Help With Growing Emersed

[BenB]

Oh my bad, I thought you were growing them in like those cups that potted aquarium plants come in, and instead of rockwool you got coco coir.
What you're doing works too, I just pictured your set-up differently.

No worries. But you still recommend getting the Maxigrow I'm guessing?

 

[bradquade]

When I first started collecting plants I only had a 20 long, 10 gallon, and 5 gallon tank, so I kept many of my plants emersed. My strategy was to build a platform in a plastic bin using egg crate and then put pots on the platform with the water level 1-2" above the bottom of the pot. The substrate was plain old miracle grow potting soil, which works quite well in this type of setup because it wicks water to the top of the pots. For lighting, I cut two holes in the lid of the plastic bin, taped glass window panes on top, and then put CFLs in dome lights right on top of the glass. I kept the lid on with one corner slightly propped up for airflow. I think I would foliar feed with miracle grow all purpose fertilizer and I think I occasionally would dump some NPK+trace dry ferts into the water. This setup required zero effort outside of trimming and was extremely effective for keeping stocks of plants. It was also pretty cool because I was able to flower a very large number of plant species.




I used this same sort of setup to grow and propagate Eriocaulons from seeds. The only major difference was aquasoil as the substrate, RO water for the water reservoir, and a slightly higher water level.



This setup also worked for Rotala "Florida", Rotala "Sunset", some uncommon crypt species, Bucephalandra variegated, and Anubias Pinto. This time I did it in a small aquarium and covered the top with plastic wrap. The Anubias and Buce grew, but got some crispy leaves. They probably would have been happier if I kept the humidity higher and had better airflow.

 

[BenB]

This is great stuff. I need to look over it more.
I've realized a big problem might be that my current emersed tank is too cold. I have a heating pad under it, but I'm not sure how well its doing. I wonder if a larger tank with some circulating water and a heater in the bottom won't work better. I don't know much about pumps though.

 

[David's Aquatics]

On tissue culturing aquatics plant I've found the ones I struggled with growing on solid gel media did better in liquid. I just didn't add the agar and put more water in. Though that usually resulted in weird growth because they were floating I tried adding some filter floss to the bottom to plant them in but it always floated up. I haven't tried anything else to plant into but I may try rockwool in the future. I've also found it to be much easier to sterilize from emersed growth compared to submersed.

As for emersed growing I've use miracle grow moisture control and also just dirt from my backyard with good success.