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Utricularia graminifolia - My Experiences

First post here and thought I'd relay my experiences with this little one. I recieved my 1st few leaves of this plant about 6 months ago, it was a pitiful plant I ordered from a CP nursery (will remain nameless), sent bare root in a small amount of water. Really tiny for the price, about 1 days growth in my main tank. Really sad.

Anyway I split it into 3 1" runners and planted one part underwater, one part on the water line, and 1 part in a vivarium. To my surprise they all grew very well, even with the 3 different levels of lighting. Since this initial split I have grown this stuff in everything from rockwool, mud, gravel, clay pellets, moist driftwood, ADA aquasoil, sphagnum moss, other mosses, rocks, on top of other plants, on plastic (99% humidity tank, its growing on some worm feeders), on top of airline tubes, glass (its growing on the side of the glass in a 99% humidity tank, on the side nothing holding it there) and probably a few more things I've forgotten about. It has grown in every medium just fine under alot of different lighting levels. I have some growing under a single 14W compact flourscent, all the way up to some growing under 4 T5HO bulbs and lots of levels between.

Some random thoughts,

I've also noticed this plant is more green in color under higher light and more green/yellow under lower light.

If your trying to get that underwater lawn effect you HAVE to keep the plant from growing into the water column, when you see roots plant them quick! Or all is lost, and you get a nice messy lawn with roots.

It seems to grow best on the water line.

It seems to take a few weeks to start growing again after being moving/repotted.

Rockwool or moist driftwood seem to work best for me.

Leaf size is variable from growing area to growing area, its either the humidity or the light levels that are doing it, I can't quite narrow it down yet. I'm voting light. Anyway some plants have .5" leaves some have 1.5" leaves and everywhere in-between. I started with only 1 plant, so they are all from the original division.

Still waiting on flowers!

And I blame this plant for the other 5 Utricularia I'm now growing :-)). Still looking for more!
 
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Welcome to Terraforums! Finally, a new member who loves utrics!

Those are very interesting medias you use; I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using driftwood...

I'd be willing to trade some stuff with you. If you want you can check out my growlist.
 
Wanna see flowers?

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Jefforever,

I'll try and explain some of the odd mediums, my main growing area for this stuff is a 18" cube paludarium. There is one very large piece of driftwood in there, it creates a little .25"-.5" deep pool of water from a pump feed waterfall. I put a few strands of graminifolia in there as a test and it was covered the entire area approx 4" X 6", a very nice green mat. So this got me thinking about growing it on driftwood, since driftwood wicks very nicely. I'm also growing a few cephalotus on the same piece of driftwood, and they look really nice there, still a little small but they are actively growing. They are hanging on a ledge, it looks very natural. I need to figure out how to post picture here.

Back to the story, I fill this tank up completely with water about every 3-4 weeks. That plus the pruning (I'm trying to keep it out of the water and just on the emersed part of the driftwood), lets some of the cutting scraps get to other (sometimes odd) places. Like right now there is a little clump (4-5 leaves) growing on the end of an orchid root hanging in the middle of the tank.

A trade would be great, I'll send a PM later this morning about it.

Jimscott,

I can't wait for flowers, any suggestions for getting these to spike? Mine are growing inside so they don't see too much of a temperature change, the fish would have an issue with that.

Oh one last odd thing, the killifish LOVE spawning in the graminifolia......its really weird. There is moss in the tank also but they ignore the moss and head straight for the graminifolia when every the water level lets them up there.
 
What killies do you have? My favorite to look at were Aphyosemion. We have few here that are into killies / panchax.

Mine are also indoors, mostly window sill light but also correlating with flowering was artificial lighting. Other than that, a high water table.
 
The killies are spotless orange Aphyosemion australe's, 2 males/5 females in there. Really easy fish to keep/breed.
 
Got any pictures of those beauties? I currently have a colony of Endlers amongst the pots of Utricularia.
 
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The killies are spotless orange Aphyosemion australe's, 2 males/5 females in there. Really easy fish to keep/breed.

Do you have U. longifolia yet? That is my only utric which I have a lot of at the moment. Love to trade.

Interesting media indeed for U. graminifolia. My U. graminifolia is not looking too good at the moment dried out during the week. :(
 
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Jimscott,

Sorry haven't gotten around to taking pictures of the killi's, its on my list but my list is getting longer not shorter....

CPBlake,

I've been avoiding U. longifolia due to its potential size, I grow under lights and the possibility of 30 cm leaves is scary. Send me a PM I'm sure we can work something out.
 
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  • #10
Killifish like spawning in it?
I've had great success with java moss, dense najas grass, and alike plants for spawning media. But I will have to give Utricularias a try.
 
  • #11
Got any pictures of those beauties? I currently have a colony of Endlers amongst the pots of Utricularia.

Here are a few pictures from the water change earlier today, not a good picture of the killi's but it does show off this odd spawning behavoir. They get up there with even less water, but by the time the camera and stuff was set up the water level was higher and I'm lazy :-)).

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  • #12
Cute little panchaxes!
 
  • #13
Great post thanks for sharing the observations! Driftwood, you say! Never tried that but will give it a shot with U. sandersonii in my terrarium. Your plants look great! I always had difficulty with this one but maybe it was my deodorant....no, wait, I don't use a deodorant.....
 
  • #14
As an aquarium plant? That is really cool.

Is that a small turtle I see in those pictures?!
 
  • #15
This patch is growing just under the waterline, we have some in other tanks growing as grown cover. The other one is a Malaysian needle snail, they like to clean the leaves or whatever you want to call Utric green pieces :-)). Since they are not really leaves.
 
  • #16
I coined the words rolons and stolons for the below and above photodynthetic stolons ("R" for roots and "L" for leaves, makes it easier to converse and still remain botanically semi-proper. So, have Taylor sue me if objects, lol!
 
  • #17
IDK.... I see roots & leaves, in spite of man-made definitions.
 
  • #18
Today the wife took a picture of that area so I thought I'd share it. Notice its taking over the orchids to the right. Bad Plant :censor:.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38338419@N00/3160238947/" title="Graminifolia Waterfall by Smeag, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3075/3160238947_36759c2996_b.jpg" width="1024" height="685" alt="Graminifolia Waterfall" /></a>
 
  • #19
thats incredibly beautiful i would like to live in there. it looks so peaceful and calm. but if i was that small, i'd probaby die from one of those cps :-))
 
  • #20
Just add bleu cheese!
 
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