# My piptospatha perakensis



## neilshieh

There was a thread some time ago, forgot who’s it was… pretty sure it was Amanda’s greenhouse fun thread but I’m too lazy to go through it to find out. Anyways, Amanda and AaronT were discussing their piptospatha perakensis and how it wasn’t propagating for them. Guess what? I checked on my emersed setup which I haven’t touched since the beginning of summer and found a baby plantlet of my piptospatha with a single leaf! I didn’t want to disturb the plant and dig it up but from the way it’s growing, the plant must propagate like crypts: by sending runners below the surface. 
If I have time this week I’ll take pictures but my emersed tank is absolutely horrid looking. I had massive die off from lack of care/dehydration and there were patches of fungus growing. I rehydrated the substrate a couple months ago and now the tank is just growing wild. The fungus went unchecked though and covered up a great deal of stuff… 

Now if only it’d send up a spathe.


----------



## AaronT

Need some pictures ASAP.  

Turns out I never had it. Whatever the guy sent me was an Echinodorus when it sent a flower spike.


----------



## neilshieh

gahhhh okay I'll go take them right now with my iphone. I know Amanda has the perakensis as well, I pm'ed her so hopefully she'll chime in. I found one of her old posts (http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...quariums/85706-piptospatha-sp-kalimantan.html) she might still have the kalimantan too


----------



## neilshieh

I just realized I posted in the wrong forum&#8230; needa get this moved over to the emersed and physiology forum.
I'm terribly ashamed at the condition my emersed tank is in right now 
The leaves that have yellow ends/brown ends were from the 1-2 months that the tank dried out and ran out of water. I have since then rehydrated the tank and the new leaves are healthy.






some lovely fungus. (I pulled out a lot of it today but before it pretty much covered everything lol. Also the hydrocotyle tripartite was growing wild so I pulled out a bunch of it.



Pictures of the plantlet. So far there's only one leaf. You can see how the first leaf already has that beautiful dark green veining. Sorry for all the plants blocking the way  I'll remove them and hopefully we can get a better picture.









and here's a piptospatha perakensis plant that I didn't have space for so I stuck it in an empty tennis ball can for a year LOL. Amazingly it's still growing. The growth is leggy though and small leaves.


----------



## AaronT

Everyone deals with that fungus man. It's my emersed setup arch nemesis.  

That's definitely the real deal and not the one I had. Let me know when you're up for sharing and we can work out a trade. In the meantime...more snow here.


----------



## neilshieh

Yeah, no idea how to get rid of it short of what niko suggests: repeated cycles of flooding which sounds like a lot of work to me since I'm not using a hydroponic flat :/

I'll redo my emersed tank next week and do the poor guy in the tennis ball can a favor and move him in LOL. Do you have any aroids in your collection? I can see why people like to keep aroid and crypt tanks. I'll probably get rid of all my stems since all they do is grow uncontrollably.


----------



## asukawashere

I'll poke my perakensis later and see what it's up to... it's sort of blocked from easy view by a Lagenandra meeboldii, which is of course a rather huge plant (as soon as my greenhouse is open I'm kicking my Echinodorus outdoors and moving the meeboldii to the "tall plants emersed tank," a 45H). It is still alive, I know that much (as is my 'Kalimantan,' though it needs a dose of fertilizer). It added a few leaves as well, but it's just not getting huge like your plant, Neil.


----------



## AaronT

neilshieh said:


> Do you have any aroids in your collection?


Oh yeah, tons. Lots of rare Crypts and a few Lagenandras.


----------



## neilshieh

any chance at a list? or a link to a journal? I checked your threads here but couldn't find any


----------



## asukawashere

So, I looked at my perakensis and lo and behold, it has a whopping six leaves, though the oldest two are yellowing somewhat—I hit it with a dose of diluted flourish comp today to see if that would inspire additional growth (also because it's in the same tank as the Kalimantan, which was showing some signs of a phosphate deficiency). There's also a Lag. thwaitesii in there, which has been flowering repeatedly as of late...

...The perakensis is still a whopping 2" tall, though. *sigh*


----------



## neilshieh

asukawashere said:


> So, I looked at my perakensis and lo and behold, it has a whopping six leaves, though the oldest two are yellowing somewhat-I hit it with a dose of diluted flourish comp today to see if that would inspire additional growth (also because it's in the same tank as the Kalimantan, which was showing some signs of a phosphate deficiency). There's also a Lag. thwaitesii in there, which has been flowering repeatedly as of late...
> 
> ...The perakensis is still a whopping 2" tall, though. *sigh*


how the heck did mine get so big??? I stopped fertilizing almost a year ago now LOL 
maybe the secret to this is neglect  but i suppose it has to do with growing conditions. The very neglected plant in the tennis ball container is still roughly the same shape that I bought it in except taller. The one in the tank started to put out new fuller and thicker leaves almost immediately. I'll be uprooting the tank this weekend so I'll get some snaps of the underground structures.


