Giant Overgrown Swordplants

[jgarden2000 at juno_com]

> >Tank height is 22", so with about 3" of gravel & 1"
> >space between water surface & PC, it means the sword
> >leaves grew 18" tall (well mostly the stem).  What do
> >people do to avoid this?  It'll be kind of silly to
> >put weights down to force the leaves to shoot
> >sideways, wouldn't it? :P
> 
> Yeah, weights would look a bit strange ;-)
> 
> I think you have several possibilities:
> 
> 1 - Switch to an open-top tank and a suspended hood. This is really
neat, 
> my personal favorite, and what I'm slowing building toward with a
future 
> big tank setup. Your plants can grow out of the water as the naturally 
> would, and you have the nifty ability to "look down" into your tank.

One variation of this that I've always wanted to try would be to get one
of those little 1-gallon open-top "cubes" (or maybe a small goldfish
bowl)
and put one sword in the middle of it, and let it grow up and out until
it's bigger than the tank itself. :-) Then I'd have some white cloud
minnows
or something swimming in the teensy tank around the base. Maybe some
dwarf
Cryptocorynes along the bottom (or pygmy chain swords to match
(taxonomically
speaking) the big sword?).

Well, *I* think that it would be nicer than those peace lilies they're
selling
with the lonely betta swimming around its bare roots. Those just don't
look
right to me. But, to each his own. ;-)

William
(I actually remembered to manually add hard returns to this message for
those of you who read messages through the archives.)

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