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- #21
I got mine from Buceplant, it came in looking amazing when I got it, looked exactly like the picture.
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Skeleton King Bucephelandra
- Thread starter Mr.Shenanagins
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The one in tap water is beginning to struggle; the one in blackwater and emersed are still doing fine.
This is the three plants - the one in tap water is difficult to picture due to location in the 10 but 2 of the 4 leaves are being eaten by the plant (i think) or otherwise decaying. There was one new leaf but growth hasn't been much (tap is kh 3 gh 6 ph ~7):
The one in blackwater (gh 0 kh 0 ec around 40 so a little higher than true blackwater) is doing a bit better with no leaves decaying and the plant looking pretty healthy but growth is of course slow:
The one growing emersed isn't growing any faster than the one in blackwater but it looks healthy has a new leaf on the way and is also growing new roots higher up on the rhizome:
The first two are in inert but different substrate; the third is in sand with topsoil under neath. What is confusing me about the submersed plant and buce in general is when they grow submersed leaves or if they can transition existing leaves to submersed form. If they actually grow new submersed leaves i imagine it takes 6 to 18 months to fully transition given how slow they grow.
Anyway clearly the one in tap water (neutral) is struggling relative to the other two. Of course at this point it has only been ~9 weeks so hardly enough time to see how things will fully unfold.
The one in blackwater (gh 0 kh 0 ec around 40 so a little higher than true blackwater) is doing a bit better with no leaves decaying and the plant looking pretty healthy but growth is of course slow:
The one growing emersed isn't growing any faster than the one in blackwater but it looks healthy has a new leaf on the way and is also growing new roots higher up on the rhizome:
The first two are in inert but different substrate; the third is in sand with topsoil under neath. What is confusing me about the submersed plant and buce in general is when they grow submersed leaves or if they can transition existing leaves to submersed form. If they actually grow new submersed leaves i imagine it takes 6 to 18 months to fully transition given how slow they grow.
Anyway clearly the one in tap water (neutral) is struggling relative to the other two. Of course at this point it has only been ~9 weeks so hardly enough time to see how things will fully unfold.
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Here is an updated picture of the one in tap water and you can see it continues to deteriorate. The ones in blackwater and emersed are materially unchanged.
This should be my final update unless something truly odd happens:
The one in tap water has now lost all leaves; and i'm pretty sure it will not grow new ones:
Like wise about a month after the freshwater the one in blackwater dropped all leaves and after i took the picture when i was feeling the rhizome it was hard and brittle and broke - i suppose something at the bottom could still sprout but i doubt it:
The one i'm growing emersed continues to grow and has new leaves - a heavy piece of cork fell on it and broke hte bottom the rhizome but it put out new roots above the break and i didn't bother to photo it since it is leaning over at the break but continues to grow. One day i'll trim the break and it will stand upright once more (the cork in question was on the glass behind the plant and after 2 years it rotted and separated from the glass).
So what i did not test is growing these with very right soil; or hard water conditions or with co2 but clearly they did not enjoy an emersed life that other buces are growing in (i have some nice ones i picked up from indonesia in the same aquarium that are growing).
The one in tap water has now lost all leaves; and i'm pretty sure it will not grow new ones:
Like wise about a month after the freshwater the one in blackwater dropped all leaves and after i took the picture when i was feeling the rhizome it was hard and brittle and broke - i suppose something at the bottom could still sprout but i doubt it:
The one i'm growing emersed continues to grow and has new leaves - a heavy piece of cork fell on it and broke hte bottom the rhizome but it put out new roots above the break and i didn't bother to photo it since it is leaning over at the break but continues to grow. One day i'll trim the break and it will stand upright once more (the cork in question was on the glass behind the plant and after 2 years it rotted and separated from the glass).
So what i did not test is growing these with very right soil; or hard water conditions or with co2 but clearly they did not enjoy an emersed life that other buces are growing in (i have some nice ones i picked up from indonesia in the same aquarium that are growing).
Looks so good, If only it didn't seem to have a 90% chance of melting when grown submerged. Thank you for this thread, it likely saved me from a very expensive failed experiment.
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- #27
You’re welcome, and it did “survive” but not thrive. Definitely not meant to be submersed long term.
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