So, Aponogeton--best plant ever, or is the joke on me?

[PineSong]

Last month I popped three bulbs from Petco in with my betta and a few weeks later two of the resulting plants were taking over the whole setup--I could hardly find him. So I removed them and put one in each 20 gallon.

This aponogeton is one of them--I think it has grown six more inches since I put it in this tank last week.

It looks so beautiful I'm wondering why I don't see them in other people's tanks all the time, which made me suspicious of where this is headed...

Is it going to suddenly crash and look awful, or is it going to keep growing until it shades out everything else in the tank? Is it going to strangle us in  our sleep? What should I expect?

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by PineSong
Fixed photo

[Zenzo]

On 11/29/2021 at 5:28 PM, PineSong said:

Last month I popped three bulbs from Petco in with my betta and a few weeks later two of the resulting plants were taking over the whole setup--I could hardly find him. So I removed them and put one in each 20 gallon.

This aponogeton is one of them--I think it has grown six more inches since I put it in this tank last week.

It looks so beautiful I'm wondering why I don't see them in other people's tanks all the time, which made me suspicious of where this is headed...

Is it going to suddenly crash and look awful, or is it going to keep growing until it shades out everything else in the tank? Is it going to strangle us in  our sleep? What should I expect?

 

These often need trimming to ensure that they don't take over (shade) the tank. Also, they really benefit from Root Tabs. 

[Odd Duck]

Many Aponogeton get quite big but I’ve found if I’m careful with root tabs (not too generous) they will sort of stay under control.  Trim off old leaves or anything that’s just getting too huge and you can keep them reasonably controlled.  They really like a tall tank with good, but not heavy, water movement.  Their leaves can be a bit delicate/fragile so too much turbulence can damage them if they tangle.  If they don’t tangle, they’ll be fine.

For some reason your pic isn’t loading for me, I’ll look again in a few minutes.  Depending on species, your plant may take siestas periodically.  If they do siesta, you’ll find that you are trimming more leaves than are growing, but for me, at least, I haven’t had them crash, they just seem to fade slowly away.  If you’re patient and your conditions are OK, they will come back even stronger after a rest.  I have NOT been growing them for many years, but others on here have and I’m sure they will chime in when they can.

 

Edit to tag @anewbie and @Beardedbillygoat1975 for more Aponogeton expertise.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Odd Duck

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Agree with @Odd Duckwould be rare for them to crash completely. They typically just get bigger and happier. It may shoot off a flower but it can’t reproduce without some serious help. They do go dormant when they’ve been over pruned or there’s a dip in the temp. That can be a way to control them dip the temp 3-5 degrees and they’ll stop growing as fast. They feed from the substrate and the water column which is what makes their growth so explosive. You got a good bulb my success rate with big box bulbs is not great so score one for you @PineSong!

[eatyourpeas]

They are beautiful plants. As previous posters recommended, a trim and light regime work great. Also, I have had them "take a break" and go dormant to recharge the bulb, then they go through a nice growth period.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I've got them in one of my tanks and I've had them die off entirely so I've pulled bulbs before had one start to regrow a leaf but it got knocked off in a QT tank so I'm trying again. I've had one put out a long bloom, but I remember someone maybe even ACP mention in a video it's best to trim those so it doesn't go dormant. I've also heard there's a way to simulate a dormant period if you have one die off (had to do with sand and temperature, was too much of a faff for me to bother with since the bulbs are rather cheap at the big box stores. I don't fertilize so mine don't grow super fast but they sure are pretty. Three right now in the pic below:

Edited November 30, 2021 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[anewbie]

On 11/29/2021 at 10:30 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Agree with @Odd Duckwould be rare for them to crash completely. They typically just get bigger and happier. It may shoot off a flower but it can’t reproduce without some serious help. They do go dormant when they’ve been over pruned or there’s a dip in the temp. That can be a way to control them dip the temp 3-5 degrees and they’ll stop growing as fast. They feed from the substrate and the water column which is what makes their growth so explosive. You got a good bulb my success rate with big box bulbs is not great so score one for you @PineSong!

I think to a degree i will strongly disagree or rather state it depends on the species. @xXInkedPhoenixX has pictured (i believe) a Ulvaceus which in a low tech aquarium tends to stay smallish (and pleasing) with frequent hibernation; in a hi-tech tank it will easily fill 1/2 a 55 and then some and seems to hibernate less frequently but still relatively frequent. madagascariensis tends to stay small but almost never hibernate while madagascariensis var. henkelianus can be fairly large (but not over whelming) in a low tech tank but enormous in a hi-tech tank; it seems to hibernate more often than plain madagacariensis (var henkelianus has very large wide leaves while plain madagacariensis has very narrow but longish leaf). Crispus is an ok plant - mine went into hibernation after 3 years and has been that way for the past 4 months. It is not overly large plant. Not sure about Longiplumulosus (yet) it has a very long but narrow leaf that is fairly pleasing - in my 29 it has reached the top but not over-whelming. 

