Help with Madagascar Lace Plant Please

[Javadan]

I went to TFP a couple weeks ago & although their FW fish room often
seems to leave a lot to be desired, their FW plant room, even on a bad
day is much better than other stores on their good day. I was tempted
& bought a Madagascar Lace Plant, Aponogeton madagascariensis,
although the plants in that tank were just labeled as mixed
Aponogetons. It was on sale for only $5.99 US. I would normally
expect to pay about $8.99 for this plant.

The leaves seem to be narrower on the sp. I bought than what I would
normally expect to see. The longest leaves are about 16" long & about
1" wide, maybe a little wider. I've read that there are several sp.
from different locations. My experience with terrestrial plants shows
that different sp. of the same plant usually do well under similar
conditions, but I don't know if that would apply here. From what I've
read, the narrow leaf sp. that I got gets very big, too big for the
tank I have it in, but growing too big would be a good problem, not a
bad one. ;)

A Tropica rep quoted on the Krib spoke of people back then working on
propagating them from seed & trying test tube propagation. I'm
wondering if this has progressed & should probably check with Tropica
myself, but thought someone here might know. Other posts speak of
using companion plantings near the roots, something like small Crypts
that won't grow large & overshadow it.

I just went over all of the posts on the Krib about Madagascar Lace
Plants, but was hoping that I might get some advice from someone on
the list here as to proper care/conditions in the hope that perhaps
there has been some new insight gained on this plant in recent years.
I kept one in the past that did well & grew, but never flowered &
didn't come back from the dormant stage. I'm hoping to do better this
time around.

I have it in a 15g high tank, (18' high with 10g footprint), glass top
with 2 strip lights, 18" fluorescent tube in each, good full spectrum
bulbs recommended on the board. I think each 18" tube would be 15
watts, so at 30 watts, that would give me 2 watts per gallon. My
understanding from the store is that it's a high light plant wanting
3-4 watts per gallon, but I read a post on the Krib that said they
will grow in lower light, just not as big. Tropica says low to very
high light. I'm still hoping that I can do something to help this
plant thrive, or at least survive.

I have very hard water, not a good thing for them from what I've read,
with a pH approaching 8.0. Water temp. about 75 degrees F. It's been
said that a low water temp. is preferable for them, even lower than my
75 F, but I don't want to go lower than that for the fishs' sake.
Whisper filter with mechanical & added bio filtration. No Carbon. No
CO2. Small size gravel substrate with a layer of garden clay soil
underneath. I'm going to add a few balls of clay soil to the Lace
Plant root zone & am thinking about adding a few garden compost balls,
as well. Several posts on the Krib advise a rich substrate while
another says that it doesn't like a lot of organic matter in the soil,
and yet another person grew them over a layer of sheep manure? I'll
probably go with the majority who use a rich substrate.

I've started dosing regularly again with Flourish, Leaf Zone, &
Flourish Excel. I normally wouldn't dose Excel every day, more like
every 3 days or every other day, but in this case I think that I
should get into the every day habit. Yes?

The tank had been neglected, but now that I got a new male lyre tail
sword to replace the one I lost, I've regained interest in it & even
did some aquascaping. On a side note, you should see the female now,
same one that I photographed for the TFA contest last May. She got
nice & big & the tassels on her tail have grown. Beautiful fish! The
new male is from a different source, but pretty nice, a little better
than average, except he's only half her size, but he has a straight
gonopodium that isn't outrageously long. I just might take Frank's
advice & try to breed them. The female is so beautiful that it would
be a shame to let those genes go to waste with no offspring.

The tank is fairly heavily planted: Java fern & moss, (of course),
huge clumps of Riccia, 2 or 3 Anubias, 3 Amazon Swords; narrow leaf
with a lot of big runners that should be planted, Compacta, & a red
one that is starting to make a come back, Duckweed harvested regularly
for the GF & to keep it from blocking the light, Hornwort, & 3 or 4
rather small green Crypts.

