Re: [APD] Nymphoides question

["Robert T. Ricketts" <rtricketts at verizon_net>]

I have grown the standard hobby banana plant indoors under lights routinely,
without any significant issues under 2 ea. 40W NO broad spectrum tubes 12
hours per 24 with sufficient floating pads to cover fully a 40-long tank,
with adventitious pups forming in the axils where the petiole joins the pad.
Those adventitious plans will float free as the pad ages and disintegrates,
or it can be snipped off after some roots show below the aging pad, and old
pad pinned to a pot or tray propped up at the water surface.  The pot can be
lowered as the plant develops until it rests on the bottom of the tank.
Only some will start planted directly in the tank substrate for me - most do
not.  The potting method is sure-fire for me.  If substrate planted
directly, I have to raise the water level slowly to get the plant foliage to
the surface, and only rarely get mature flowers from the mother plant, but
the undersides of the floating pads are gorgeous - I have used these in the
top tier of my tank room racks just for looks.  Outdoors in sun you get lots
of mature flowers, and pups on mature pads, even in sunken tubs in the
ground with water lily potting medium (enriched clay).

Either enriched substrate or an oldish and mulm-loaded one is needed in
tanks for me.  Really easy, and Anabantids love to breed under the pads.  I
would suspect porthole catfish would respond well to these pad as 
spawning sites also.

The only other one I have grown outdoors is the snowflake-flowered one.
That is grown in smallish pots in water lily substrate in lily pools.  I
have also done that one in sunken tubs with the same handling as the
standard banana plant.  

RTR
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