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Eusteralis s.
OK,
Several people have mentioned a dearth of and all around lack of availability
concerning the rather fussy plant known as Eusteralis stellata. I've never
seen it available commercially (except in Oriental's catalogue) and a lot of
people apparently have trouble with it. Tom Barr mentioned to me that he felt
this could be one of the few true "soft water plants".
It is a pretty thing, especially under high light and CO2 where mine develop
yellowish orange leaves shaded with violet and pink. In lower light, non-CO2
tanks they are rather more subdued and green.
I got mine originally from Chuck Gadd a year or so ago, when he sent me about
8 stems which arrived in pretty bad shape. I have a strong feeling that this
is a plant which doesn't ship well - with a tendency to defoliate and the
stems to turn mushy rather easily.
I planted the ones Chuck sent me in a 75 gal with 220 watts of CF, Fluorite
substrate and DH3, GH 8, pH 6.5 - 7.0 tank water. Once they recovered a bit
and began to put out new leaves I put Jobe's Palm and Fern spikes under them
and once they grabbed hold of those they became a weed. Took over half the
tank.
I am experimenting with emerged growth on this plant but it's too soon to
tell anything at this point. I hope to propagate it faster this way
vegitativly and to eventually flower it and get some seeds to plant. I also
wish to know how easily it goes back to emerged conditions.
I have also started leaving the mid stem sections (that I normally discard
when replanting the tops) in the tank to float in an attempt to get some
roots going. I assume if the stems have a root system developed that they
will ship, transplant and recover much easier. Maybe they'll side shoot like
up like Hygro but again, too soon to tell on this one.
In order to get a steady supply of Eusteralis s. going, I'm going to try
cooking up a big tank of it outside, in the sun, injected with CO2, where
hopefully the growth will be the fastest (along with green water and algae).
Love them UV sterilizes!
Once I get a mess of them going, I'll pass them out...
Bob Olesen
West Palm Beach