anubias busting loose in covered tank

[LFNfan]

My anubias is growing increasingly vigorously and now most of its leaves are growing a couple of inches out of the top of the tank. I have a covered tank. So when I'm putting the lid back on I'm bending the leaves over, which is annoying (but definitely not the end of the world).

Could I 'redirect' the stems and leaves back underwater by shaping them with some sort of stiff garden twine? Would something like this be a good idea?

Or other suggestions.

many thanks

 

[tam]

Have you got a photo? You are probably better cutting off sections and reattaching lower down. The wire you linked to will rust in the water.

 

[LFNfan]

Hi tam, thanks for your response.

That's do-able but will be a bit of a palaver. I guess I could cut it out, section, chop the rhizome roots right back hard and glue the rhizomes to some pebbles and sink them. The root system on this plant is massive so will disturb half of the tank substrate if I try to uproot it.

I suspect all that would set the plant back quite a bit but maybe that's what I'm looking at...

In the attached you can get an idea of where the leaves want to rest - above the tank lid! In the other picture you can get an idea of where the rhizome is compared to the substrate. The rhizome is mostly hidden by the photo-bombing bentosi. The sprawling root system below it belongs to the anubias.