----------



## alanle

neilshieh said:


> I just realized I posted in the wrong forum&#8230; needa get this moved over to the emersed and physiology forum.
> 
> I'm terribly ashamed at the condition my emersed tank is in right now
> 
> The leaves that have yellow ends/brown ends were from the 1-2 months that the tank dried out and ran out of water. I have since then rehydrated the tank and the new leaves are healthy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> some lovely fungus. (I pulled out a lot of it today but before it pretty much covered everything lol. Also the hydrocotyle tripartite was growing wild so I pulled out a bunch of it.
> 
> 
> 
> Pictures of the plantlet. So far there's only one leaf. You can see how the first leaf already has that beautiful dark green veining. Sorry for all the plants blocking the way  I'll remove them and hopefully we can get a better picture.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and here's a piptospatha perakensis plant that I didn't have space for so I stuck it in an empty tennis ball can for a year LOL. Amazingly it's still growing. The growth is leggy though and small leaves.


Do you cover the tank top with saran wrap?


----------



## neilshieh

nope no saran wrap. I just use a plastic sheet. I think they're used for plastic dividers or something but i just taped up two of them and it forms a sheet that i just lay across the top of the tank. FYI, most people think that emersed plants needs super high humidity or something but this isn't necessarily true. I have a bunch of plants that grow uncovered just fine and California isn't all that humid. The transition from submersed to very dry humidity needs to be made gradually but regardless when I see people struggling with HC using DSM I find that they keep trying to make everything too wet which leads to mold and fungus.


----------



## alanle

neilshieh said:


> nope no saran wrap. I just use a plastic sheet. I think they're used for plastic dividers or something but i just taped up two of them and it forms a sheet that i just lay across the top of the tank. FYI, most people think that emersed plants needs super high humidity or something but this isn't necessarily true. I have a bunch of plants that grow uncovered just fine and California isn't all that humid. The transition from submersed to very dry humidity needs to be made gradually but regardless when I see people struggling with HC using DSM I find that they keep trying to make everything too wet which leads to mold and fungus.


Im trying to dry start some submerged hc and i notice the leaf getting smaller and smaller each day. Not sure what happened there. Do you keep it at room temp? I have
Tank inside the garage.


----------



## neilshieh

alanle said:


> Im trying to dry start some submerged hc and i notice the leaf getting smaller and smaller each day. Not sure what happened there. Do you keep it at room temp? I have
> Tank inside the garage.


I have my tanks outside in the backyard. It's been in the 40's-50's recently and probably maybe even 30's at night. From my experience with growing HC (which grows like a weed for me) is to not keep excessively spraying it with your mister. have your tank setup so the water line is an inch below the surface. Decrease the density of your light by 2/3- 3/4 because if you go full strength with the lights you'll use for submersed culture you'll just dry and burn the HC. Maybe cover the entire top with saran wrap for the first week but definitely leave a 1" vent afterwards.


----------



## neilshieh

uprooted everything  
Got a look at the baby piptospatha if it is a piptospatha at all. I'm starting to have my doubts. The leaf was growing from a rhizome which is odd because the mother piptospatha doesn't have a rhizome of any sort and because it was not physically connected to the mother plant. The piptospatha is right next to a group of c. kota tinggi plants so maybe this rhizome is one of them.
Anyways here are pictures


----------



## neilshieh

The more I thought about it the more likely it seemed to be a kota tinggi rhizome. I ran upstairs and took it out of the bag its in right now to compare the undersides of the leaves with the mother plant. I honestly don't know at this point and I'm leaning towards it being a kota tinggi but I'll grow it out anyways and see.


----------



## neilshieh

Emailed Michael Lo (junglemike)
and here's his response.


> It propagates by producing flower, pollinate by insects & produce seeds....
> 
> Mike


guess that means I'll have to wait for my second plant to grow nice and big and flower at the same time :roll


----------



## AaronT

That's a parakensis. 'Kota Tinggi' has a patterned leaf.


----------



## neilshieh

AaronT said:


> That's a parakensis. 'Kota Tinggi' has a patterned leaf.


Yeah that was what I was thinking too but I figured that since some of my kota tinggi have been growing in lower humidity and putting out green leaves that it may be possible. The main thing that's putting me off is that the plantlet is from a rhizome/bulb looking thing that was no way connected to the mother plant. Leaf shape and size seem to suggest that it is a perakensis though.  I guess only way to find out is to grow it out, but if it is a perakensis I'd love to figure out how it started growing haha.


