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‘ello all! Just for future reference…what are some good plants for the paro tank? I know java moss, bladderworts, and especially ceratopteris sp do well in such tanks, but…what about java fern and bucephelandra? Any others I missed?
java fern and bucephelandra work well. My first java ferns were very small plants buried in the java moss. As they got larger I pulled them out of the moss and they continued to grow. The growth is very slow however. I have come to love the bucephelandra species over the past year. But it is very expensive to purchase. I know of at least one individual here in Florida that is attempting to grow a number of the species on resale basis. As hobbyists begin to successfully cultivate the plants in this country the price will come down. Currently virtually all the plants are being shipped from Borneo.
Thank you! By the way…do you think that there are any substrate-dependant plants that could work in the paro tank? I thought that plant-bolstering substrates were not compatible with paro keeping…however, then I discovered the tonina style planted tank, which similarly requires acidic, very low TDS conditions :). While Tonina itself would likely be a bad paro plant (it needs very bright lights and strong circulation…it comes from the shallows of blackwater rivers in the wild…would need a large tank so that it could be brightly lit on one end and the paros could take refuge in the other when they wanted to get out of the spotlight 🙂 ), are there any other substrate loving plants that would do well if I could find a substrate that would not play havoc on the TDS/PH? (Funny enough, even some forms of a car product called safetsorb would work…it reportedly absorbs nutrients from the water well, barely affects TDS, and is infamous for ‘eating’ KH and GH in aquariums, thus causing PH crashes in normal planted tanks). I was thinking barclaya would be a good candidate, as they naturally come from blackwater environments and are not nearly as demanding as regards lighting.
So you should have you new Paros by now or perhaps tomorrow. Your tank is setup and ready to be their new home. You have read a lot of information on maintaining and breeding these species. My advice is to keep it simple. Do not get carried away with experiments. Use what you have learned. Get them to survive and grow and eventually reproduce. Down the road you can try other things. Good luck, home the shipment comes in without any issues.
BTW, I super glue my bucephelandra species to small pieces of driftwood and let them settle in the bottom of the tank. They seem to grow but the growth is slow … sometimes very slow. I get excited when I see a new leaf come out.
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