Tips on the perfect Staurogyne repens carpet

[greenink]

Thought worth resurrecting this thread as the early posts have led to some interesting results - and I think threads on particular common plants are probably quite a useful feature - and I'm starting a new tank based pretty much entirely on stauro. Here's an edited cross-post from my journal (hope that's ok!).

Mike, you want to plant the stauro so the lowest pair of leaves are at the substrate for besst results. The burried nodes will then throw new shoots around the main stem.

Found the shot from my journal.

Cheers - prepped them a bit wrong and then couldn't be bothered to change them when it came to planting (as had so many :thumb up and was hard to get them deep enough as stems were a bit long, but have put some more in along your lines alongside these.

Spyder - might be worth doing a summary of your tips / findings on this thread. Think we're both using molar clay substrate and EI dosing.

 

[spyder]

I find it rampant.

Follow planting as outlined by Aquadream on page one of this thread. In the pic of my tank above some shoots had the 1st trim as you can see the 2 new side shoots forming. Trim stems back to 1 pair of leaves when they are large enough to replant and shove trimming in any gaps you want to fill, rinse and repeat.

I started with 2 pots last November and had about 12 stems each side of the tank. So 5 months to fill the whole front of my Rio 125 from around 24 stems. The last growth spurt was around 6-8 weeks, only to grow out for sale. The next trim I think I will get it mowed off earlier.

Mike, if the stems are shorter than the substrate depth, best to trim them a little. A while back I posted in this thread about side shoots going horizontal across the substrate like runners. I've had a few do this now. I'm at work so will try and snap a pic tomorrow of these horizontal side shoots. When you plant them upto the lowest leaves it will help those side shoots being close to the substrate.

I can't wait to see how mine responds to the very close shave it's had earlier this week.

This is one of my most favourite plants right now. Not only can it be used for foregorund carpets but you could also let it get some height and with careful pruning, end up with a nice bush or hedge in the midground. One of the nano's at TGM had a big bush in this way.

 

[greenink]

What happened?

 

[David Shanahan]

Great posts. I love the look of Stauro, but was my nemesis on my last build. Just started again, so up for the challenge.

 

[two_trees]

Hello all, this is my first post and I signed up to this forum because of this thread. I am starting my first planted tank ever in a Fluval Spec V with Staurogyne Repens as my carpet. My substrate is ADA New Amazonia Soil and it will be a pretty simple tank with only one piece of slate rock in it. I was thinking of adding some shrimp and maybe some neons. I may have to add Co2 (completely new to this) and a better light to my tank to help things grow. Anyways, I just wanted to say that this thread inspired my choice of where I ended up going with this new tank and wanted to say thank you for the helpful advice. I will be sure to post pictures of when I have it all set up.

 

[two_trees]

Here is my update, I ended up setting up this tank the day after my last post. It has 7 neon tetras in it with one rainbow shrimp currently. The water, rock as well as filter media was taken from an established tank. The Repens on the left side of the tank were planted the day I set the tank up and the ones on the right of the tank floated around for about a week or so (I was just experimenting). I see an amazing amount of root growth in all of the plants, and I feel the ones on the left side of the tank have really flourished. Sorry for my camera phone picture, it is all I am able to post at the moment.
imgur: the simple image sharer

The tank looks much better in person. It is on the top of my desk next to my books. It is a pretty sweet set up in my opinion.

 

[AquaLady]

Reviving...
I'm stealing all of your tips.
I made an account just for this thread as well. Most informative yet!

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[David Shanahan]

I noticed that if you plant in new ADA soil the ammonia kills it quickly if you don't keep up water changes. First time I used it successfully was by cycling the ADA soil for 5 weeks before planting. Grew perfectly.

 

[AndreiD]

I noticed that if you plant in new ADA soil the ammonia kills it quickly if you don't keep up water changes. First time I used it successfully was by cycling the ADA soil for 5 weeks before planting. Grew perfectly.

Can confirm this , maybe because of the NH4 from the soil

 

[Progen]

My tissue cultured ones seem to be doing quite well so far. This photo was taken less than a week after planting. Before that, they'd been in the cup for about a month in a rather warm room.

They grew upwards for about 2 days, probably stretching their leaves before slowly spreading sideways.

If new Amazonia is really no good for them, then I'm lucky because these were planted on few month old Amazonia capped with black gravel.