 

My favorite of the group is bolivinianus - in my low tech 29 (after 3 years) this is what it looks like; it is not a small plant (low tech). Not sure if it will eventually hibernate. Also after 3 years mine has just begun to flower (the ulvaceus as an example i find frequently flower to the point of being a pest - i hope flowering is not a sign of soon to be hibernation as my crispus flowered just before hibernation).

[Gator]

@PineSong and @xXInkedPhoenixX; When you bought your Aponogeton bulbs, they were probably dry. Aponogeton bulbs go dormant from time to time, I've found that if I take the dormant bulb out of the water, let it dry out before placing it back in the tank, it grows back full and lush.

[PineSong]

On 11/30/2021 at 10:26 AM, Gator said:

@PineSong and @xXInkedPhoenixX; When you bought your Aponogeton bulbs, they were probably dry. Aponogeton bulbs go dormant from time to time, I've found that if I take the dormant bulb out of the water, let it dry out before placing it back in the tank, it grows back full and lush.

Yes, it was dry in a package with two other kinds of plant bulb. Interesting that drying them out restores them...I wonder if that would work with the red tiger lotuses as well.

Somehow I am getting the ORD message even though I haven't been reacting today--I tried to put love eyes emojis on all the photos of others' plants 🙂 They look so pretty to me and I'm glad to learn more about how to keep this one happy.

[anewbie]

On 11/30/2021 at 11:15 AM, PineSong said:

Yes, it was dry in a package with two other kinds of plant bulb. Interesting that drying them out restores them...I wonder if that would work with the red tiger lotuses as well.

Somehow I am getting the ORD message even though I haven't been reacting today--I tried to put love eyes emojis on all the photos of others' plants 🙂 They look so pretty to me and I'm glad to learn more about how to keep this one happy.

It depends on the species; some species prefer to not dry out.

[gjcarew]

I always thought it was funny how Petco will sell a 1.5 gallon tank for a betta, but their "betta bulbs" are better suited for 40+ gallons

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@anewbiewe are each going to have different experiences as our setups are different. A lot of variables. I take no issue and welcome differing opinions.

My experience with ulvaceus is through setting up my neighbors tank as well as teaching her the techniques I’d picked up (she’d had a disaster and I redid the tank for her birthday). The ulvaceus I am speaking about is in a 36 g bow, under a Fluval 3.0, in stratum, and light period was per @Bentley Pascoe, with some additional indirect sunlight. It was dormant at the time of setup. I placed it in wet, roots down mid back left of the tank. Feeding is a laterite base under the Stratum with osmocote and some crushed coral plus Easy Green with each water change. Local tap is 7.0, 5 nitrate, kh 4-6, gh 10. In the tank it’s 6.6-6.8, kh 1-2, gh 6-8, nitrates 10-20. This is as of the last time I tested the tank a month ago. So this was not exactly a low-tech setup but not CO2 either. 

@anewbiemy experience with Madagascarensis is very similar, I have never worked with var. Henkelianus. I have tried to source longiaplumolosus but it’s eluded me and the one bolvinianus I received never rooted and rotted. I plan to source it again when I setup a larger tank 125+ that will house at least 3 varieties of aponogeton. I almost bought a bulb from Esstern Europe on eBay awhile back but was worried about customs and local laws here in Oregon. 

Also only way to learn is to work through things and use best practices. Always appreciate your feedback and perhaps I was not as thoughtful as I should have been with my post. Cheers. 

My madagascariensis in The Sad Bowl. 

[anewbie]

On 11/30/2021 at 1:44 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@anewbiewe are each going to have different experiences as our setups are different. A lot of variables. I take no issue and welcome differing opinions.

My experience with ulvaceus is through setting up my neighbors tank as well as teaching her the techniques I’d picked up (she’d had a disaster and I redid the tank for her birthday). The ulvaceus I am speaking about is in a 36 g bow, under a Fluval 3.0, in stratum, and light period was per @Bentley Pascoe, with some additional indirect sunlight. It was dormant at the time of setup. I placed it in wet, roots down mid back left of the tank. Feeding is a laterite base under the Stratum with osmocote and some crushed coral plus Easy Green with each water change. Local tap is 7.0, 5 nitrate, kh 4-6, gh 10. In the tank it’s 6.6-6.8, kh 1-2, gh 6-8, nitrates 10-20. This is as of the last time I tested the tank a month ago. So this was not exactly a low-tech setup but not CO2 either. 