The main basics that I've gleaned are:
-Low temperature
-Medium to high light
-Companion planting at the root zone with small Crypts
-Rich substrate
-Plant it & don't move it more than once a year.

If new insight has shown that they need high light, I'm ready to
upgrade to a CF fixture, but I don't think I want to go into CO2. If
needed, could I upgrade to 4 or more WPG without using CO2?, or would
I absolutely need to hook up DIY CO2 with high light? Algae will not
be a problem with higher light being that I can always add more plants
& more algae eating fish and/or shrimp. Any suggestions on a fixture
available at TFP, as well as any other suggestions on growing this
plant will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
jd

[Mister Gardener]

Javadan wrote:

The main basics that I've gleaned are:
-Low temperature
-Medium to high light
-Companion planting at the root zone with small Crypts
-Rich substrate
-Plant it & don't move it more than once a year.

I recall water quality as being high on the list. If your plant thrives, it's going to outgrow that 15H. My lfs got one in, as a surprise from the distributer, and the leaves were all 3 to 4 feet long. 

MG

[Altum]

I've never tried growing one. Everything I've read agrees with the
Krib that cooler temperatures are important, which is why I've shied
away. Karen Randall says 62-68F for that plant. I have grown
crispus, undulatus, and "wonder bulb" hybrids and all appreciated a
rich substrate and didn't seem to care much about CO2. They grew
leaves that reached the full height of the tank, so they probably got
enough from the atmosphere.

As for 4wpg without CO2, I've never been able to control the algae. I
use Excel for medium light and I always start CO2 when I put bright
lights over a tank.

Good luck breeding your swords. They were lovely in the photo contest
and they must look incredible if they've grown even more finnage. :-)

--Altum

[Melissa phillips]

I kept a madagascar lace at the petstore for 2 years, in one of the 90 gallon goldfish tanks (they didn't eat it).  It went dormant once and came back and finally sold . . . it was on sale the wholet time but never sold until after 2 years . . haha.  Anyway, as I said it was in a goldfish tank and I kept this one off the system because of the plant.  I didn't put a heater in it so the water was probably around 72*f, I kept the water extremely clean, I kept a few sponge filters and box filters running in this particular tank to keep debri out of the water.  A big problem with these guys is stuff clogging up the leaves and also algae growing on them.  The substrate was just plain gravel, about 4 inches deep, I added root tabs to fertilize.  The lighting was just 2 regular output flouresent lights, one was a florasun (zoomed brand plant light) the other was just a regular standard bulb.  I changed the water often, probably 50% a week (easy to do there since I just had to turn a nozzle to refill it and there were drains in the floor).  The plant did great, had tons of really big leaves, made the goldfish sell well as it drew attention to the tank:)   This one had the longer skinny leaves . . . sometimes the leaves got about 3 feet long and laid across the top of the water.

A friend of mine has had 2 madagascar lace plants that have shorter but much broader leaves, the leaves get about a foot tall on average but are probably 3 inches wide, sometimes maybe 4.  She has had them for as long as I've known her, maybe 3 years.  She keeps them in a tropical tank that has a temp around 76*f, does nothing special, but keeps the water clean.  Has regular gravel, rarely fertilizes and has a 110 watt power compact over her 60 gallon aquarium.  The plants do go dormant, and she just leaves the bulbs in the tank and they grow back each time. 

That about sums up my experiences with madagascar lace plants.

[Javadan]

Thanks Altum! The advice is much appreciated!

I did well in the past with cooler temperatures, but I've never been
willing to sacrifice fish health over it. I don't like to go below 75
F on tropical tanks. I prefer a higher temp. than that to give a
longer buffer zone in case something happens with the heater, but
being that I had one grow at about this temp. before I'm OK with that.

