Plant ID

[Ben P.]

Can anyone identify what kind of plants these are? Plants were on sale at Petco.  Couldn't pass them up

[Odd Duck]

Anubias genus for sure, but species I can’t tell without some scale to compare.  Barteri and nana and petite all look very similar but are different sizes.  You could even have barteri ‘Broad Leaf’ there.  There are others that are similar but less common.  Makes it very hard to guess to the species level and that;s not even considering the varieties within species like ‘Broad Leaf’.

[Ben P.]

@Odd Duck I don't know if this helps but they are approximately 5 inches tall and the leaves are approximately 1-1.5 inches in diameter.  As long as they are some variety of anubias that's good news for me because they are all low light plants correct?

[nabokovfan87]

I'm going to guess it's a "coin" type given the leaf shape.   The common one is Anubias Barteri Round/coin.

Edited September 28, 2023 by nabokovfan87
scale down image

[Odd Duck]

On 9/27/2023 at 9:24 PM, Ben P. said:

@Odd Duck I don't know if this helps but they are approximately 5 inches tall and the leaves are approximately 1-1.5 inches in diameter.  As long as they are some variety of anubias that's good news for me because they are all low light plants correct?

Yes, low light plants, but not no light plants, of course.  Do best with decent water flow to reduce algae settling on the leaves.  They don’t like their rhizome (horizontal, thick, green stem) buried but roots (below the rhizome) can be buried and they will often dig their own roots into substrate if they can reach it.  They should be glued or tied onto rocks or wood.  I think they seem to like wood a bit better since they can anchor into it and gather some nutrients.  They do not need to have roots in substrate if there are nutrients available in the water column.

@nabokovfan87 has a really good guess on the ‘Round’ AKA ‘Coin’ variety of Anubias barteri, but with potentially young plants we won’t know their normal leaf size for up to a year.  They may very well be at normal, mature leaf size now, but it’s not possible to be certain if those are full size leaves when you first get the plant and haven’t seen new growth yet.

I can’t tell where the rhizome is in your pots or the substrate in the pots.  If it’s rock wool, they can potentially stay in there for a while, but I think they do better with more rhizome exposure.  If the plants are in about anything but rock wool, they need to be pulled out and the rhizomes cleaned off so they have water flow around the rhyzomes.

If those were my plants, I would get them out of the pots and remove all material from around the roots and rhizome, then find a couple nice rough rocks (lava rocks work well) or wood that is either already saturated and sinks, or is fastened down to rock/slate of some kind so it’s submerged.  Or even attach them to whatever decoration you like.  Then I would glue the rhizomes to the wood using 2-3 very small dots of super glue gel for each, draping the roots to the side or spreading them across the rocks/wood whichever lets the rhizome sit snug against the anchor piece.  Try to get the rhizome to lay against the anchor without pressure or flexing since if there’s tension, it will tend to pull away.  I try to fit the curve or straight of the rhizome against a matching area on the anchor.  That way it will have the best hold with only a few small specks of glue until the plant can grow some roots into the texture of the anchor piece.

The pieces don’t need to be dry to glue them.  The super glue sets faster when wet but it also sets white when wet.  If you want the glue to be clear, then use the anchor dry and pat as much water of the rhizome as you can to glue up.  Once set, the glue shouldn’t change color.  If you use very small dots of glue, then it’s covered by the rhizome and roots and it doesn’t matter what color it is.  I tend to work wet using small dots, but I’ve had a good bit of practice.  I like the glue to as set fast as possible but you should work however you’re most comfortable.  You can also tie plants down with cotton string, but I’ve had snails snip my strings before and I worry about string foreign bodies in the fish, so I glue.

Good luck and share pics when you decide what to do with them.  We like pics around here.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Odd Duck
Typo

[Ben P.]

@Odd Duck this is my first attempt at trying to "scape" a tank.  The blue dream shrimp and pseudomugil luminatis are ordered and on the way!

[Odd Duck]

Looks good!  You might want to add other plants for both shrimp and the luminatis.  They both like to have cover to duck into when needed.

[Ben P.]

@Odd Duck I gotta walk before I run, I'm not much of a plant person so I don't want to put a ton of money into plants before I see if these don't die.  One of them is a "ludwigia"? Looked them up online, sounds like they die pretty easy

[Odd Duck]

On 9/30/2023 at 9:18 PM, Ben P. said:

@Odd Duck I gotta walk before I run, I'm not much of a plant person so I don't want to put a ton of money into plants before I see if these don't die.  One of them is a "ludwigia"? Looked them up online, sounds like they die pretty easy

The best results and least algae issues tend to happen when a tank is started fairly crowded with plants that are soaking up the nutrients before the algae can get going.  Trying to keep a few plants happy without algae is much more difficult.  As far as stem plants, I’m totally the wrong person to ask.  I’m stem challenged unless it’s pearlweed.  😆  

Edited October 3, 2023 by Odd Duck
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[Ben P.]

@Odd Duck I also don't want to go too crazy with plants because I want to collect eggs from them and my fear is that if I overly plant it that the fish won't be inclined to use the mop.  I'm assuming they breed just like boesemani and Australian rainbows that I've had good luck with in the past.  I do think I want to get some Java moss on the wood as well though 

[Odd Duck]

Java moss can sometimes grow quite fast (for a moss) so be aware you may need to trim it pretty regularly.  It can be a nice addition, though, plus providing cover for shrimp, especially.

If your goal is breeding the luminatis then you won’t want many other plants, just the spawning mops would be my guess.  I had to google to get any ideas on breeding them but your set up makes perfect sense from the breeding reports.