Should have listened to Cory…

[mynameisnobody]

Today I received a plant order from another company. The coop didn’t have these particulars currently in stock so I took the shot. I ordered 4 potted anubias nana. I received 4 nana with the roots wrapped in rock wool, no pot(s) in the whole package. It doesn’t seem like a major catastrophe until I have loose rock wool all over the aquarium. Why advertise something as potted when it’s truly not. Anyways, never again, from now on, all plant orders also go to the coop only.   Live and learn. 

[nabokovfan87]

Oh I can guess the place you ordered from! 

I think I had the same thing happened.  They actually charged me extra to take timmings and wrap them in rockwool and ship them. Instead of literally just sending the trimmings.  No roots, no nothing, just trimmed and off to my tank.  Super weird to me that companies do that.

[mynameisnobody]

@nabokovfan87 really? I guess we both learned our lesson.  I wanted pots because I wanted to drop them into easy planters. I was still able to do so, but it made a mess. I emailed them, let’s see what they say. It isn’t the end of the world, but it is misleading. 

[lefty o]

sometimes you just have to learn a lesson the hard way. that way you dont forget it!

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/8/2023 at 1:40 PM, mynameisnobody said:

@nabokovfan87 really? I guess we both learned our lesson.  I wanted pots because I wanted to drop them into easy planters. I was still able to do so, but it made a mess. I emailed them, let’s see what they say. It isn’t the end of the world, but it is misleading. 

Mine wasn't even real pots. it was mini ones.  😞

 

[Rube_Goldfish]

"You don't buy the product, you buy the seller."

[mynameisnobody]

@Rube_Goldfish 10000000% 

[Theplatymaster]

the other place (apart from ACO) that i get my plants is my LFS,

its much simpler then online, because i can choose the big plants i want (mostly just anubias from the LFS) and i see what im buying, as appose to online, it can be misleading.

so score 1 to the LFSs.

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/8/2023 at 6:31 PM, Theplatymaster said:

the other place (apart from ACO) that i get my plants is my LFS,

its much simpler then online, because i can choose the big plants i want (mostly just anubias from the LFS) and i see what im buying, as appose to online, it can be misleading.

so score 1 to the LFSs.

Yeah, almost all of my plants (probably about equal amounts, roughly) are from ACO and my LFS. A few are trimmings I've mooched from friends' tanks.

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/8/2023 at 6:40 PM, Rube_Goldfish said:

A few are trimmings I've mooched from friends' tanks.

thats a nice idea,

i should ask my friend for some Val/dwarf sag in his tank, he has plenty:

picture of his tank with the val/dwarf sag.

[Furbs]

I didn’t realize I was supposed to value the pot… I’ve just been bouncing it to new cycle tanks with out a plant 

[anewbie]

On 3/8/2023 at 3:08 PM, mynameisnobody said:

Today I received a plant order from another company. The coop didn’t have these particulars currently in stock so I took the shot. I ordered 4 potted anubias nana. I received 4 nana with the roots wrapped in rock wool, no pot(s) in the whole package. It doesn’t seem like a major catastrophe until I have loose rock wool all over the aquarium. Why advertise something as potted when it’s truly not. Anyways, never again, from now on, all plant orders also go to the coop only.   Live and learn. 

I really don't understand this post; the anubia i order from aquarium-coop are also in rock wool; i suspect most vendors are getting the anubia from the same source. I hate plants in rock wool. I used to have one store i used who grew their own and these did not have rock wool - unfortunately since the pandemic things haven't been the same. When they say pot - they are just these green thing plastic things stuff with rock wool. I prefer my plants to be unpotted in the aquarium and so i have to spend hours - well not literally hours - removing the rock wool from teh last set of anubia i ordered from aquarium-coop. Are you saying that you plant the plants in their green plastic pot with rockwool when you receive them that way ?

[jwcarlson]

I hate rock wool, I cannot fathom how we have arrived at this as a packaging option for plants.  There's got to be something better!

I buy most of my plants from ACO, but had good luck with some Etsy sellers buying cuttings or trimmings.

I actually like the ones with little foam wrappings and weights around them.

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/11/2023 at 7:02 PM, anewbie said:

I really don't understand this post; the anubia i order from aquarium-coop are also in rock wool; i suspect most vendors are getting the anubia from the same source. I hate plants in rock wool. I used to have one store i used who grew their own and these did not have rock wool - unfortunately since the pandemic things haven't been the same. When they say pot - they are just these green thing plastic things stuff with rock wool. I prefer my plants to be unpotted in the aquarium and so i have to spend hours - well not literally hours - removing the rock wool from teh last set of anubia i ordered from aquarium-coop. Are you saying that you plant the plants in their green plastic pot with rockwool when you receive them that way ?

i believe what @mynameisnobodyis saying, is that there was no pot holding the rockwool together, so it fell apart in the tank, the pot is like a giant rubberband that squeezes the rockwool.

[anewbie]

On 3/12/2023 at 11:27 AM, jwcarlson said:

I hate rock wool, I cannot fathom how we have arrived at this as a packaging option for plants.  There's got to be something better!

I buy most of my plants from ACO, but had good luck with some Etsy sellers buying cuttings or trimmings.

I actually like the ones with little foam wrappings and weights around them.

Yea i agree foam is the best bet; usually they use it with cuttings; but a lot of hobbist who sell plants won't include rockwool; i have a list of folks who i 'trust' and buy from them a few times a year when they have stuff for sale. I found it to be a huge mistake to allow rock wool in the tank; long term it is a disaster; and i also found it a pia to remove from the roots (though I think some folks recommend you just cut the roots).