I take Karen Randall's advice on plants as more than highly regarded;
very highly regarded, extremely highly regarded. Maybe I'll pot it &
put it into the goldfish tank to give it a lower temperature. This
goes right along with Melissa's post, which I'll get to answering
soon.

Being that your Aponogetons did well with a rich substrate, that's
another definite plus. I was wondering about that one post on the
Krib that advised against it, but even that says something, that they
might not actually be as fussy as their reputation. Case in point
with terrestrial plants: I picked up a bunch of non-blooming Orchids
on clearance & have had blooms since June & they're one of the easiest
houseplants that I've ever kept, despite their reputation as being
fussy. Granted, these are common Orchids, but the key is to let them
dry out. Over watering is the one thing that will kill them right
away. What I'm saying is that sometimes it's just one point that
makes all the difference. In an aquarium, some plants will grow very
quickly, but can also die quickly if the proper conditions aren't
kept. Finding & keeping the right conditions causes a plant to grow
'like a weed'. I'm just hoping to provide the conditions that will
allow this plant to thrive.

I thought about the advice to plant the bulb & not move it. Good
advice for any plant, but looking at the bulb, there are roots but not
really a lot compared to other plants. Transplanting will always take
it's toll on the roots to some extent, & if there's not a lot to begin
with then the same amount of root damage will take a higher toll
percentage wise on the plant. Again referring to terrestrial plants,
it's not uncommon to lose a season of flowers when a bulb is
transplanted or to lose a weak bulb during the dormant period.
Perhaps the transplanting of a wild stock lace plant bulb has an even
greater detrimental effect. Just being taken from the wild &
replanted once is a big shock, (isn't it even a 'shock' to humans to
move from one location to another?), but how much more does it go
through before being planted in the home aquarium? Most of the plants
we keep are not much more than weeds in their natural environment.
Amazon Swords come to mind. They literally grow like weeds on the
banks of the Amazon; thick as our dandelions in the spring. With
Madagascar Lace plants we're moving up the scale a little bit, but it
seems like we should still be able to get it to work.

I really needed the advice on CO2 with high light being that I've
never gone beyond 3 WPG. For years I've toyed with the idea of going
with DIY CO2. If I make the plunge to high light I guess that'll push
me to finally do the CO2, as well.

Ahh, the lyre tail swords! I've felt so bad for so long about losing
the male a while back. I had added a new Julii Cory from a store tank
that looked great. Slow acclimation into a tank that had just been
given a PWC, no bag water added to the tank, but he was dead the next
day, & the male sword the day after. I saw that the male sword was
sluggish when I turned on the light, but was in a hurry & shrugged it
off to him just waking up. The irony is that although the female got
into health trouble, too, just another partial water change with no
meds brought her right back, & that very quickly. (MG the water
changer is smiling right now) ;)

The new male is young, strong, & appears healthy, & although he's a
young adult, he's only about half her size. I'm feeding a variety of
foods, as usual, but also feeding live brine shrimp when I have it.
LFS sells the best I've ever gotten; very red & all alive, lasts for a
week in a wide mouth jar in the fridge. It just jumped from $1.29 to
$1.99 US per bag, but I've paid that for stuff that wasn't half as
good. The new male might possibly be able to breed naturally so I
intend to give them at least into the new year before intervening with
artificial methods, maybe longer, although at this point neither one
seems to be interested in the other. :(

I was upset when I saw that the new female, (they were sold only in
pairs), was a bad fin nipper. She did a bunch of damage to the male's
tail before I caught it, but the older female escaped unharmed.
Cooled the new female's heels in the Goldfish tank, (which she seems
to love, swimming around for days now with fins fully open), &
treating the sword tank with Pimafix & Melafix. Mainly preventative
against bacterial infection, but PWC's might have been enough.