----------



## neilshieh

on an unrelated thought... would splitting the mother plant work?


----------



## AaronT

neilshieh said:


> on an unrelated thought... would splitting the mother plant work?


It might. Do you really want to try it and find out it doesn't work?


----------



## neilshieh

Redid my setup over the weekend. Thought I'd take some pictures of how I setup my emersed tanks for anyone interested. This time I added a layer of sphagnum peat moss for the hell of it. Maybe it'll make things grow better.
First layer is cut up sphagnum moss which absorbs water and keeps everything moist/humid. 

next I scatter some osmocote fertilizer into the sphagnum moss so when the roots do make it down there, there's some nutrients.
then i lay down a layer of sphagnum peat moss by miracle gro


then I add the main substrate: turface! It's super easy to work with and when I'm working in the tanks it doesn't get messy like dirt does. The turface was just washed so it's wet. 

put on my cover which is really just a plastic sheet and a pane of glass and add some water and I'm set! I add enough water so the substrate is moist but there's no water line. Too much water just leads to fungus and bacteria. After putting in some water I leave it for an hour or so for the moss on the bottom to soak up all the water and then add more if need be. the moss on the bottom basically acts as a sponge for all the water and is useful to prevent overwatering.




the light is just a typical cheap work light that I modified with some wire so that it has a neck. I use 19 or 23 W daylight bulbs in them and the tank is a 6 gallon bowfront.


----------



## h4n

nice man!


----------



## asukawashere

AaronT said:


> It might. Do you really want to try it and find out it doesn't work?


...That's precisely why I'm terrified to split my P. 'Kalimantan'-even though its rhizome is far more similar to an Anubias than P. perakensis's is and I _know_ people have split them successfully, in the back of my head I'm convinced that the second I touch the thing, it'll fall apart and die a horrible death. '


----------



## neilshieh

asukawashere said:


> ...That's precisely why I'm terrified to split my P. 'Kalimantan'-even though its rhizome is far more similar to an Anubias than P. perakensis's is and I _know_ people have split them successfully, in the back of my head I'm convinced that the second I touch the thing, it'll fall apart and die a horrible death. '


I saw some of Inspire91's photos, his piptospatha has really long rhizomes. I think when they get to that point it'd be safe. But with the piptospatha everything grows together... so it'd be kinda like trying to split a head of romaine lettuce.

Piptospatha is doing well in the new setup. I see 3 new leaves forming LOL I think I'm going to need a bigger tank for this soon....


----------



## neilshieh

update! 
Pulled out my 46 gallon and set it up for emersed plants again. I plan on transferring the piptospatha over soon.

Meanwhile... the small plant has taken its sweet little time growing but it's finally putting out a second leaf.


----------



## neilshieh

Been a while since the last update, plants have been growing steadily... in fact they're quite large lol. Here they are in the 46 gallon bowfront. Unfortunately I took a break from the hobby and neglected to water them hence some of the yellowed leaves, but they've since recovered.
I wonder if these guys will ever flower.... would like to pollinate them. 








here's a shot of the smaller pipto. I bet it's much happier now that it's out of the tennis ball can LOL








shot of the larger plant's leaf. Beautiful patterns


----------



## neilshieh

sorry for the old broken links, they were hosted on another website that became a paid service. 
Anyways now I host on flickr things should be around to stay for a while. 
This is what the plant looks like after 2 years of neglect because of college. Lots of yellowing but the main thing is that the plant is HUGE now. space is becoming a real issue that I need to resolve soon.


----------



## Crispino Ramos

Hi Neil, Thanks for referring me to this link. That's one huge P. perakensis, I think it got so big because it's planted in a good amount of media. My piptospatha is planted in a 3 inch plastic pot and I don't fertilizer, the media is ADA Amazonia. One flower formed seeds and germinated but grows quite slow.


----------



## Crispino Ramos

Hi Neil,

In the left picture above, there are two flowers that I pollinated (your idea). Less than a week later, they formed seeds.

Thanks for the idea.

See the picture below.


----------



## neilshieh

That's really cool! Do you have any details on what kind of brush you used and what parts of the flower//the timing of when they were opened. I dunno if you read through the entire anubias thread by Surick that I sent you but for anubias atleast the male and female parts mature at different times so if the timing is off you won't be able to pollinate the stalk. Congrats on more seeds though!


----------



## Crispino Ramos

neilshieh said:


> That's really cool! Do you have any details on what kind of brush you used and what parts of the flower//the timing of when they were opened. I dunno if you read through the entire anubias thread by Surick that I sent you but for anubias atleast the male and female parts mature at different times so if the timing is off you won't be able to pollinate the stalk. Congrats on more seeds though!


I didn't use a brush. I just rubbed the stalks when their covers fell off.


----------

