# Emersed Anubias Bin



## neilshieh

It's been a while since I've been active on the forums because of my other commitments, but I wanted to share a project that I finally got around to starting at the beginning of this summer. Anubias are one of my favorite genus of plants and I've always meant to have an emersed setup just for them. Here is a thread by a fellow APC member that inspired me to make such a setup when I read through it a couple years ago (http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/photography/69991-my-collection-anubias.html) and here's a link that gives a general overview of the different anubias species http://toptropicals.com/html/toptropicals/articles/aqua/anubias_en.htm

Either way the plan is to eventually cross pollinate these guys and hopefully create some hybrids.

The basic setup: 
-tote that I picked up from ACE hardware
-6500k 5050 SMD LED strips powered with 12VDC power supply
-hydroton substrate
-general hydroponic fertilizer

Current species list
A. nana
A. petite
A. micro
A. frazeri
A. coffeefolia
A. "gabon" (Was sold to me as gabon but it may not be... will purchase another gabon from a different source and compare)
A. gasser
A. pynaertii 
A. barteri (definitely a barteri of some kind, don't know the different between barteri x barteri and regular barteri, could be barteri 'broadleaf' as well... who knows?)
A. stardust (Has not been put in yet, still in shrimp tank)

Also have a few other random species that I threw in to see how they'd do in a hydroponic setup, debating what to do with them still. Definitely going to keep the schismatoglottis and the lagenandra in there since I do love all aroids. Planning on getting a few more species of lagenandra, so I might set up another bin for them as well. 
Schismatoglottis roseospatha
Micranthemum tweedie 'monte carlo'
Echinodorus 'Aflame'
Elatine hydropiper
lagenandra meeboldii 'pink'
Eleocharis 'belem'
Marsilea minuta

Anyhow, without further ado quick pictures before I retire for the night.
top view of the bin 









Lower left tub just has a thin layer of floating hydroton to provide support to the random plants i have in there. 


















the supposed A. 'gabon', I got the rhizomes in poor condition but they've recovered and are now putting out new leaves. We'll see what the full leaves look like in a few months.









A mix of anubias petite and anubias micro, petite has larger leaves (about the size of a dime) and micro has much smaller leaves (about the size of marsilea sp.) The difference is very obvious side to side especially in submersed growth









I also have a hydroponic flat with a thin layer of hydroton, the same hydroponic fertilizer, and a single 5050 smd led strip on top. I have a few of the anubias barteri sp? in here growing quite well. Really want to find out exactly what species they are, the guy I bought them from says he's not sure other than that he's had them for a long time in low light conditions. I reasoned that it must be some common species he picked up at a lfs or something. Any help would be appreciated. They're quite large actually, but I've noticed that the new leaves aren't as big so perhaps the larger submersed leaves were because they were grown in lowlight? But then again emergent anubias leaves tend to be smaller. Also have an A. coffeefolia in here.










I'm really just using hydroton here to give the rhizomes more support and allow the roots to form networks. 


















new leaf! 









hydroponic flat sans all the condensation 









Will upload pictures of the pynaertii tomorrow and keep this thread updated.


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## HybridHerp

nice, I'll be watching this


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## neilshieh

Anubias pynaertii, been looking for this sucker for a couple years, I don't really understand why it's so hard to find, but either way here it is. The leaves have a bit of chlorosis from long transit times, but the rhizome is healthy and should recover nicely. The plant came with two flowers about to bloom, so that'll be exciting. According to stuff I've read online, it doesn't do well submersed long term (which probably explains why it's not maintained in the hobby). There also seems to be different variants of pynaertii that differ in their leaf shapes. They all have the three lobes but other varieties have thicker and fuller "tails" while the one I received has longer narrower tails.

Excuse the sorry state of the plant, I'll post updated pictures after I have it growing for a month or two. The rhizome is very thick, the size of my middle finger much like the anubias barteri sp? that i have. In Surick's journal, it also appears that the anubias 'pynaertii' that aquariumplants sold a while ago was an incorrect id of anubias hastifolia which has a somewhat similar leaf shape.
















flower stalk 

















I'll plant the pynaertii today, it's been soaking in a tub of water for the past few days to allow it to recover/rehydrate.


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## neilshieh

Quick update.

Lagenandra meeboldii pink is putting out a new leaf! I'm thinking about getting a few new varieties of lagenandra. I'm just worried about how big they're going to get... like the size of my piptospatha perakensis lol









Anubias barteri sp is putting out a bunch of new leaves, they're growing like crazy. They're so big though... 









