# Aquatic seeds germination-Part 2!



## Tanan

So as some of you know I had ordered these http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/315687164.html. And they finally arrived.
Now I need the best way to plant these seeds so they can germinate. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I've seen the eriocaulon germination thread in here and it had confused me a little.


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## Tugg

Yours were seperated and labeled... nice  I still need to setup a pan or something to plant mine in.


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## Tanan

I ordered different product Tugg. The labels are pretty useless. Unless someone knows what golden grass, pondweed, water soldier, babybreath, wideleaf grass, goldfish grass, cowhair, shortpearl, purple grass, and fairy maiden rain are.
Desmodium is a terrestrial plant. No?


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## miremonster

Thx for sharing! I'd say, the names are not very telling, but not fully useless.
I'm curious, could you make closeups of the diverse seed grain types? Maybe the most are terrestrial ornamental grasses, but the appearance of the seeds together with those common names could be informative.

[edit]Yes, Desmodium species are terrestrial.


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## miremonster

p.s.
That are likely literal translations of Chinese popular plant names.
I've tried it with Google translator:
English: Goldfish grass => Chinese: 金鱼草 => retranslated: Snapdragon
Image search: https://www.google.de/search?q=金鱼草&...e7ygPYgoHwAw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=950
Not very aquatic


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## Tugg

At least it's very pretty


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## Tanan

Mire. Please don't burst my already very shrinking bubble! 
And if you search a bit like pondweed and water soldier. You do get potamogeton crispus. So all is maybe not lost. But aren't all potamogetons true aquatic plants? How are true aquatic plants gonna grow emersed?


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## Tanan

Here are the pics.


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## miremonster

The others are tougher for me... 
The blue pearls look again like the NPK fertilizer mentioned in the other thread - or are that coated seeds? Desmodium seeds are very flattened with roundish, bean-seed-like outline. Maybe Desmodium species are used as green manure (leguminose, nitrogen fixation), and due to some confusion in the translation the fertilizer is labeled "Desmodium"...

I know "Water soldiers" as common name of Stratiotes aloides (Europe, West Asia), but I could imagine that gathering seeds of that would be very difficult...

Yes, all Potamogeton are aquatic, but the name "pondweed" is surely ambiguous and used for several plants.

The seeds of "Purple Grass" look to me really like ones of a grass (family Poaceae).


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## Tanan

Mire please tell me I have some hope. Even the slightest will work. You see any seed that might look like Erio seeds? That's the only plant I wanted.


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## Tugg

I guess we just need to grow these bad boys out to see what we have.  I keep meaning to get a little platic bin going, but 3 young kids are a bit of a distraction.


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## Tanan

Do I soak all these seeds in water at room temp for 24 hours before I plant them or not?


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## Tanan

So I tried mire's way and translated english to chinese and then ran a search on the chinese word. The results are;
Cow hair is E.acicularis,
Short pearl is either glosso or HM, 
Foxtail is







, 
Wide leaves grass is Erio 







,
Purple grass is Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum,
Pond weed is potamegatonacaea,
Babysbreath is







.
I have soaked seeds in water. Will plant them tomorrow.


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## miremonster

OK!
I'd suggest for every species 3 ways of sowing (3 portions of each seed):
1) in normal soil, not wet, only moderately moist and drained, as usual for sowing of terrestrial plants. 
2) wet, but not inundated.
3) covered with water.

I suspect that the most, if not all, are common ornamental garden plants, despite names such as "pondweed".

Still puzzled by the plant in the last pic that you've found by googling...

[edit] Blue stuff: please test it by crushing some pearls. Are seed grains in it, or is it fertilizer?


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## Tanan

Yep. Blue stuff has seeds in it, soaked it in water for an hour or so and the coating came off. The yellow foxtail grass has turned into mustard powder kinda thing after being soaked. The whole water smells of spices. I've already setup two setup 1st and second. I'm a bit skecptical about the 3rd one as I'm setting up the first 2 on window sill where they get good 3-4 hours of sunlight. If I cover them in water it might be infected by algae in no time.
Do I need to cover all three to increase humidity?


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## miremonster

Yes, covering of sowing with glass, transparent plastic foil or similar is helpful to keep humidity. For variant 1 (normal humidity, not wet): if you know someone who has experience in sowing flowers, herbs, vegetables in pots indoor, you could ask for advice. I guess that the most of these seeds could be sown also in a garden bed.

