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If there is any interest, I thought it would be nice to start a thread for discussing aquatic Utricularia, where we can share our setups, pictures of our plants, etc. I will freely admit that this idea came from RL7836's Orchidioides thread, but there shouldn't be much overlap with that thread, so I hope it is fine. Of course, if you are growing a normally terrestrial species aquatically, it would be great if you posted about that here.

It seems to me that this group of CPs is somewhat underappreciated, even though the usual argument against Utricularia that you can't see their traps is not true for aquatics. Granted, their flowers can't really compare to those of the terrestrials, but at least for the suspended aquatics, you are able to see the plants in their entirety. I mean, for how many carnivorous plants are you able to do that? Also, there doesn't seem to be much information on the web about growing affixed aquatics such Utricularia minor or intermedia, so it would be nice if people growing those could contribute here.

I'll start the thread by adding a few links.

Plants in Situ:
Utricularia poconensis in Brazil
Utricularia warmingii in Brazil
Utricularia reflexa in Zambia
Utricularia volubilis in Australia
Utricularia dichotoma in Australia
Utricularia benjaminiana in French Guyana
Utricularia myriocista in French Guyana
Utricularia viscosa in French Guyana
Utricularia cymbantha in Swaziland
Utricularia gibba and punctata in Thailand

Cultivation:
Flytrapcare thread with growing info
Chris Fieger on cultivation
Barry Rice's FAQ on suspended and affixed species
RSS's Utricularia graminifolia setup
NatchGreyes on growing aquatic Utricularia and Aldrovanda
 
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Here are a few photos of my current Utric graminifolia setup. Its more of a marginal setup than an aquatic one, but the species will easily grow fully aquatic if it wants too.

Overview when I set it up.

DSC_0832 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

Pump drawing water from the false bottom back to the main grow area.

DSC_0834 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

Here is the false bottom.

DSC_0833 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

The original seed section.

DSC_0831 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

Some photos from today, here is the area showing the false bottom again with some aquatic/marginal UG growth.

DSC_0336 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

Some fully aquatic UG growth.

DSC_0337 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

What the main seeded area looks like.

DSC_0338 by randallsimpson, on Flickr

Here is most of the info I've wrote about UG. http://www.terraforums.com/forums/s...nifolia-My-Experiences?highlight=graminifolia
 
Thanks for the contributions! RSS, I've added your UG setup to the cultivation section in the first post. I've recently started growing it myself, and surprisingly it hasn't been as picky as I was told it was.
 
Mine is pretty much the same as Jim's. You can read about it here and here.

Basically, I threw a few handfuls of sphagnum in an aquarium, filled it with water, put in a few aquatic plants (and a small scoop of pond water for the Daphina and other "food"), threw in U. gibba, and have been fortunate to have had other growers send some more aquatics my way. Since I'm in a small apartment in chilly New Hampshire, I can't use a large aquarium or tub that I would place outside, so I use artificial light.

Now that it has warmed up, I'm planning on refreshing the pond water/prey.

I don't grow any terrestrials as aquatics, like RSS, even though I have a few that I could. It's just too much of a hassle to set-up something that would definitely work. (All the aquatics I grow are easy species).
 
Thanks for the contribution NatchGreyes. I've added your links to the first post. I definitely plan to try growing some terrestrials as aquatics when I go home next week.
 
Here are some pictures of my various setups.

This is my oldest setup. It is a 10 gallon fish tank with RO water. I have had it since July of last year. It gets about six hours of light a day from two fluorescent light bulbs. I have Utricularia geminiscapa and Utricularia gibba growing in it. The substrate is laterite on top of an inch of peat moss. There are a few snails inside the tank but no other livestock. The geminiscapa makes bladders on and off, which is something I have seen with other aquatic species too. I'm not sure if it is due to a fall in the prey population or another reason.

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Pictures from five months ago:
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Pictures from a few days ago:
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Here is a temporary tank I made for Utricularia foliosa, Utricularia striata, and Utricularia gibba a month ago. However I stopped using it as it was too small. It was good while it lasted; I had bladders that were 1/4 of an inch on the striata. The substrate was an inch of pure peat moss. When I received the plants, none of them had bladders except for the gibba but they started developing them after a while. It would have been interesting to see if the plants would have stopped producing bladders after a while.

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And here is my post recent endeavor: a plastic tub of Utricularia growing outside. The substrate is two inches of peat moss with RO water. I have moved the foliosa and striata there. Some of it has taken on a reddish color. I have actually had this setup for quite a while and I tried growing macrorhiza in there first, but it died after I left the lid on to prevent evaporation. I've taken it off now so I will need to replenish the water fairly often.