I just rolled some red garden clay & rich compost in a 50/50 mix into
small marble size pellets. I will be adding it to the plant root zone
after it air dries. I probably don't need to wait for it to dry,
being that it will re-wet in the tank, but I think there will be less
initial water clouding adding it in the dried state. I'm going on the
thought that the compost added to the clay will make it more porous &
easier for the plant roots to penetrate, as well as adding more trace
elements to spur plant growth. From reading the Laterite thread on
the Krib I also see that humus has an extremely high Cation Exchange
Capacity, another plus for using the compost. This would also help to
explain Diana Walstad's success with using a potting soil substrate,
although her own explanations are quite thorough, to say the least. I
wonder about a post on the Krib recommending against using potting
soil, but it could simply be speaking of a different type of potting
soil as there are many. I might also add some sand to the mix to help
alleviate soil compaction, but for now the clay/compost mix is the
order of the day. I've also had good success with pond plants potted
in a garden clay & will now experiment with adding compost to that, as
well. An advantage to clay is that it's heavy & settles out quickly
even if it accidentally gets stirred up. (Thank You to MG for posting
the link to the Krib laterite thread. I hadn't read it since the
original posts were made. Lots of good info. that I had forgotten).
I read another post on the Krib that said some lace plant bulbs might
be just using up the nutrients stored in the bulb, & then they just
fade away to smaller leaves as the nutrients diminish. Naturally, if
this is the case, such a bulb will not have the strength to come back
from a dormant state, so it stands to reason that a rich substrate
will help to alleviate this problem, although if it's a weak bulb to
begin with it might not make it no matter what.

I also planted a few small crypts around it & a small amazon sword
fairly close to it in the hopes that companion planting will help, as
well.

At least for the time being, I haven't changed the lighting. I'm
hoping that the info I read about them growing, although slower, in
lower light will be true in this case. I think my biggest challenge
will be to not touch it. <g> I have a tendency to rearrange the
tanks regularly, but I intend too keep my hands off & the gravel vac
away from this plant, besides, it nicely hides the filter intake
tube. :)
jd

[Javadan]

On Dec 16, 5:06 am, Mister Gardener <mistergarde...@email.toast.net>
wrote:

> I recall water quality as being high on the list. If your plant thrives,
> it's going to outgrow that 15H. My lfs got one in, as a surprise from
> the distributer, and the leaves were all 3 to 4 feet long.
>
> MG

Ahh, water quality, indeed! Why am I not surprised to receive that
advice from you, MG? <g> I'm actually hoping for the good
'problem' of a lace plant that outgrows the tank. I can always trade
it at the LFS, maybe the one big plant for smaller ones, to do it all
over again.
jd

[Javadan]

reply throughout

On Dec 16, 5:21 pm, "Melissa phillips" <melg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I kept a madagascar lace at the petstore for 2 years, in one of the 90
> gallon goldfish tanks (they didn't eat it).  

That is a good bit of helpful information right off the bat; low
temperature & goldfish didn't eat it, (amazing fact that I've never
heard before). I might move the lace plant to the GF tank, but it's
already planted & I'm leaning towards letting it go undisturbed.

It went dormant once and came
> back and finally sold . . . it was on sale the wholet time but never sold
> until after 2 years . . haha.  

Coming back from dormancy is another good point. It might not have
sold right away due to being too big for average tanks & tropical fish
people not looking at GF tanks. Also some people might have
erroneously assumed that it wasn't for sale, being that that is often
the case with display tank plants.

Anyway, as I said it was in a goldfish tank
> and I kept this one off the system because of the plant.  I didn't put a
> heater in it so the water was probably around 72*f, I kept the water
> extremely clean, I kept a few sponge filters and box filters running in this
> particular tank to keep debri out of the water.  

Extremely clean water - MG is smiling again. <g>

A big problem with these
> guys is stuff clogging up the leaves and also algae growing on them.  

I'm happy that I don't have any algae problems so that's another plus.