Sowing under water: I've sown Echinodorus berteroi e.g. in a jar with some centimeters garden soil covered with washed sand, filled with water, set on the windowsill. Yes, some filamentous algae, but the seed did germinate and the seedlings grew.

"Foxtail grass": that may also refer to Setaria or Pennisetum species (grasses with small, millet-like seed grains).

"Cowhair": if Eleocharis, it's not necessarily E. acicularis, there are many Eleocharis species. The seed of E. looks like that: http://www.efloras.org/object_page.aspx?object_id=10133&flora_id=1


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## Tanan

Planted seeds on 8/2/14
The pics are of today (11.2.14)
Only 2 plants has started to germinate. The wet soil, open system didn't lead to any germination whatsoever. I flooded it today with 1.5" of water and threw some more seeds in it.


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## Tanan

More seedlings! First I thought they were worms. LOL


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## AleksandraMNE

Hallo!

First, I am new here, and I am not from USA so my english is not very well.

I bought seed like this from China and now I dont know what to do with it! How to plant it? Any help is welcome! 

regards, 

Aleksandra


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## Tugg

Your english is fine. Probably better than the average Americans. 

You're question is basically what we're looking into. Miremonster had a few good ways to start a few posts back. Since diffrent plants likely have diffrent triggers to cause them to germinate, we basically need to divide up the supply and try a few diffrent ways with each one. If I can ever find the time, I plan to get mine going too. I have no clue what my $7 got me.


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## Tanan

Hello Aleks. 
Like Miremonster said, I have sown the seed that way. Some germinated in the wet but not flooded with water in a covered(high humidity) way. Some germinated the wet substrate but not flooded and kept open like a terrestrial setup. None has germinated yet in the fully flooded setup yet.


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## carmaben

Hi all,

I was very happy to see this thread because I just ordered a similar product from another AliExpress vendor. Tanan's descriptions along with Mire & Tugg's advice are pure gold. My seeds are expected to arrive for tomorrow and I think I can hit the ground running thanks this thread. Tanan, could you please post more progress pics now that you're a month in? I'm sitting in suspense. I'm paranoid about planting sprouts in a tank with rosy barbs. They have a tendency to nip vegetation. While that's good for my algae, I'm not going through the hassle of shipping and germinating just to give them a snack. Thoughts? Thanks again.


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## Tanan

I lost first batch cause I forgot to keep it under 1.5" of water and it dried. Some seeds sprouted as late as 2-3 weeks of germination. The current batch has 2-3 plants cause to fight mosquito larvae I put a guppy in it and it prolly eat everything. Half of the plants didnt germinate though but it could be cause of my miserable skills. I am extremely skillful in killing plants that people call invincible like tillandsias.


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## carmaben

Ah that's frustrating but now we can have a race! I've now tried my hand at growing these guys. Attached is a shot of the baggie I received, my germination setup and some shots of the seeds that begun germinating.

So far only 2 types of seeds are sprouting. Any guesses on the kind of plants yet? I tried creating 2 environments: flooded & covered vs open & damp. The container is floating in my aquarium to take advantage of the timed lighting and humidity. The patch of soil you see with a bunch of like-sprouts planted is me putting similar sprouts together thinking it'll form some kind of mossy clump. Everything is improvised since this is my first venture into aquatic plants. Any input is appreciated.


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## Tanan

You are winning. I lost my second batch too. This one grew algae and everything died. Maybe you can share your secret with me. Open and damp one didnt work for me.


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## miremonster

@Tanan: Provided that this "water grass" mix contains only seeds of terrestrial plants incl. grasses (what I believe), IMO the secret is simply constant moisture and good drainage. No wetness where the soil is always glistening, but only moderate moisture. Then covering with film, glass or so is helpful. Ask someone who uses to sow vegetables or flowers.

@ others: I mean, the purpose of these trials is testing and demonstrating what about these obscure "water grass" offers, and it's unlikely to get interesting aquatic plants, or aquarium suited plants at all, from these seed mixtures!


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## carmaben

@Mire Hopefully these photos shed a bit more light on what's to be expected. 
Unfortunately, I germinated my seeds ASAP and hadn't thought to divide up the seeds so I could match them up with Tanan's packets. My second batch will be more scientific 
The more oblong leaves came from the blue Desmodium seeds. I think the blue maiden rain seeds produced Sprouts E but I'm not sure.
Any guesses? Anything look familiar?