Anubias frazeri and Anubias coffeefolia putting out new leaves! I love the color of new coffeefolia leaves and the very prominent ribbing is just stunning. I wonder if there are different varieties of coffeefolia, all of the florida aquatic ones seem to stay this size//with this growth pattern. I think I remember ddavila06 mentioning that he had and older variety of coffeefolia before.... something to look into 









Heres a shot of a young anubias gasser leaf, similar ribbing as the coffeefolia but not quite as pronounced









The anubias pynaertii now planted. I removed the leaves and one of the flowers to help reduce the risk of rot/save the plant some energy. I'm not sure if I should remove the second bud as well. thoughts? The rhizome is still hard and healthy for which I am very glad about.









Here's just a random shot of my other emersed tank of the ludwigia sphaerocarpa, hygrophila araguaia, and c. nurii pahang mutated along with some foregrounds.


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## drewsuf82

#lifegoal right here! How do you keep your Anubias leaves from yellowing. My new leaves always come in yellow and then green up after they get larger!


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## neilshieh

drewsuf82 said:


> #lifegoal right here! How do you keep your Anubias leaves from yellowing. My new leaves always come in yellow and then green up after they get larger!


I think that's something characteristic to most anubias. My barteri varieties come in as a very pale green before darkening. The 'gabon' comes in dark green and 'coffeefolia' comes in orange/brown.


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## neilshieh

Quick update. Plants have been growing steadily. My plants from my other emersed tank were overgrown so I stuck a few stems of H. araguaia, staurogyne purple, ludwigia sphaerocarpa, and e. compressum in my setup as well and they've been growing very well. Everything really just increased in volume, but best of all the anubias pynaertii is putting out new nodes/leaves! I'm very excited!


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## kraigstein

Very cool project!
Are the LEDs providing sufficient light? I have been considering making my own plant grow lights from LED strips but wasn't sure if they put out enough light in the correct spectrum...
Will keep watching for more updates.


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## neilshieh

kraigstein said:


> Very cool project!
> Are the LEDs providing sufficient light? I have been considering making my own plant grow lights from LED strips but wasn't sure if they put out enough light in the correct spectrum...
> Will keep watching for more updates.


Thanks!
Yes they provide enough light and only draw ~1A each and run at 12 volts so it's more power efficient too. The led's I have are at 6500k so they're daylight.


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## neilshieh

update!
Anubias pynaertii leaf is out! still immature but the two hind lances will form as the leaf develops. I can't wait!








here's a second node forming from the rhizome 









here's the meeboldii pink's new leaf. it's a nice shade of pink really liking this plant!


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## second

Beautiful plants


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## Tihsho

How are those LED strips holding up? Have you tried these lights on stem plants yet?


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## neilshieh

the LED strips work great. It grows everything quite well. as for stem plants I have some micranthemum umbrosum monte carlo (Sorry cavan the proper name escapes me right now... it was like tweedli or something to that effect), hygrophila araguaia, and e. belem growing in the bigger tub. Considering how far above the lights are and the explosive growth I get, they are more than sufficient for growing any sort of emersed plants. 
anyhow I added a new schismatoglottis species to my collection as well as another very special plant  
I also got around to pruning and dividing my anubias as well. Some very impressive growth if I might add... and it's an incredibly simple setup. Hydroponic flat, hydroton, half cut general hydroponics fertilizer, and a single LED light strip. I wish I had a decent camera to take macro shots of the crazy roots these anubias formed. anyways enjoy the pics!


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## Tihsho

Do you have a part/model for the power supply you are running? I'm considering running these lights when I upgrade my emersed rack in 6 months or so.


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## neilshieh

Tihsho said:


> Do you have a part/model for the power supply you are running? I'm considering running these lights when I upgrade my emersed rack in 6 months or so.





Tihsho said:


> Do you have a part/model for the power supply you are running? I'm considering running these lights when I upgrade my emersed rack in 6 months or so.


