Xyris plants -- anyone work with them?

[Frogmouth Catfish]

Over the last year I've seen these plants start popping up in a few forums -- usually listed as Xyris, sometimes Xyris sp. Red or Xyris sp. [some other term]. They're extremely pricy--I've seen little single sprigs of them going for as much as 100$, and way, WAY more for a big plant like the one in the middle of the picture I've attached. I can hardly find any info on them--they seem to be pretty cutting edge in planted tanks. Has anyone kept them? Difficult, high light/c02/ferts? Are these the next hot 'thing' a few years from now? 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Frogmouth Catfish

[KBOzzie59]

Nice!  I'll be looking for one so I can do tissue cultures.

I found this.

Xyris sp. ‘Red’

 

CO2	Required
Light	High
Care	Moderate
Growth Rate	Slow
Propagation	Separate

[NanoNano]

On 5/18/2021 at 6:16 AM, Frogmouth Catfish said:

Over the last year I've seen these plants start popping up in a few forums -- usually listed as Xyris, sometimes Xyris sp. Red or Xyris sp. [some other term]. They're extremely pricy--I've seen little single sprigs of them going for as much as 100$, and way, WAY more for a big plant like the one in the middle of the picture I've attached. I can hardly find any info on them--they seem to be pretty cutting edge in planted tanks. Has anyone kept them? Difficult, high light/c02/ferts? Are these the next hot 'thing' a few years from now? 

 

In way late on this...The listings for Xyris have caught my eye as well.  The pictures of "Xyris" that I've seen in the posts/auctions and conditions required both look extremely similar to Eriocaulon Quinquangulare- I wonder if they're not one in the same (or some closely related subspecies).  

I tried a sprig of Eriocaulon Quinquangulare in one of my aquariums- the low ph, soft water, high light, and high C02 requirements are pretty absolute.  If you can meet the requirements (and still have the rest of the tank inhabitants do OK), you're good...If you fall short on any one requirement,  the plant melts *quickly* down to the roots (which seem to survive for months,  but the leaves never grow back).   Definitely requires a good amount of experience with high tech tanks to successfully keep and propagate.

[NanoNano]

Found an online (not auction site) seller that had Xyris in stock and pretty heavily discounted on a "summer sale" ($35 I think) so I took a chance and bought a plant.   Details on conditions and care requirements for these plants were missing from the site I bought from and hard to find,  so I hoped for the best and put it into one of my well seasoned low tech/No CO2 tanks (tap water PH being used for weekly water changes is around 7.4 right now).  Five days in the tank so far,  and the plant seems to be doing well (no melting which has started almost immediately with some Eriocaulon species I've tried in the same tank).  A couple of quick initial observations:

* The plant I received has a root structure similar to most Eriocaulons- lots of short, dense, fine, white hair like roots.  I've found that keeping plants with roots like this initially planted can be a challenge especially in Fluval like stratum as it's hard for the roots to get initially anchored,  and the fine roots invite snails to borrow in and feed on any that are dying or dead.

* The plant that I received is *flat* and 2D looking (and much more green/brown in color than red as well).  The leaves are almost perfectly in line with another so viewing the plant "head on" gives a striking "peacock tail" type look,  but rotating the plant 90 degrees makes the plant appear pretty much as just  a "thin green line".

* While the plant leaves are not sharp on the edges,  they are rigid and have a pretty finely pointed tip on the end.  The potential for a fast moving active fish to get a poke and injury looks to be there,  so I would personally be cautious about putting a plant like this in with fish that like to zoom about or will blindly take off in a panic if disturbed.

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

[Frogmouth Catfish]

On 8/19/2021 at 11:38 AM, NanoNano said:

I look forward to hearing more about your experience with it as time goes on.

 

 

[Dark River Aquatics]

Hi sorry I’m a little late to the party here but just collected a bunch of xyris red, the person who took me collecting says they’re fairly easy but slow growing and that’s part of what drives the pricing, and that more light & co2 brings out more intense reds. I’m going to bring these babies home and will let you know how it goes, excited to try them!

[Frogmouth Catfish]

Looking forward to hearing about your results with these. Cool to see new genuses (genii?) of plants getting into the hobby.

[Andy's Fish Den]

On 11/9/2021 at 3:22 PM, Dark River Aquatics said:

Hi sorry I’m a little late to the party here but just collected a bunch of xyris red, the person who took me collecting says they’re fairly easy but slow growing and that’s part of what drives the pricing, and that more light & co2 brings out more intense reds. I’m going to bring these babies home and will let you know how it goes, excited to try them!

Not sure where you are located, but are these native to the US? 

[Phantom240]

I'm curious to know where these are native to as well

 

[Minanora]

I want friends that take me out to collect aquatic plants 🤣 Seriously interested in seeing how those turn out and how slow they grow.

They are native to the US, at least some varieties, haven't dug much into all of them. Found an article about a variety of it on the US forestry site. A "Plant of the week" article. Very interesting. I wish we had more wetlands. Link to Article

[Dark River Aquatics]

On 11/10/2021 at 7:11 AM, Andy's Fish Den said:

Not sure where you are located, but are these native to the US? 

These were found in the US, I was asked not to disclose the location so I apologize that I have to remain vague beyond that but we did collect them in the states 🙂

[Furry_Pleco777]

Howdy Y’all.  This is my first entry as I have just signed up, brought to the forum by @Dark River Aquaticsentry.  As everyone in this thread I am interested in the Xyris plant and wanted to share a synopsis of my key findings.