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## Tanan

OMG! I hate you so much carmaben! All I ever got growing was second one from left. 
Teach me MASTER!


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## carmaben

Lol. That's all very flattering but I'm far from being a master. Whatever I've done up until now has been based mostly off what I've read in this and similar threads. With that in mind, I have my driftwood & DIY CO2 components arriving any day and I'm unsure of how to transplant. 
Should I clump the grasses together like in the fish store or leave them sparse?
What about the other plants?
I'll drain the tank to plant my first batch, but is it wise to attempt to plant my 2nd batch while the tank is full?
Should they strictly be planted with their own species for the first bit or could I get a nice jungle aquascape keeping them mixed?

(Attached is the latest leaf type to emerge)


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## carmaben

@Tanan Looking back on the posts, there's 1 thing I noticed that was out of place. You said your seeds were getting 3-4 hours of sunlight per day. That's nowhere near enough. From what I've read so far, adult plants need 6-10 hours of sunlight while germinating seeds & sprouts need 10-12 hours. I realize that may create an issue with algae. Maybe someone can offer a solution to that. I haven't noticed any algae yet. Maybe because I'm floating my plant nursery directly under my bulbs. According to Walstad, "reducing light levels would harm plants more than [it would] algae." Additionally, most algae are "harmed by high light intensities" and are "basically shade organisms." The frosted plastic of the jug works nicely to diffuse the light throughout the nursery so there's almost 0 shade. It seems to be great in producing stocky, green plants and being an ad-hoc lightbox for taking photos.
I hope that "sheds some light" on the issue :mrgreen:


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## carmaben

Flood! Terrestrial to immersed. A few hours after this pic, the sprouts adjusted themselves to have the water's surface tension support the weight of the leaves.


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## planted-tnk-guy

Cant wait to see what they are when they grow out


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## FkHoR

Cant wait to see what they are when they grow out


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## miremonster

I hope that you don't flood the whole stand and that a part of it will be grown out under terrestrial conditions. As I wrote I expect that the most, if not all, are terrestrial ornamental plants which could be grown outdoors (during summer if the climate is temperate).

If the seed mix really contains a Desmodium, I'd say that are the seedlings with the roundish leaves in your last pic, mainly foreground. They look similar to clover seedlings, too (same family: Fabaceae). Compare: http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/scienc...gy/life_cycle_stages/seedling_picture_gallery


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## carmaben

Hi all,

Sorry for the silence. When I flooded the containers they sunk to the bottom of the aquarium and my rosy barbs ate ALL my progress. In a fit of rage, I sold them back to my LFS and used the money to buy full grown plants.

Mire, you're right with your desmodium call. I think there was also a good number of dichondra (the sprout right underneath) because I remember it sprouted those leaves and the same lilypad.
Since the vast majority of my seed shipment was this desmodium and grasses, I don't think I'll be buying again. If I do purchase again, I will definitely get the seeds in separate bags. They don't sprout well together and it's extremely annoying to move them all. I may order a batch of grass seeds off AliExpress to carpet my tank but that depends on LFS price/supply in the coming weeks. I will keep you posted.

My conclusion so far: starting an aquarium from seeds isn't worth the hassle. $10 at my LFS gets me 2-3 bunches of plants. I estimate that my 3000 seed shipment would yield 6-7 bunches if given enough time. This means that the time and effort of growing seedlings saves me 3-4 plants or $15-$20. For someone starting a tank, this is not a good trade-off. For someone already with a planted tank who wants to experiment with and underwhelming mix of foreground plants, it's just barely worth it. IMO $10 worth of eleocharis would be a nicer addition.


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## ckumar

which plants are these?



carmaben said:


> @Mire Hopefully these photos shed a bit more light on what's to be expected.
> Unfortunately, I germinated my seeds ASAP and hadn't thought to divide up the seeds so I could match them up with Tanan's packets. My second batch will be more scientific
> The more oblong leaves came from the blue Desmodium seeds. I think the blue maiden rain seeds produced Sprouts E but I'm not sure.
> Any guesses? Anything look familiar?


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## Tanan

i will soon be starting an emersed tank so I may give the seeds a try again. Hopefully that attempt will be better than my last one.


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## carmaben

I decided to take the simplest approach and just sprinkle the seeds into my aquarium. No more hassling with germination. So far so good! Waiting on a bigger LED to start CO2 injection. Then we'll see what can come of these guys.