The macrorhiza while it was still alive:

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The tub currently:

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cool tub Tanukimo! I really like your photos, thanks for sharing such awesomeness xD
 
cool tub Tanukimo! I really like your photos, thanks for sharing such awesomeness xD

Thanks Salgadoxx8! I hope the Utricularia have more room to spread out in there, and I'll post the updates here.
 
  • #10
Here is my setup for Utricularia graminifolia. I don't have a lot, so I'm just using a plastic lunch box with peat at the bottom for it, but I hope to grow enough to sell or trade in the future. It is in about an inch of water with an inch of peat moss underneath.

Here is what it looked like when I first got it:
DSC_0403_1.jpg


I bought it from an aquarium shop in San Francisco so it was already growing submersed. An employee told me that it needed high light and CO2 injection but I didn't have it, so I didn't expect it to do so well. I grew it on an east-facing windowsill for a month and eventually it grew like this:
DSC_0507_1.jpg


I have heard that the spindly growth is due to lack of nutrients but I'm not sure how to provide more short of introducing water with microorganisms into the container, which I plan to try soon. In the aquarium trade people usually use substrate with more nutrients for Utricularia graminifolia so it is nice to see the plant do fine without it.

And here is a picture of the setup a few days ago (sorry for the bad picture quality):
DSC_0516_1.jpg


I have gibba tangled with it and it has really exploded in growth, producing large bladders and growing very quickly. The graminifolia is slowly spreading, and I hope it grows to fill the container.
 
  • #11
Took a few pictures of Utricularia bremii this morning.

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This month marks my first year of successfully growing this species. Some of the plants are already starting to produce turions.
 
  • #12
Do you all have any tips on keeping algal growth down?
 
  • #13
Do you all have any tips on keeping algal growth down?

Not really. I remove algae from the tub above manually. Keeping companion plants like duckweed or water hyacinth can help, but make sure you remove dying plant matter before algae has a chance to settle on it. Some species are definitely pickier about algae than others.
 
  • #14
I use snail to control the algae grow on the Utrics and other companion plant surface. They did a very good job.
 
  • #15
I use snail to control the algae grow on the Utrics and other companion plant surface. They did a very good job.

Tanukimo, do you have big pic of U bremii? It seems the one i keep is not similar to the one you show here.
 
  • #16
Ok, the following Australian species are happy as affixed aquatics and when I am at my greenhouse this weekend I will take a few pics. Uliginosa (some varieties more so than others thrive at a depth of 30-40cm and in the wild 2M is no shock), Bifida, Limosa, Dichotoma, Nivea (only to 5cm before flowering ceases), Monanthos, Geofrayii (as per nivea at 5cm) and Caerula.
These are all ones I have growing as permanent affixed aquatics, but I have seen a few more wild plants (like chrysantha) in depths of 20-30cm for months on end and happy with flowers, though my chrysantha will not grow in more than 3-4cm before they start to die off a couple months in, so there must be a trick to it.
 
  • #17
I use snail to control the algae grow on the Utrics and other companion plant surface. They did a very good job.
Tanukimo, do you have big pic of U bremii? It seems the one i keep is not similar to the one you show here.

Utricularia bremii is not a large plant (for me) so I don't have any large pictures of it. However, the person I got it from has some that looks like Utricularia intermedia so it might look different in different conditions. I don't have any more recent pictures but here are some more photos.

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Ok, the following Australian species are happy as affixed aquatics and when I am at my greenhouse this weekend I will take a few pics. Uliginosa (some varieties more so than others thrive at a depth of 30-40cm and in the wild 2M is no shock), Bifida, Limosa, Dichotoma, Nivea (only to 5cm before flowering ceases), Monanthos, Geofrayii (as per nivea at 5cm) and Caerula.
These are all ones I have growing as permanent affixed aquatics, but I have seen a few more wild plants (like chrysantha) in depths of 20-30cm for months on end and happy with flowers, though my chrysantha will not grow in more than 3-4cm before they start to die off a couple months in, so there must be a trick to it.

Wow, you have several species I could only dream of acquiring. I grow some of my bifida as an affixed aquatic, and it flowered a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how it got into the container, which was originally for biloba but it seems very vigorous. I thought it was graminifolia until it flowered.

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  • #18
Good sun this morning. Try to take some pic for my U bremii.



 
  • #19
As cold weather is coming, my U. bremii is forming turions.



Do I need to do anything for them? They just detach and float around in my water tank.
 
  • #20
No, I just leave mine in the container and they come back just fine.
 
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