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Spikerush seeds - some questions


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#1 Guest_Orangespotted_*

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Posted 05 July 2012 - 10:16 PM

Hello everyone - I have two questions:

While trying to figure out what sort of Eleocharis I have in my aquarium, I researched and found out that the only reasonable way to be sure is to collect some seeds of it and observe them under a microscope. What time of year would be best to do so? I see the brown tips on the "grass" blades all the time at the pond I live next to, but I don't know if/when it's a fruit or a flower or what...

And while pondering (unintentional) this topic I realized - I could grow some spikerush FROM the seeds I collect to identify the species! It sounds fun, but I've never grown an aquatic plant like that from seed before (well, except Bacopa monieri but this wasn't intentional) and I think it would be sweet to have cute little sprouts everywhere. I was also hoping that I could try growing some of the pondweeds this way, especially Sago since that stuff never seems to grow when I can't get all the roots with it (which is quite the task in itself, really frustrating since it's so common). So, how should I go about doing this?

Thanks in advance for any help!

#2 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 09 July 2012 - 07:27 PM

I don't know about spikerush, but I did grow some golden club from seeds I collected in the wild. I put them in mesh containers in my pond - I just pushed them a little bit into the soil. A lot of them did not germinate, but number of them did, and they are several years old now. This plant is notoriously difficult to transplant, which is why I grew it from seeds.

IME plants do much better in an outdoor pond than an inside aquarium. So I would try it outdoors - in a kiddie pond if that's all you have.

#3 Guest_Orangespotted_*

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Posted 10 July 2012 - 08:22 PM

I highly doubt my parents would let me have a kiddie pool of aquatic plants in the backyard, they already dislike the single 10 gallon aquarium I own... maybe since the ceramic pot on the front porch doesn't grow anything (no drainage) I could try sneaking some in there. By the way, I'll add some pics of my aquarium since it was recently redone (and because everyone likes pictures!). The left side has the unidentified tall hairgrass and in the front is some Eleocharis parvula from the fish store. All of the plants in there are native to the U.S. (except possibly the Bacopa monnieri which I'm not sure). I won't list all of them because there are a lot and some are small and hard to see, but if there is one someone wants to know just ask. Feel free to ignore the adult and baby guppies.

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Most collected from a pond near my house, and a few saved from the local Petdumb. Not a high-tech planted tank by any measure but I'd say it's reasonably successful.

EDIT: (Try and see if you can find all of the fossils!)

Edited by Orangespotted, 10 July 2012 - 08:39 PM.


#4 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 10 July 2012 - 09:24 PM

All of the plants in there are native to the U.S. (except possibly the Bacopa monnieri which I'm not sure).

Native. Range: http://plants.usda.g...ile?symbol=BAMO

#5 Guest_Orangespotted_*

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Posted 12 July 2012 - 07:30 PM

Native. Range: http://plants.usda.g...ile?symbol=BAMO


Haha, I was actually looking at that very page before to see if it was native or not, the reason why I was unsure is because I frequently see the plant referred to as an Asian herb. But considering the native status, it could have a distribution that ranges more than one continent as well.



By the way, I am still curious if anyone has some answers or suggestions to my questions in the original post, so please reply if you do!




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