@anewbiemy experience with Madagascarensis is very similar, I have never worked with var. Henkelianus. I have tried to source longiaplumolosus but it’s eluded me and the one bolvinianus I received never rooted and rotted. I plan to source it again when I setup a larger tank 125+ that will house at least 3 varieties of aponogeton. I almost bought a bulb from Esstern Europe on eBay awhile back but was worried about customs and local laws here in Oregon. 

Also only way to learn is to work through things and use best practices. Always appreciate your feedback and perhaps I was not as thoughtful as I should have been with my post. Cheers. 

My madagascariensis in The Sad Bowl. 

I'm pretty sure your lace plant is var. Henkelianus; it is frequently sold as plain madagascariensis since it is more stunning. To be honest there are a lot of different lace plants (far more than 2) so it could be something different. The plain madagascariensis i believe the leaves are fairly narrow (less than 1/2 inch) and the lace is quite tight. 

 

My comment with regards to drying out the bulb during dormant period was not directed at a specific species but to note that for the genus Aponogeton it depends on the species. I will not buy ulvaceus again. In the high-tech tank it is too large and in the low tech tank it goes dormant too frequently - my set is around 3 years old and it seems to spend more than 50% of the time dormant. I like the lace plant (this is the var. Henkelianus   in my white 29 - the plain one is in my black 29 but hidden by larger plants); the one in the high tech tank had leaves over 20 inches tall and 4 inches wide (quite huge) but now it has gone dormant. The one in the black 29 is 3 years old the one in the white 29 is only about 8 months old and it has not gone dormant yet.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I appreciate knowing what plant I’m dealing with. Thanks @anewbie. I’ve seen people lump Crinum in with the aponogeton and others not. What’s your opinion? 

[Odd Duck]

I found this pic again when searching just because I love Aponogeton and, Hello, Rabbit.

I also found a pretty extensive discussion with loads of pictures on a different forum and the conclusion appeared to be there are 3 subspecies that are most common in the trade with some discussion if there were other subspecies or if they were just different names for the same subspecies.

Aponogeton madagascariensis madagascariensis (AKA A. m. bernierianus) which has the longest, narrowest leaves with sometime incomplete perforation between the ribs.

Aponogeton madagascariensis var. henkelianus which has the widest leaves and sometimes connections between the perforations.

Aponogeton madagascariensis var. fenestralis which appears to be nearly as wide as henkelianus but usually has fewer longitudinal ribs very wide, narrow fenestrations and no connections between the perforations.

[Odd Duck]

On 11/30/2021 at 2:35 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

I appreciate knowing what plant I’m dealing with. Thanks @anewbie. I’ve seen people lump Crinum in with the aponogeton and others not. What’s your opinion? 

That sounds kind of odd, to me, to lump them together.  I could be completely wrong, but they seem to develop so very differently other than both having a bulb.

Crinums have very different structure and growth habit.  Crinums have a bulb almost like an onion with the base of the leaves partially wrapping around each other.  The leaves don’t really get much wider than what they are at the base.  The leaves grow from the base and kind of extrude out.  They will get more crinkly sometimes as they develop, but don’t get a lot wider.

Aponogeton pop out a narrow stemmed leaf that is like a shrunken, miniature, condensed version of its eventual size, and the leaf continues to develop and spread as it grows.  Kind of like the difference between how a grass leaf and a tree leaf develop.

I can see where they have certain similarities between the grown leaf with a main central rib, longitudinal ribs/veins, and cross ribs/veins, but how the leaf grows and matures is so different.  I’m interested to see what our real plant experts say.

[Odd Duck]

On 11/29/2021 at 7:28 PM, PineSong said:

Last month I popped three bulbs from Petco in with my betta and a few weeks later two of the resulting plants were taking over the whole setup--I could hardly find him. So I removed them and put one in each 20 gallon.

This aponogeton is one of them--I think it has grown six more inches since I put it in this tank last week.

It looks so beautiful I'm wondering why I don't see them in other people's tanks all the time, which made me suspicious of where this is headed...

Is it going to suddenly crash and look awful, or is it going to keep growing until it shades out everything else in the tank? Is it going to strangle us in  our sleep? What should I expect?

 

Your pic finally loaded for me.  Looks likely to be A. ulvaceus which as others noted, does tend to siesta intermittently.  @anewbie discusses it very well.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Odd Ducktotally agree, propagation is totally different with the Crinum essentially cloning itself from the crown/bulb. No just trying to clear up potential obfuscations that keep getting put out there. Sorry @PineSongfor hijacking your thread! 

[PineSong]

On 11/30/2021 at 6:41 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@Odd Ducktotally agree, propagation is totally different with the Crinum essentially cloning itself from the crown/bulb. No just trying to clear up potential obfuscations that keep getting put out there. Sorry @PineSongfor hijacking your thread! 