 

What is known:  the plant in question Xyris drummondii belongs to a grasses family and has been reported from localities ranging from Florida to East Texas (all states in between included).  I have not been able to locate the type description online however, no online entry pre-dates 1993, which seems to indicate the species to be identified in late 1980’s/early 1990’s.  The localities seem to be “bound” by a geographic latitude, which might be a function of ecotone and of soil type, as all are found within a certain, relative proximity to the coast of Gulf of Mexico.  The plant itself is likely to be found in “patches”, where a number of conditions are met, thus making it an uncommon species.  Two additional factors to it being enigmatic is probably plants’ size relative to what grows around it and the fact, that not all form the well-defined, flattened fan.  

There are no reports of the plant (that I could find) found fully submersed, or even emersed (roots in water/leaves in the air, to be sure of definition) in the wild.  It may have ended up in a tank as a result of lengthy and careful conversion, or it was “one of those things”, where it was found in the water by and observant and forward-thinking individual.

 

What is not known:  Precise timing and where the plant has been intorduced to the aquarium hobby.  

Is the red variety the same species, or a close cousin?

The plant is found in areas, which may/may not be boggy.

One common denominator I see is that substrate is almost always sandy.

The plant is not very happy in the tank, unless it is provided with strong light.  It therefore may not be suitable for deeper tanks.  

It is more than likely, that it requires a decent CO2 level in water, since it is pretty certainly a “convert”.

[Frogmouth Catfish]

Thank you for the detailed breakdown, FurryPleco, clearly there's still much to learn

[Dark River Aquatics]

@Furry_Pleco777reach out to Chantz Cramer, he’s who I went collecting with and he knows wayyy more than I do - I’m just a nerd who was happy to be along for the ride when we found these. This is anecdotal, but I was told that the area where we found the xyris (they were in sandy boggy substrate, and also growing in patches) does flood periodically and they end up submersed either partially or fully.

 

Experientially, for whatever this is worth: I’m still keeping two tiny xyris that we collecting as well as a larger, hobbyist farmed specimen in a 75g tank with fairly bright lighting, but the big xyris arrived fairly green and is in a somewhat shaded area in the tank surrounded by crypts, and it’s slowly getting more red and growing new leaves despite not being in a super bright area. I wouldn’t call it a “low light” tank as I run a chihiros WRGB2 and a Finnex 24/7, but it’s not crazy high par either. The chihiros is on a 6hr photocycle, with 30min ramp up time and then a slight increase during the photoperiod. The Finnex is against the very back of the tank and only turns on for 30min at the middle of the Chihiros cycle (Finnex is set to max strength) just to give my stems a “high noon” blast of light, but where the xyris is located it’s shaded from the Finnex.

All of that is to say, I don’t think it’s a low tech / low light species by any means but it’s not receiving insane amounts of light in my tank either and seems to be doing well. Also, for whatever the information is worth, these are some other growing conditions / tank parameters:

-well water, not RO, that comes out of the tap at roughly 11-12 dkh & gh, ph of the tap is about 8.2. 30% WCs weekly results in the tank water being around 7-8 dkh, gh a little higher, and ph around 7.4-7.6

-light cycle outlined above

-co2 injection with a roughly 1pt ph swing, injection starts 3.5hr before the photoperiod

-nutrients are a NilocG dry ferts and I can post the exact mix if people want, but it runs fairly lean with daily injections via an auto doser 1hr before the photoperiod. N is typically a little less than 5ppm, P hovers around 1ppm, and I add one normal dose of Thrive or Easy Green weekly after every WC on top of the daily nutrient dose

 

Hopefully that’s helpful and I would see if you can reach Chantz via Facebook (he’s in the Co2 Supplemented Planted Tanks group) because he’s a wealth to knowledge, he will definitely have info about how to grow these plants and he’s plugged into the plant community well enough that he probably knows some history of it in the hobby 

[Furry_Pleco777]

Thank you @Dark River Aquaticsthis is a great response.  I am in communication with another, knowledgeable person, from whom I got the plant (I have one and have been floating it this far for root growth.  It has not shown any signs of deterioration since mid November.  I would post photos, if it were not for being limited by a kidney stone, which Mom Earth wants me to add to my local, sedimentary deposits.  Hence time on hands.  I am grateful folks like Chantz exist, am well familiar with His work, and have followed him for a while too; just somewhat reluctant in asking him, as he suffers from the same thing I do and I opt not to add to anything that may overwhelm him (on a personal note, please send greetings and salutations to him from a wet-plant-nerd in Tekshash).  I was very happy, when he recovered and bravely spoke about his illness: my fullest respect!  He is indeed the Guru and I cannot imagine how many similar requests he gets all the time.  

The details You provided are challenging my all-so-fluid and very limited opinion about this plant.  And I like that.  It also turns out, the species has been identified as long ago as 1933 (found that today, literally just minutes after I posted my entry).  Just like many things do, apparently it was just gathering dust, which is not surprising, because  stand alone, as a terrestrial species it is as interesting as… insignificant.  I bet it is the size!  It is obviously enjoying a Renaissance by opening new concept and context for the aquarium world. 

I sincerely hope that through time and patient experimentation we get to know this little gem more.  

Edited January 6, 2022 by Furry_Pleco777

[Dark River Aquatics]

@Furry_Pleco777I hope you heal up well, that doesn’t sound fun ☹️

I’d be curious to see your longterm results with xyris, in my case it’s one of a long list of species in that tank just as part of my collectoritis so I’m not putting any special effort into it but so far it’s been doing very well and does seem relatively “easy” in a high tech setup. If I end up with babies I’m curious to try it in a higher light, non-co2 injected tank and see how it does in that scenario