mandag den 28. januar 2013

Aquarium plants in weird places: Ceratopteris thalictroides (water sprite) emersed

Hello all,
In one of my fish tanks I have an excellent 'corner filter' filtersystem. It works by having a large piece of foam where all the water is pulled through by a small powerhead. Works excellently, only needs cleaning once or twice a year, and can be camouflaged to disappear within the plants. It is in the right corner of the large image on the top of the page. Very nice filter (and quite cheap as well - I got mine from Unimati in Denmark).


Well, one of the interesting aspects of this filter is that it is raised a few centimeters above the water level. This means that there is a great place to grow emersed aquarium plantes, within the aquarium. And one day, when it was time to do some maintenance this plant had appeared:


It took me some time to identify it, especially so beacuse it looks different being emersed, than the normal specimens which are submersed. But it turns out it is a Ceratopteris thalictroides. A plant I do not otherwise have in the tank, so where it came from is a mystery :-).

Planted Tank states that it should be sued floating, but also that when it is grown emersed it will become quite sturdy: When grown emersed it will becomes sturdy with thicker stems and leaves. Growing submerged it adapt and turn into limp and softer plant. Water Sprite can be kept planted or left floating. Propagate by sending out axial shoots, forming tiny plantlets which eventually develop roots and floats away. Some sudden stress will encourage the plant propagate vigorously.
Which is also what I found to be the case. It appeared to love the intense heat and light levels just beneath the lamps.

Nice plant though, and when it grew enough to interfere with the light I planted it in one of the smaller tanks.

All the best,
Kasper

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