[Brenden Mitchell]

I have only found one seller that is as good as the co-op, it's the same exact price but the selections differ at times, I've never had issues with them or the co-op. So there are others out there, they are just hard to find. I like to buy from smaller sellers a lot, just because I like to support the smallest businesses that I can. 

[Odd Duck]

On 3/11/2023 at 6:02 PM, anewbie said:

so i have to spend hours - well not literally hours - removing the rock wool from teh last set of anubia i ordered

Running water and tweezers are your friend when it comes to removing the rock wool.  Very worn Brown-Adson thumb forceps are my favorite, but not everybody has access to nearly worn out surgical instruments.  😉  Regular tweezers would work just fine, even super cheap ones that don’t meet perfectly.  I often use them in kind of a combing motion along the length of the roots that have bits still sticking to them.

[Odd Duck]

On 3/12/2023 at 11:27 AM, jwcarlson said:

I hate rock wool, I cannot fathom how we have arrived at this as a packaging option for plants.  There's got to be something better!

I buy most of my plants from ACO, but had good luck with some Etsy sellers buying cuttings or trimmings.

I actually like the ones with little foam wrappings and weights around them.

I don’t ever remember a time when plants with roots weren’t shipped in rock wool.  When I was a tween with my first tank, I couldn’t afford to buy the shipped in plants (we collected Val from the river) and didn’t have lights good enough to grow plants, but I saw that was how they were shipped.  I do like the foam wrappings on stem plants but I’ve never seen that on rooted plants, yet.  Have you seen foam on rooted plants?  Seems like that would be even harder to get off the roots without just cutting the roots off where they dive into the foam.  I’ve never found a way to get roots out of foam short of cutting or tearing them loose.

I don’t have any bright ideas on a better material that will hold up to long term water exposure without destroying the roots that grow into it.

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/12/2023 at 4:54 PM, Odd Duck said:

I don’t have any bright ideas on a better material that will hold up to long term water exposure without destroying the roots that grow into it.

That gel stuff isn't great either.  It is what it is....  If plants aren't in pots too long the rock wool isn't too bad.  When they sit in the planted tank for a little bit and grow in, they get pretty gnarly and hard to remove it.  That's when I struggle, when things are grown in and it's a fine rooted plant.

[Odd Duck]

On 3/12/2023 at 11:55 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

That gel stuff isn't great either.  It is what it is....  If plants aren't in pots too long the rock wool isn't too bad.  When they sit in the planted tank for a little bit and grow in, they get pretty gnarly and hard to remove it.  That's when I struggle, when things are grown in and it's a fine rooted plant.

Yep, for sure.  I’ve gotten some plants that I popped the rock wool layers apart and the plant had obviously not had time to grow into it at all.  That’s a nice surprise when it happens.  😆  At least getting gel out of tissue cultures is just about running water.  Sometimes I break out the tweezers for those, but usually more for planting tiny plants than for clearing gel.  😃 

[Lennie]

On 3/12/2023 at 3:02 AM, anewbie said:

I really don't understand this post; the anubia i order from aquarium-coop are also in rock wool; i suspect most vendors are getting the anubia from the same source. I hate plants in rock wool. I used to have one store i used who grew their own and these did not have rock wool - unfortunately since the pandemic things haven't been the same. When they say pot - they are just these green thing plastic things stuff with rock wool. I prefer my plants to be unpotted in the aquarium and so i have to spend hours - well not literally hours - removing the rock wool from teh last set of anubia i ordered from aquarium-coop. Are you saying that you plant the plants in their green plastic pot with rockwool when you receive them that way ?

I had a bad experience with foam too. In one of my crypt order, two of them decided to grow all the roots inside the foam at the opposite direction towards each other.

Literally had to either break all the roots or plant it that way. I cut the foam as much as I can and planted them that way :')

They are doing amazing! But I know there is a piece of foam inside my tank substrate. It is disturbing 😄 I kinda liked wool a bit better, but def agree it can be a mess especially for rhizome ones.

[anewbie]

On 3/13/2023 at 3:09 PM, Lennie said:

I had a bad experience with foam too. In one of my crypt order, two of them decided to grow all the roots inside the foam at the opposite direction towards each other.

Literally had to either break all the roots or plant it that way. I cut the foam as much as I can and planted them that way :')

They are doing amazing! But I know there is a piece of foam inside my tank substrate. It is disturbing 😄 I kinda liked wool a bit better, but def agree it can be a mess especially for rhizome ones.

Generally speaking i'm less concern about crypts than anubia since they grow much faster - anubia can be hyper sensitive. To be  honest the last set of anubia i order from co-op sept 5 2022 - the actual plants under the rock wool was actually two small anubia (you couldn't see it was two plants until you removed the rock wool); i don't hold this against coop since their oem is probably sending it that way; and i had similar issue with another store i won't mentioned but i also won't use that other store again for other reasons again not relevant to this thread. I think the point i was making is as far as i can tell is these stores are using the same oem not checking the actual plants they are selling and we (consumer) are getting the same product. As I mentioned there is one store i know of that was growing their own plants prior to the pandemic but they've been a mess since the pandemic (I'm hopeful they will recover) and of course i've had good luck with hobbists who best of all don't use rock wool at all (of course there was one clown who wrapped his plants in news paper instead of paper towel and if you ever dealt with paper mache you know how that turned out. Hint if you send someone plants use paper towel it works a lot better than newspaper.