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Tonina fluviatilis

Edvet

Member
Joined
15 Aug 2013
Messages
5,124
Location
Lelystad, Netherlands
It's reported to grow as thick floating mats in nature,

http://www.tfhmagazine.com/details/plant-of-the-month/tonina-fluviatilis.htm

and i am trying to get them emersed for a future tank.

37357191202_a49b39b979_z.jpg
Toninas by Ed Prust, on Flickr
In trade they seem to be from submerged culture alone, often in a suboptimal state. I managed to get some from in vitro cultures ( not commercialy available, don't ask) and i have been trying to get these going.

At first i put them on a shrimp soil i put EI ferts in( to get some NPMg in it) and covered them in RO water. I kept changing that to keep the TDS low ( 50 microsiemens).
37357230492_b1413886a9_b.jpg
20170901_123317 by Ed Prust, on Flickr

36717343493_52f5b3d3c8_b.jpg
20170901_123328 by Ed Prust, on Flickr

After they started putting out roots i started to gradually lower the water, until they where emersed.

36717343313_9f7d30c9d1_b.jpg
20170918_143244 by Ed Prust, on Flickr

I have them in a small tank with a heater in a container of water and kept it closed with cling film.
After 14 days i started to open it a bit to let the air dry out.

37387595311_4738b49b2a_b.jpg
20170925_123604 by Ed Prust, on Flickr

They seem to be evolving well, so i keep my fingers crossed.
 
Depends when it comes to co2. :) As seen in the picture above, allegedly taken from it's natural habitat in the wild, not a shopped photo and it speaks for itself.. :) It's growing on the (river)bank from emersed to submersed. That's probably the ideal situation for this plant if not all bog plants, starting semi emersed in the shallows, rooting down and popping up at the substrate submersed.. As for the majority for the plants we use, if all foliage has to grow exclusively and entirely submersed we can't get around adding co2 to make 'm realy happy.
 
and that's what i want in my new tank:cool:

As do i.. And you seem to be a step ahead, already growing plants.. I'm only still brainsorming.. Can't wait to see what you come up with.. :) I can use some inspirations..
 
Been brainstorming for almost 2 years already, and experimenting.

Same here, but yet not with plant growing, but experimenting with tank building.. Combining wood and glass.. As you might have seen in mission bathtub :). That little tank i made did an awsome job and it proofed structural very solid all summer long in wind and weather outdoor. Even more solid and safer then complete glass build.

Now i want something indoors with a 1 metre high wooden back panel, wooden bottom panel, metre high glass side panels and a shallow glass front panel. Build a riparium and transition the back panel from bog plants to terrestrial climbers and epiphytes like mosses, ferns and orchids growing up. And some landmass sloping upwards submersed to emersed.. All still in the penn i'm dreaming about, but definitively S. American biotope. Terra/Riparium? Maybe with some climbing dwarf gekko's in it as well. Dimensions not yet fully desided on that. Maybe 60 x 40 x 100 or 90 x 40 x 100. Anyway, future music, the room it will be situated in needs a refurbish first.. So if, it wont be earlier than next year.. :)

So time enough to suck up ideas.. Keep 'm comming.. :thumbup:
 
I see growth. Cover is partly open now all day, there is plenty evaporation, so i started spraying with some diluted EI ferts.
37437164372_e5e596be82_b.jpg
20171003_084204 by Ed Prust, on Flickr

37467942171_d5ca67b1a2_b.jpg
20171003_084241 by Ed Prust, on Flickr
 
Left tank has Apistogramma sp. Nanay (A 82 one male and 2 females), middle tank male and female A. trifasciata and Nannostomus trifasciata , and i am trying to get a Nymphaea glandulifera going in there (just for the fourth time) as some Syngonanthus spp.
 
Pitty you have sub and emersed combined under the same light.. Growing emersed you can easily go far over 8 hours.. It only can benefit.. My experience also submersed you can go far over 8 hours if you keep intensity at a reasonable level. I think you would be beter of splitting the light sources up and give both grow forms optimal conditions they require.. :)

Tonina also seems to be a flowering plant..
Tonina_fluviatilis3.jpg


For some flowering herbal plants (if not most, i actualy don't realy know) light periode induces flowering.. It triggers a certain hormone in the plant inducing flower development and reducing vegetative growth. I'm a bit in the dark how this realy works in the tropical regions and do not realy know if it has all year round 12 hours precise. But for some tropicals in our climate or even grown artificialy lit, it wont flower as long as it receives a periode > than 12 hours and only grow vegitative. Is light periode = 12 or < 12 hours it induces flowering which reduces vegitative growth.

If this is the case for emersed growing Tonina, you actualy working counter productive with such a short light cycle forcing it into flowering stage.

Something worth to investigate with flowering herbal plant sp.. But i guess rather difficult to find this information if the plant has no real other ornamental or herbal cultivation purpose as only growing ornamental as aquarium plant. I've tried to find this info for several aquarium plant sp. to no avail, at least not on internet databases.
 
Let's get it growing emersed first, then i will transfer it to soil, and then we see about flowering. Still doesn't feel established yet.:nailbiting:
Not sure about the colour difference between old and new growth, maybe i should mist with some CSM- B solution:nurse:
 
Let's get it growing emersed first, then i will transfer it to soil, and then we see about flowering.

Than my 50 cents on it, up the light periode at least double it.. Now it has a longer dark than light periode.. And it needs light to grow and become strong not darkness. :thumbup:
 
Hi all,
Not sure about the colour difference between old and new growth,
I think they look OK, but that was what made me ask about the light, you can get lighter coloured new growth in strong light (bleached), or in low light (etiolated).

They don't have any sign of light burn (Clive's "photon torpedo") and it looks like that is enough light intensity, so it may be a nutrient effect.

cheers Darrel
 
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