The
> substrate was just plain gravel, about 4 inches deep, I added root tabs to
> fertilize.  The lighting was just 2 regular output flouresent lights, one
> was a florasun (zoomed brand plant light) the other was just a regular
> standard bulb.  I changed the water often, probably 50% a week (easy to do
> there since I just had to turn a nozzle to refill it and there were drains
> in the floor).  The plant did great, had tons of really big leaves, made the
> goldfish sell well as it drew attention to the tank:)   This one had the
> longer skinny leaves . . . sometimes the leaves got about 3 feet long and
> laid across the top of the water.

Yes, that's the type I have. If it does well it'll have to be moved.

>
> A friend of mine has had 2 madagascar lace plants that have shorter but much
> broader leaves, the leaves get about a foot tall on average but are probably
> 3 inches wide, sometimes maybe 4.  She has had them for as long as I've
> known her, maybe 3 years.  She keeps them in a tropical tank that has a temp
> around 76*f, does nothing special, but keeps the water clean.  Has regular
> gravel, rarely fertilizes and has a 110 watt power compact over her 60
> gallon aquarium.  The plants do go dormant, and she just leaves the bulbs in
> the tank and they grow back each time.

Amazing, that's the type I had in the past, but it didn't come back
from dormancy

>
> That about sums up my experiences with madagascar lace plants.

A big help. Thank You!
jd

[Melissa phillips]

With the various aponogetons I have grown I've found that if the conditions were not good when the plant appears to go dormant the bulb is actually smaller, and I don't bother to try to get it to come back.  If conditions were good the bulb is often double the size it was when I planted it.  The only aponogetons I have now are aponogeton longiplumulosus, which is currently dormant.  I'm left the 2 bulbs in the tank as I don't really want to mess around with apongetons anymore for now, if they come back, great, if not all well.  I did have aponogeton ulvaceous for a long time.  I kept one as they get huge, and had it for a few years and gave it to a friend (the same one with the lace plants) last year I think.  The bulb was the size of my fist by then. 

On Dec 23, 2007 1:08 AM, Javadan <dans...@comcast.net> wrote:

I read another post on the Krib that said some lace plant bulbs might
be just using up the nutrients stored in the bulb, & then they just
fade away to smaller leaves as the nutrients diminish.  Naturally, if
this is the case, such a bulb will not have the strength to come back
from a dormant state, so it stands to reason that a rich substrate
will help to alleviate this problem, although if it's a weak bulb to
begin with it might not make it no matter what.

--
Melissa:)

[Melissa phillips]

I think the lace plants are to tough to be appetizing to the goldfish. 

It wasn't a display tank, it was a sell tank, we had a 90 gallon and a 75 gallon "sale" tank for goldfish as we often had very large goldfish up for sale (averaging $50 each).  All the other tanks in the goldfish aisle are 29 and 20 gallons, for the littler goldfish.  Sometimes smaller Koi were also in with the lace plant.  It was a pretty tough plant, had to put up with us netting fish out and with goldfish and koi, which are usually pretty rough on plants.

On Dec 23, 2007 1:20 AM, Javadan <dans...@comcast.net> wrote:

reply throughout

On Dec 16, 5:21pm, "Melissa phillips" <melg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I kept a madagascar lace at the petstore for 2 years, in one of the 90
> gallon goldfish tanks (they didn't eat it).

That is a good bit of helpful information right off the bat; low
temperature & goldfish didn't eat it, (amazing fact that I've never
heard before).  I might move the lace plant to the GF tank, but it's
already planted & I'm leaning towards letting it go undisturbed.

It went dormant once and came
> back and finally sold . . . it was on sale the wholet time but never sold
> until after 2 years . . haha.

Coming back from dormancy is another good point.  It might not have
sold right away due to being too big for average tanks & tropical fish
people not looking at GF tanks.  Also some people might have
erroneously assumed that it wasn't for sale, being that that is often
the case with display tank plants.

A big help.  Thank You!
jd

--
Melissa:)