I just bought a generic 12V power supply off amazon rated for 6A. Each of these strips draws about 1A and I've definitely had it overdraw and burn out smaller and cheaper power supplies (so if you're running more than one definitely get a power supply rated for 2 plus amps)

Update on how the bin has been
Current list of plants
-Anubias gasser
-Anubias 'gabon'
-Anubias pynaertii
-Anubias nana
-Anubias petite
-Anubias micro
-Anubias frazerii
-Anubias barteri
-Anubias stardust
-Echinodorus opacus rataj
-lagenandra meeboldii 'pink'
-Schismatoglottis roseospatha
-Micranthemum tweedie 'monte carlo'
-Eleocharis 'belem'
-Marsilea minuta
-hygrophila araguaia (weedy)
-staurogyne purple
-Crypt. hudoroi
-Aglaonema picta tricolor
-Schismatoglottis calyptrata
-Schismatoglottis 'long huriel'

The pynaertii is putting out more leaves but none of the leaves have matured into the mature form with the two lances. Albeit the leaves are still relatively young but I just imagined it'd grow faster haha. The other day when I checked it, it had some webby fungus thing on it (probably from the wet conditions and the dead black husk material around the rhizome. I manually removed the fungus and most of the dead decaying material and squirted some hydrogen peroxide on it which hopefully curbs the problem. 
The Lagenandera pink is getting pretty big, hopefully it doesn't get too massive but it sure does add really nice color to the assortment of plants inside! The anubias have all been growing well and I'm pleased with their emersed growth. I'm hoping to acclimate an anubias so that I can keep it outside permanently as a house plant 
I got the E. opacus in it's emersed form already but it had melted a bit since the leaves were so rigid it was hard to keep the base in the hydroponic solution. I thought for sure it was a goner but low and behold when I checked the other night it had a new leaf and it'd sent down a long healthy root. It's still a painfully slow grower by any rate. 
Of all the anubias I have in the tank, the gasser and barteri are probably the fastest growing ones. Coffeefolia and frazeri grow at a moderate rate comparatively. 
The anubias 'gabon' has had a lot of die off at the rhizome. I can't tell if it's the dreaded rhizome rot or if it's just residual necrosis from the freezing damage it experienced when I got it a while back. Either way, the nodes with the actual leaves are still healthy so I've just been occasionally checking on the them and cutting out any decaying parts.


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## neilshieh

Picture update! 
Anubias barteri









Anubias pynaertii with the anubias stardust (recently transferred from submersed culture) and the E. opacus. Not much to see as they are all pretty much recovering, we will see their true beauty in a couple of months!









Anubias gasser + anubias nana + anubias petite + schismatoglottis roseospatha. Not the best shot of the tub but the gasser is definitely one of the fastest growing on par with the barteri. 









Anubias frazeri + Anubias coffeefolia 
Frazeri was the first ever anubias to flower for me. I used to think it looked kinda plain but now after growing it, it's definitely one of my favorites. 









Anubias coffeefolia (I have too much of this plant lol) 









Anubias 'gabon' as you can see only small "florets" are left now from the original rhizomes. They're all rooted and doing well but hopefully whatever caused that rhizome rot doesn't linger and attack. I suppose that is a major con of hydroponics, that bacteria and fungus can be easily spread since they're all connected by the same water system. (though to be fair my set up isn't a true hydroponic system since the solution is only changed when I remember ~5 months and there's no water circulation).
Regarding the plants identity, not too sure what is, the leaves look and feel much more different than the barteri variants in the tub, so either it's a regional variant or it may actually be a different anubias. The plant is still not yet fully mature so we shall see. The retailer I got it from has had many plants labelled as one thing when in fact it was another. Either way I love the way this one looks (the leaves are much thicker, ovate, and smoother) 









Anubias petite (on the right) and anubias micro on the left. Usually people would think that micro vs petite is just a marketing gimmick or just different labels from overseas sellers, but when you grow the two side by side the difference is day and night. I also have the micro and petite growing submersed in a few of my tanks and the leaf sizes are the same (a bit smaller for the micro) 









Forgot to snap a pict of the lagenandera but it's growing beautifully, really enjoy it!


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## neilshieh

Got some new plants today!  
new additions to my emersed bin
-homalomena sekadu
-aglaonema simplex
-homalomena red
-ludwigia sp. white
-anubias chilli

Some thoughts before I head off to bed. There are definitely a few unique genuses that perk my interest which I intend to include more of in my collection. Namely... piptospatha, lagenandera, schismatoglottis, homalomena, and aridarum. Personally I never really bought into the whole buce craze and I'm not a big fan of the variegated/white anubias strains either. I don't know if I actually dislike them or if I just dislike how ridiculous the craze for those things were. Either way, there's a hidden beauty just in leaf shapes and morphology in the other species no matter how plain and green they are. 
BUT... that said I do appreciate color haha. if you google homalomena red the emersed growth on these guys are amazing.

