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What plants would be suitable for a riparium?

Zante

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2017
Messages
92
Location
Florence, Italy
I'm aware of plants such as peace lilies, pothos and philodendrons and many aquarium plants that can grow emersed, but I will have about 2 meters to fill, and I would appreciate some variety to choose from.

Since it's going to be a discus tank they have to be able to cope with the temperatures, which means at least 28 celsius in the water, which may rise in summer (it will be set up in Italy).

Flowering plants would definitely be welcome, and I would prefer plants that come from the amazon basin.

Any chance I'd be able to have some orchids without having to make special arrangements?
 
I can't suggest any particular species as I haven't kept a variety but plant amount wise you'll be surprised how few tropical house plants you'd need to fill the back of a 2m tank.... once the plants adapt, grow and mature...Two mature peace lilies, one antherium and a parlour palm pretty much took 70% of the back of my 1.5m tank previously..squeezed next to each other..
 
Agreed. That is why I am asking. I must have not been clear, I do tend to not explain myself as I'd like :p

Basically I'm looking for a larger variety to choose from, not necessarily a larger variety to plant. One peace lily is a given, because I really like it, and one philodendron, but that will climb up the trellis. I will most probably plant an amazon sword, but for the rest I'm very undecided.

I'm looking at orchids and while hydroculture seems possible, it sounds like it's a bit of a pain in this particular implementation, I'll have to see.

Since I'll be using large pieces of chestnut wood to decorate the tank (a former neighbour has a few hectares of sweet chestnuts) I was also thinking of an umbrella papyrus (I know... not amazon. I'm willing to listen to suggestions for a replacement) tied to the wood a few inches below the water level, more or less in the middle of the tank, widthwise, on one end lengthwise, probably on the end away from the room's corner..
 
Look into fern varieties too. They seem to do well rooted in water Also, have a look at the one I mentioned.. parlor palm/Chamaedorea elegans. I think its from South America.. I've kept it for years and although its a relatively slow grower(in comparison to a peace lily) , it loves its roots in water and mine flowers regularly. It looks a bit like umbrella papyrus but more manageable and for a large plant won't overshadow others too much because of its leaves structure.

tied to the wood a few inches below the water level
Upright plants would prefer to be planted in actual substrate(I've used soil, hydroton clay pebbles, all topped with gravel or just clay pebbles), in a pot hanging deep enough so just the roots(the planter) are in water....Trailing plants would be fine with just roots hanging in the water..attached to driftwood...

Edit: It would also depend on how high humidity you can provide...If its high...you can grow almost anything above water, including most aquatic plants....
 
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Hmm... Ferns... Why didn't I think of looking in that direction!

Also thanks for the tip on the Aechmea, it looks interesting.
 
You are very right, that Bromeliads do NOT like their root in water. They often toletate high humidity, though, making them perfect for tying to branches of wood overhanging the water-part of a Riparium. There are REALLY many genus' and species, to chose from - very small to very large.
They usually work very well mixed with small ferns, Rhipsalis (=tropical tree-top cactus) and some of the orchids. A trick for growing all these is to plant them in little holes, made in a small chunk of dead fernwood (I think this can still be bought in specialist shops). Planting different plants together will make it look more natural. The dead fernwood is ideal, because it will dry very fast after a watering, ensuring plants roots does not die ( I did a lot of those fernwood-chunks with plants, for putting inbetween branches of trees, in a zoo exibition, where I used to work. This made a huge "jungle-effect" in trees actually too young to house such epiphytes).
A good Riparium usually have a good connection between water- and aerial part. Ex. a good branching wood going from water to air. Some climber and some epiphytes are obvious candidates for aerial part of such a branch.
 
I will have a VAST choice of wood, as I will be picking from a few hectares of sweet chestnut a former neighbour owns, and I was already planning on having emerging wood, bit I didn't think of planting orchids or bromeliads on the emerged wood, at most I was going to have an anubias climb out of the water.

Thanks for the idea!
 
That is very VERY close to how I'm imagining the end product of what I want to do.
Even the tannin-loaded water that the chestnut wood would release, even though not quite that dark.
Thank you for the link.

The only difference would be that I'd also have four goosenecks illuminating the aquarium directly with 4 LED spotlights.
 
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:) I guess all swords are suitable.. Ive got a Jungle star number 2 from dennerle growing like this in 30 cm deep tank. Plants total height is +/- 60 cm. Flowers like mad all year round..

