[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Banana plant substrate
People seem to generally agree that all of the lilly pad plants (Genus
Nymphaea and Nymphoides?) do best in a rich medium (right?), probably
because they grow in nature in a rich anaerobic muck (?? -- that's where
they grow around here, anyway.) My banana plant is thriving in a 75-78
degree tank, KH 2, CO2 injection to pH 6.5 - 6.8. 3 wpg. It's in
Flourite, and the tank gets a drop or 2 of Flourish every day, plus
Flourish Iron as needed to keep the new Anubias coffeeifolia leaves from
being yellow. (Seachem should put me on their payroll.) I had some
holes in the banana leaves a while back (I posted about this, but got no
suggestions), and I *think* K supplementation helped that (about 5-10
ppm), but I'm not sure. The hole problem went away when I added the
KCl, anyway.
When I first got it, this plant was LANGUISHED for months under these
exact conditions -- to the point where I was thinking of chucking it and
it's pathetic little leaves -- then I put a Sera Florina fertilizer tab
(just trace -- no N, P, or K) under it, and it TOOK OFF! When I
transplanted it to the other side of the tank a few weeks ago (see the
Tank Aesthetics thread -- Visual Balance!), I didn't add any fertilizer,
but it's still going strong. (Maybe it has a good store of nutrients in
the bananas now :) When I pulled it up, it had a one robust root that
was a foot long. (Plants really do seem to root well in Flourite unless
they have very fine roots, like "Pygmy Chain Sword" (Eleocharis?)) When
I get done with my current rip-up/re-do project, I want to try putting a
piece of Jobe's stake under the banana as G. Kadar was talking about
here a while back. (I don't want to disturb the substrate once I have
"real" fertilizer in there.
I have a lot of pretty plants, but what people seem to like more than
anything else is the fact that I have lilly pads floating at the top of
the tank. Maybe this is another tank aesthetics thing: Looking at lilly
pads from *underneath* really gives you the feeling of having a
different perspective, of being underwater. And those bananas sticking
out of the substrate look pretty cool too.