Hijack away, all knowledge is good knowledge and I am here to learn. 

[Dawn T]

I'm not a fan of anything that goes through dormancy, as it usually requires some sort of special care through that. I don't even deal with houseplants like that. So that issue keeps me away from Aponogeton species.

I did try them a bunch of years back, a couple of different times actually. Bought those little packs at the LFS that contain like 3 bulbs. Both times, I'm convinced they thought they were supposed to be water lilies. Their stems were LONG and the leaves didn't open until they hit the water surface. I didn't get the submerged leaves like in so many of the photos above. Staff at the LFS told me to just cut the leaves off and the new leaves would grow in submerged. Yeah. Right. In theory. But apparently those plants didn't get that memo.

I did try them a third time when I set up a tank about 7 years ago. The bulbs dissolved without ever putting out leaves. I gave up on them.

[Odd Duck]

On 12/1/2021 at 12:27 PM, Dawn T said:

Their stems were LONG and the leaves didn't open until they hit the water surface. I didn't get the submerged leaves like in so many of the photos above. Staff at the LFS told me to just cut the leaves off and the new leaves would grow in submerged. Yeah. Right. In theory. But apparently those plants didn't get that memo.

You probably happened to get A. crispus which is very fond of putting out surface leaves.  I got sent some that were supposed to be Crypt. wendtii ‘Green Gecko’.  They do look surprisingly similar when the Apo’s are young.  Here’s a link to where most of the Aponogeton crispus bit starts if you’re interested.  I have pictures of the surface and submerged leaves.  It’s not too much reading even if you decide to read the all the posts in the thread.

 

[Dawn T]

I definitely never had any that looked like the photos you shared in that thread. Question - would low light affect leaf development? It just occurred to me, all the tanks I tried that in years ago had what I would NOW consider to be very low light. Maybe that affected their growth, causing them to shoot straight for the surface?

[Odd Duck]

On 12/1/2021 at 5:58 PM, Dawn T said:

I definitely never had any that looked like the photos you shared in that thread. Question - would low light affect leaf development? It just occurred to me, all the tanks I tried that in years ago had what I would NOW consider to be very low light. Maybe that affected their growth, causing them to shoot straight for the surface?

Yes, lower light will make them more likely to produce surface leaves.  But not all Apo’s are likely to produce surface leaves.  I’ve got Apo. henkelianus (Madagascar lace plant) right next to the Apo. crispus and it never produces anything but standard lace leaves.  I’ve never heard or read anything about it producing surface leaves.  I know a few other Apo’s are prone to surface leaves, but I don’t remember which.  Maybe @anewbie can tell us more about that.  He seems to be the resident Apo expert around here.  😉 

[Dawn T]

I've always thought the Madagascar lace plant is so neat, but I've also been told repeatedly for YEARS that it's hard to grow and very "delicate" as far as water parameters are concerned. Have you found that to be true?

@Beardedbillygoat1975 I LOVE that bowl!

[anewbie]

On 12/1/2021 at 6:05 PM, Odd Duck said:

Yes, lower light will make them more likely to produce surface leaves.  But not all Apo’s are likely to produce surface leaves.  I’ve got Apo. henkelianus (Madagascar lace plant) right next to the Apo. crispus and it never produces anything but standard lace leaves.  I’ve never heard or read anything about it producing surface leaves.  I know a few other Apo’s are prone to surface leaves, but I don’t remember which.  Maybe @anewbie can tell us more about that.  He seems to be the resident Apo expert around here.  😉 

I haven't played too much with light level - my white 29 has a fluval 3.0 that is a bit reduced from max for the apistogramma; the various (there are 4 species) of aponogeton struggle a bit in that tank since i've turned down the light; the black 29 (picture above) has a light a bit brighter than most people here (noticeably stronger than the fluval); so i suspect these plants like strong light. I could test a bit on the white 29 by turning the light up and see what happens. I don't think a weak light will encourage plant leaves on teh surface; i think it will adversely harm the plant growth but that is just a guess.

On 12/1/2021 at 6:12 PM, Dawn T said:

I've always thought the Madagascar lace plant is so neat, but I've also been told repeatedly for YEARS that it's hard to grow and very "delicate" as far as water parameters are concerned. Have you found that to be true?

@Beardedbillygoat1975 I LOVE that bowl!

Both types i own grow without much encouragement; for the record my water is kh 3 gh 7 tds 115 if that helps. I will note that the narrow type is some what delicate and you don't want to keep a pleco in the tank with it as the leaves are easily damaged or knocked off the plant; the wide leaf variety is significantly more robust and can take a fair amount of punishment.

Edited December 2, 2021 by anewbie