at 95% ish for whatever that's worth)
- very soft water (1-2 degrees of both KH and GH, though I supplement with potassium bicarbonate to get the KH to 4-5), pH 7.4 (after supplementation), temp 24 C. I don't supplement GH as I have soft water fish but not sure if it would benefit my plants to do so)

I can change most of the above apart from the fish. I have looked into pressurised CO2 and for various reasons it's not an option at present. But open to any other suggestions.

I like the jungle look! This sort of thing: https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/low-maintenance-jungle-set-up.20627/

Thanks very much for everyone's help.


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## Surya (23 Aug 2018)

Changed a few things, is this better?


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## zozo (23 Aug 2018)

IMHO the XL motherplants are best if you are aiming to grow them on emersed in opentop tanks or paludarium setups. Depending on how well the sp. coops with the provided humidity conditions. Because they are all emersed form plants that grew long term in this condition, we all know that not all plants emersed form transitions back to submersed form. Most bog plants don't.. For example for an Echinodorus it is either this or that, both forms are distinctively different. If you force such a big plant submersed non of the emersed formed leaves will survive. I never tried but i think to make it work as best as possible is to dry start such a mother plant to get over the transplant shock addapt to it's new home and grow roots. Than you probably have benefits from a very large strong root clump in the substrate. And will have potential to come back more robustly.


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## mort (23 Aug 2018)

When your amazon swords get going they will rapidly fill the back, so I wouldn't add anything yet. I had a 60x45x45cm low tech tank where my sword grew to fill (and i mean completely fill) a 25 litre bucket in under a year. If you give them heavy feeding with some root tabs they will quickly take off and grow massive.


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## dw1305 (23 Aug 2018)

Hi all,





mort said:


> When your amazon swords get going they will rapidly fill the back, so I wouldn't add anything yet. I had a 60x45x45cm low tech tank where my sword grew to fill (and i mean completely fill) a 25 litre bucket in under a year.


I agree with @mort, it looks like your Sword is _Echinodorus bleheri, _and that will grow big low tech.

Both the _Bolbitis (_in my hand_)_ and the _Echinodorus bleher_i (in the tank) grew to fill a 60cm tank with very minimal feeding.


 

cheers Darrel


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## Surya (23 Aug 2018)

Thanks! Yes the swords in there at present are E. Bleheri. They have been steadily putting out more leaves but aren't getting any taller. Will they eventually grow up to fill the space, or just keep growing sideways?! The vallis that I previously had did the same (never grew up but propagated), wonder if it's a soft water thing,?

The AG website had a lucky dip Echinodorus XL for just £11.99 this morning (in stock, unusually for XLs), and I was buying things anyway, so I decided it was fate and took a chance. I will report back tomorrow... Thanks again for all the help and comments, much appreciated.


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## mort (23 Aug 2018)

They should grow up after a growth spurt where they bulk up first in my exerience. Once they become a bushy established plant they begin to use that vigour for height. Mine grew out of the top of my tank which was 45cm high, with the plant being much higher than the waters surface. Lighting will play it's part but they do really well in low light and with proper root feeding it should grow into a monster in no time.

Vallis tends to do better in hard water and I notice you are adding liquid carbon which people say vallis doesn't like (not personally tried it but there are threads about it).


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## Surya (23 Aug 2018)

That's good to know, thank you. Looking forward to them growing up. Re the vallis - I only started using Easycarbo after I got rid of it as I had heard the same as you, that it could be sensitive to it. It's a shame as I like vallis.


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## Parablennius (23 Aug 2018)

If it helps, I bought a mother plant Echinodorus which I guess was grown emersed. As new leaves came from the crown I clipped off the leaves that I'd bought as they were starting to decay.


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## Surya (23 Aug 2018)

Parablennius said:


> If it helps, I bought a mother plant Echinodorus which I guess was grown emersed. As new leaves came from the crown I clipped off the leaves that I'd bought as they were starting to decay.



That's great to know, thank you. Did it end up growing / lasting well in your tank?


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## Matt @ ScapeEasy (24 Aug 2018)

I have vallis and dose liquid carbon though at half the recommended level and they are fine. I am experimenting with the new biological liquid carbon products which I believe contain citric acid rather than glut. Hopefully they won't mind this stuff at full wack!


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## Parablennius (24 Aug 2018)

Surya said:


> That's great to know, thank you. Did it end up growing / lasting well in your tank?


Yep, it grows OK but the leaves seem thinner, less robust, I suppose.


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## Surya (24 Aug 2018)

So I ended up getting an Echinodorus Argentinensis XL. Have placed it in the back left corner. It's lovely and healthy with massive roots. Not as big as I expected but that's probably a good thing. I'll report back in a few months as to how it's getting on! I also got some Alternanthera Reineckii pink which I had in my old tank and seems to grow well in my water. Fish seem happy with the extra cover. Sorry for the bad photo and reflections, that was with the blinds closed... Thanks again for everyone's help.


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