For the rest in principle each plant sp. suitable for Hydroculture (roots constantly wet) setup is in a way suitable to place in a riparium/paludarium setups. The list is rather extensive.. Take your pick with what is from South America.
http://www.hydro-culture.net/plants.html
 

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I guess all swords are suitable

My Echinodorus amazonicus is not so happy to grow outside water :) It probably needs high humid conditions..Mine is as tall as the tank its in now and the leaves tips constantly die getting caught above water...However, I've noticed that the bacopa and ludwiga won't grow outside the water in the same tank although they tend to creep all over some driftwood near the surface but they did happily converted to emersed themselves when they were thrown in a pot on the window sill getting plenty of sunlight..It seems it is not always to do with humidity..

For the rest in principle each plant sp. suitable for Hydroculture (roots constantly wet) setup is in a way suitable to place in a riparium/paludarium setups. The list is rather extensive.. Take your pick with what is from South America.
http://www.hydro-culture.net/plants.html

That's a useful list. I'll dig into it too...need a plant or two myself..
 
I see the list has two plants I tried in my previous tank: Calathea rufibarba and Calathea roseopicta. They absolutely hated it in my tank for some reason. The first did not grow at all...slowly died. The roseopicta grew some but preferred really shaded conditions, as in indirect tank light... and eventually too packed bags..Their roots were melting and fouling my tank...too wet for them I think. I ended up throwing both away. I think its trial and error picking plants.. Its easier to pick plants for a paludarium rather than riparium because for the latter you need plants that tolerate lower humidity but love their roots in the water and many are more on the extreme sides of things rather than in the middle.....I won't even mention I tried a spider plant, ha, ha...This thing hates water..:)
 
It might also be (actualy i'm pretty sure) that light is the most importand factor.. Especialy in our climate when wintertime is around, we have rather cool temps and very little and bad quality daylight. Then if a plant solely has to do with to little artificial light it gets from us it gets into trouble when it stands to wet. That's usualy also in the plants care sheet, ample water in the summer, little water in the winter. While in it's natural tropical habitat it's a potential riparian plant. For example the Pachira aquatica a tropical wetland tree, very popular as indoor house plant.. Give it in a pot to much water in the winter and it will die from root rot. (i already killed a few in my time) In the summer it is almost impossible to drown this plant.

With ample light a Pachira aquatica should do perfect in a riparium.. But in our hobby we want it as cost effective as possible.. Then 400 or 600 watts of metal halide you have a rather nice energy bill spoiling the fun. A cost effective low energy bill riparium will limit plant choices significantly. It's trail and error to find others then just the common peace lily, monstera, syngonium, areca palm or dracaena you see round.. :)
 
Pachira aquatica is a nice tree with beautifull flowers - that much I agree......
If thriving, it will grow encredible fast:eek:, even sending out long vertical branches, becomingva huge, dense tree - if not thriving, it will just look more and more miserable, with only leaves at the very end of branches:(.........really not suited as a house plant, IMO.
I absolutely LOVED them in the Zoo-exibition.....but I have also chubbed down several after just a few years........
 
I think personally I'll just get an anthurium lily again,possibly a different kind to the one I had, to add to my current bunch of plants. It does just fine and flowered beautifully in my previous tank...The problem is, after a couple of years, it decided to start growing horizontally??....:eek: It started throwing runners across the surface of the tank that kept falling in the water and you guess it...it didn't like its stems in the water.....I think it was because the pot it was in was too small for it, and after the roots outgrew the pot....it didn't know which direction was up :lol:
 
Here is my little indoor south american swamp setup, 2/3 filled with clay pebble an inch peatsoil with wood barkchips.. It;s constantly wet almost filled to the top. It contains a Syngonium, Chamaedorea, some grasses, Peperomia rotundifolia and a Echinodorus kleiner bär which is the youngest in there, few months ago i did cut this runner off the flower stack from the mother wich stands in the aqaurium.. See the Echi making a flower? :) In january just getting daylight from the window.. Realy very easy plant to grow and flower outside an aquarium without extra light.
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All these could do well in an Riparium setup.. Tho the Peperomia is by origine an epiphyte.. Best to plant this on a bed of spagnum on a emersed piece of driftwood close to the water surface and it will climb. But in this pot it stands in the wet peat soil.. Small peperomias are ideal for contrasting and creating scale and all are relatively easy. :)
 
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