Anyways, a little bit on my first impressions of anubias chilli... when I first saw pictures of it, I honestly thought it was just another silly named strain of the usual petite or something. I finally saw some clearer pictures of it the other day and I realized that the leaves are completely different. They're more oblong in shape and the growth pattern is not dense and clustered like micro/petite. I'll take some comparison shots when I plant it tomorrow, but I'm excited! It's not every day I get to add a new anubias to my collection.

Other updates... I sold off my entire hdroponic flat of anubias barteri, while they were certainly nice to look at I realized that I wanted more space for other species and these large barteri would probably look nicer in someone else's tank. The root systems were ridiculous though, it's amazing what a bunch of fired clay balls and hydroponic fertilizers will induce. Rather than having a bed of hydroton in the hydroponic flats as I do now, I bought sheets of trays (usually used for cloning) and plan to fill them with hydroton and have they sit in 1-2 inches of hydroponic solution. This should give me more real estate and compartmentalization for many more species. Snapped a few teaser picts, more picts to follow!


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## neilshieh

Update as promised. So I think a few of the anubias micro/petite either contracted the rhizome rot from the anubias 'gabon' one pot over. The weird thing is the rhizomes don't look infested, simply just melted though I suppose without a microscope I wouldn't even be able to see the hyphae. I honestly can't tell if it's fungal attack or if it's just mechanical damage from me moving the tank back and forth from my dorm to home during breaks. Really only the main rhizome dies, the sideshoots are fine and viable.

unfortunately the anubias stardust I put in has died, a real bummer. I probably should have let it grow much bigger submersed before bringing it emersed. Oh well will buy one again some time and try again.

So after clearing the anubias barteri flat out I bought cloning trays with multiple 2" pots. This will make organization easier, allow me to keep more species, and in general just allow everything to grow better. I split open the two pots of the homalomena sekadu and was really impressed with how many there were! A few of them already have flowers forming too so maybe if I'm lucky they'll continue blooming and I could pollinate them. 
I cleaned up the rhizomes of some of the micro/petite and stuck them in the flat too. I have enough of those plants to afford planting them in different conditions to see how they do so fingers crossed.

Originally I was going to use rockwool but then I decided that it would be more economical to use hydroton because you can reuse it and a huge bag was cheaper than buying 2" cubes of rockwool everytime i needed to replant. Rockwool is more useful if you're planning on mass producing plants because they keep the root structure intact during shipping and retain moisture better.

New trays









One pot of plants









Divisions from one pot


























all planted!


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## neilshieh

Been a while since an update but here's the current list of plants! Will update later this week with pictures. Ludwigia sp white was doing fine for a couple weeks but left for spring break and came back to a melted mess . Everything else is doing great though, I'm probably going to have to set up a new tub for all of these soon. 

Current list of plants
-Anubias gasser
-Anubias coffeefolia
-Anubias 'gabon'
-Anubias pynaertii
-Anubias nana
-Anubias petite
-Anubias micro
-Anubias frazerii
-Anubias barteri
-Anubias chilli
-Echinodorus opacus rataj
-lagenandra meeboldii 'pink'
-langenadra red long
-Micranthemum tweedie 'monte carlo'
-Eleocharis 'belem'
-Marsilea minuta
-hygrophila araguaia (weedy)
-staurogyne purple
-Crypt. hudoroi
-Crypt. metallic red
-Aglaonema picta tricolor
-Aglaonema simplex
-Schismatoglottis roseospatha
-Schismatoglottis calyptrata
-Schismatoglottis 'long huriel'
-Homalomena sp. red
-Homalomena 'sekadu'
-Luwigia sphaerocarpa


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## Rifky

neilshieh said:


> Anubias pynaertii, been looking for this sucker for a couple years, I don't really understand why it's so hard to find, but either way here it is. The leaves have a bit of chlorosis from long transit times, but the rhizome is healthy and should recover nicely. The plant came with two flowers about to bloom, so that'll be exciting. According to stuff I've read online, it doesn't do well submersed long term (which probably explains why it's not maintained in the hobby). There also seems to be different variants of pynaertii that differ in their leaf shapes. They all have the three lobes but other varieties have thicker and fuller "tails" while the one I received has longer narrower tails.
> 
> Excuse the sorry state of the plant, I'll post updated pictures after I have it growing for a month or two. The rhizome is very thick, the size of my middle finger much like the anubias barteri sp? that i have. In Surick's journal, it also appears that the anubias 'pynaertii' that aquariumplants sold a while ago was an incorrect id of anubias hastifolia which has a somewhat similar leaf shape.
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> I'll plant the pynaertii today, it's been soaking in a tub of water for the past few days to allow it to recover/rehydrate.


Do you sell it?


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