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## Girish

@Tanan, I got these 11 types of seeds for first time, similar to those your have mentioned. And as per instructions accompanied with Packets, I soaked 5 types seeds for 12 hrs and put in substrate, but there was no success. For the rest of the seven I soaked them in small containers with Luke warm water and 3 of them Germinated in a day or 2. I planted them in normal soil, and praying them with water after every 4 hours. They have shown good amount of development. 


Still I am not able decide what to do with Cow hair & baby bearth do any one of you have any success ??, pls. share


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## Tanan

I didnt try germinating them again. Will think of it once I get my submersed tank going.
But I am pretty sure that they are not aquatic plants at all.


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## pandragon

This is definitely an interesting thread. I was wondering about buying some of those seeds as well, but wasn't sure whether the plants were true aquatic or not. Have you figured out which ones (if any) are true aquatics? I know sprouts tend to look similar from different species.


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## Girish

Tanan said:


> I didnt try germinating them again. Will think of it once I get my submersed tank going.
> But I am pretty sure that they are not aquatic plants at all.


@tanan, :hail:, now you r telling those are not aquatic plants, hahahhahah.


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## Tanan

I am sorry but I guessed that after trying to grow them.


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## pandragon

I wonder if there are any places to get true aquatic seeds? I know there are some species of aquatic plants that propagate by seed. It would be cool if you could get seed packets for them like you can with terrestrial veggies and flowers. It is really a shame that none of the seeds seemed to be aquatic.


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## TankAaron

Hi guys,

I just finished reading this entire thread. I found it fascinating. May I please have links to the sites you purchased them from? I'd rather have links to the ones you bought from, instead of just similar ones. This way I know they aren't just going to rip me off. Also, Idc that there are few, if any, true aquatics. I would enjoy the experience. Yes, I could just go to wally-world to get seeds in a packet, but what's the fun in knowing I won't get any true aquatics? This would be like trying to solve a mystery. =D


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## christappy

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/18-s...-pond-Purifying-water-quality/2042954426.html

just ordered these seeds about 20 days ago. they should be here soon. i was thinking of doing a quick journal while germinating. I'm just going to be using a small ziplock container with well rinsed top soil with water just above the surface. Keeping the container above my fridge will ensure it stays warm and gets some indirect light via the kitchen window.
I wasn't expecting much...shifty chinese site. If some work, great! if not, no big deal. will post once they arrive.


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## Girish

Its waste of time. You try and grow them emerged and when u plan them submerged. They r all dead.


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## illustrator

But it seems to be a good buisiness ...

To be honest I'd not trust a bag of "mixed seeds" and would rather have some well-identified species ... 

There's something else: seeds of many aquatic plants are not resistant to dehydration: in nature they float for a while and then either sink to germinate on the water bottom or they wash ashore and germinate on wet sand. So any dried seeds of aquatic plants are somewhat suspicious to me, more so if it is not possible to check if the species concerned are perhaps exceptions to this rule.


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## THE V

Looks like some cheap cereals/spices to me. There is a very strong market for counterfeit seeds in China. They will sell random stuff under many different names. They sell a lot of bird seed as a "seed mixture". They will also knowingly sell seed that is infected with disease. They will copy known seed companies packaging and names and sell it at a very cheap price as well. It is expanding into international markets with lots of issues being reported throughout Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. 

If the seed has a colorant on it (blue, green, red etc..) it signals that it has been treated chemically. This could be just about anything and can be highly toxic.

Unless they come in packaging with a Phytosanitary Certificate, Import Permit, Certificate of Origin, & a commercial invoice that positively identifies the seed species it is illegal to import into most countries around the world. You can face fines or jail-time for smuggling if the package is intercepted at customs.


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## illustrator

Who knows what weeds (invasive alien species) we'll get everywhere because of this. Please don't throw the leftovers of a trial growing to the compost: burn it in stead to be sure.


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## christappy

well...this will be the final chapter in the ali-express aquatic plant hustle. If these all flop I wouldnt be surprised. but this is one of the onlt forums that came up when I goggled 'planting aquatic seeds' and it just so happened that these folks bought from another seller on ali also.


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## christappy

I get my other seeds directly from Holland...never had an issue with customs before.


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## christappy




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## aloneflame

hello all,

check this link you can find the picture of your seeds.

nice to receive a reply


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## aloneflame

http://www.clasf.in/q/aquarium-plants-wide-leaves-aquatic-plant-seeds-1x10/


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