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High Flow Plants


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#1 Michael Wolfe

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Posted 25 February 2007 - 08:23 PM

I am successfully keeping live plants in several of my tanks. However, I have a couple of tanks that have shiners and/or darters in them and therefore have a rather higher flow rate (via powerheads). WHile the fish love it... some of the plants seem to not... for example, the val and the java fern both seem to be doing rather poorly. They seem to just be beaten to death.

Are there any plants that will do better in high flow tanks? Any that we can find at the LFS?
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#2 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 25 February 2007 - 09:35 PM

I find two species on very fast shoals throughout rivers in the Tennessee River drainage. I've tried riverweed (Podastomum ceratophyllum) covered rocks before in my tank. The fish absolutely love it because its full of inverts. It never grows well and dies off in a week or two. Whenever I find it in the wild it is in direct intense sunlight and I'm guessing that is why it is such a poor aquarium plant. Another thing I find alot is water starcress. It grows in LONG flowing beds alotlike a Val. species and really locks into sand substrates. I had some decent success with this by just pulling a chunk out from the river substrate and all.

#3 Guest_killier_*

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Posted 25 February 2007 - 09:40 PM

I find two species on very fast shoals throughout rivers in the Tennessee River drainage. I've tried riverweed (Podastomum ceratophyllum) covered rocks before in my tank. The fish absolutely love it because its full of inverts. It never grows well and dies off in a week or two. Whenever I find it in the wild it is in direct intense sunlight and I'm guessing that is why it is such a poor aquarium plant. Another thing I find alot is water starcress. It grows in LONG flowing beds alotlike a Val. species and really locks into sand substrates. I had some decent success with this by just pulling a chunk out from the river substrate and all.

I use alage but I have a small amount of java moss that does great
andis growing well

#4 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 09:04 AM

This is an example of the water stargrass (Heteranthera dubia) growing in dense stands in the French Broad River outside of Knoxville. Flow here is about 0.75 m/second but ranged from 0.25-1+ where itwas found.

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#5 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 12:33 PM

This is an example of the water stargrass (Heteranthera dubia) growing in dense stands in the French Broad River outside of Knoxville. Flow here is about 0.75 m/second but ranged from 0.25-1+ where itwas found.


Hmmm... sorry... that's not Heteranthera dubia, which is a stem plant. From the photo, it looks more like Sagittaria graminea to me (it it isn't Vallisneria), which can look a lot like Vallisneria in submerged, gently flowing water. The two can grow together in dense stands in rivers, though.

The only plant I can think of at the moment for really high flow water is Podastomum, like Matt said. But I've never been able to grow it in captivity either. It does need very very high light, but also very very cold water. but otherwise for gentle flow (can look pretty fierce in aquaria) I would try Vallisneria, the Sagittaria graminea (never seen it for sale), the Heteranthera, and probably some others I can't think of on a Monday morning. Bacopa caroliniana usually grows in swampy areas, but I've found it does well in flowing aquaria as its stem is a bit stouter than some others. Echinodorus tenellus will also do very well, but it is a shorter plant (about 3 to 8 inches in captivity). There are also some other shorter Sagittarias that would do very well such as (S. stagnorum) since they won't get tossed around as much. What you might like to try is finding a river or creek that is crossed by a powerline easement. Here there is good light, and the water flow is pretty good. Access is usually easy, too.

#6 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 01:13 PM

Hmmm indeed....because TVA ID's it as that in all their reports call it and what everyone else here seems to call it water stargrass. I thought it was a Val when I origionally saw it. It has 'runners' everywhere and when you pull it up it is just a mass of roots like a well fertilized lawn. When I looked at the rest of the plant though especially around the stem area, which it has, I didn't think it was a Val species anymore. I attached another picture. I don't have any from when it was in my tank but it definately was a stemmed plant and not growing like a string of Vals would. If I remeber correctly, multiple blades came off one stem. It really never was in gentle water either.

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#7 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 01:28 PM

By whatever name, I recognize the "stargrass" from a local stream, Mountain Fork of the Flint River here in Madison County, AL. It produces small flowers with four yellow petals when flow volume drops in June; does that narrow down the ID? I admit to being terrible at aquatic plant IDs...

#8 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 02:20 PM

Well here is a picture of that flower (4 petals) Bruce is describing. This is a mat when flow is at its lowest in the summer and the tops become partially emergent, just like Bruce just said. Sorry for the large file sizes but that is reduced the best I can do on my crappy university computer.

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#9 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 02:28 PM

Perhaps it's just be the angle at which the first two photos show the plants - I couldn't see any stems. I can see a number of them in the last photo. Sorry for the confusion. I'm having a hard time thinking in general today (drove to Boston and back with a trailer in 2 days this weekend and carried heavy boxes down 3 flights of stairs...I'm a little worn out today).

#10 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 03:07 PM

The stems were typically burried by substrate, like in the first two pictures. The hydroregulation of that river is pretty dynamic, hence the near zero silt in the pictures. The only way I found out this was a stemmed plant was ripping it up or many times the front edge of a mat would get peeled backwards by a high flow event. The strength of this plant is what impressed me. It was withstanding these high flows except for the occassional front edge peeling on a daily basis. I would regularly grab handfuls of it and pulled myself upstream. So its strong enough in bunches to pull a 165 lb person upstream in .7 m/sec flow. I really wish I would have taken a chunk, put it in a bucket, and then placed the whole thing in a tank like sod. Whenever I brought it home in bags the substrate was lost from the roots and free. Strands would do okay but the thick effect was lost.

#11 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 03:18 PM

Matt,

Do you know what the temerature was in the water?

I think I've seen it nearby here, and have been thinking of going back to see what it is. Since I'm re-setting up tanks, it would be cool to get some going. If I cant find it and you have any, care to share a sprout?

#12 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 26 February 2007 - 06:23 PM

In the heat of July and August I think water temps topped out in the low 70'sF/20'sC. It's a tailwater, but the cold water is way upstream and only for a short distance. Unfortunately I don't have any. It is ALLLLLL up and down the French Broad River below Douglas Dam. Where I got it from was a shoal just outside of Knoxville, really friendly land owners there, lots of research, surveys, etc. take place there. I planned on going out there one more time to snorkel for old time sakes in May. I can get TONS then (Snail darter habitat enanchment the more I remove :mrgreen: ). I'm trying to think where else I saw it but I'm drawing a blank, at least no where else in those dense wide mats.

#13 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 27 February 2007 - 09:30 AM

I'll let you know what the patch that I saw in the distance near me turns out to be. I wonder if the clumps near you would survive if subjected to low 70s for extended periods of time.




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