New Plant Tips?

[JaredL]

I just ordered a Brazilian Pennywort and Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus for background in 29gal. Any tips on planting or propagation? Should I be separating stems before planting? 

Edit: Ordered from Aquarium Co-op of course

Edited February 24, 2021 by JaredL

[ElTigre]

    Haha funny enough i ordered both from the co op too. Haven't gotten them yet but in my experience with stem plants its best to plant them all together when you first get them. Once they are established and growing i clip them and replant the clipping in the substrate. Also when i newly get plants i like to put root tab(from the co op of course) under each new plant. 

[Andy's Fish Den]

What I would do is, leave them in the pot, maybe shove a root tab down in the middle by the roots. Put them in your tank and leave for a couple of weeks, let them convert to submersed growth if need be and get used to your water parameters, lighting etc. After a couple weeks and you see some nice new growth, take the pot out, pull the plant out of rock wool and plant individually then. You may also be able to cut the stems and make new plants as well, depending upon how tall they are then. 

[Jungle Fan]

I never leave any of my plants in the pot it came with. I always take them out of the pot, I use a small plastic basin filled with fresh tap water with some Prime and remove every last bit of rock wool with a plastic fork, then I give the plant a quick rinse under the faucet, cut the fine growth of the roots off and place the plant in another small basin with water and Prime until I'm ready to plant. In some cases, like with crypts I generally divide  the plant up into smaller plantlets which actually encourages growth as well.

The reason I always remove the plants from the pot, and completely remove the rock wool is that over the years I've learnt that growers, especially in Asia not only add plenty of fertilizer to the rock wool to make sure their plants are healthy and green by having lots of nutrients, but they tend to add plenty of pesticide as well to ensure their merchandise doesn't get damaged.

Even if you know the seller is ultra careful not to buy from growers that use pesticide, sometimes there is a change in distributors, or a change in growers, and the new guy might not be truthful about their practices. In any case better to stick with a proven results routine than to be sorry for having caused damage to fish and invertebrates by neglecting a process that adds only marginally more effort. I've done this for years now but I learnt this the hard way quite a few years ago and it wasn't cheap, and so avoidable.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Jungle Fan