# Propagation of anubias



## morpheus

The easiest way to propogate an anubia is to seperate the Rhizome and make as many plants as you can. They will grow in and you will have many more plants, keep doing that and you can have thousands of the little guys in no time. Use a very sharp blade like a scalpel.

IME anubias grow best emersed. Submerged though with CO2 and higher light they can and will take off as well. I personally prefer to grow them under lower light as then they get that nice green that they just don't have with high light.

This is the plastic plant of the aquarium trade and they grow no matter what.

Morpheus


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## ninoboy

Morpheus, the A.nana in my tank hardly grows at all. It's green and healthy but I only see one new leaf after close to 2 months. Are they really slow growers? Does propagating/splitting them help to speed up the growth? Other plants thrive in my tank.


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## Capt.

Anubias are really slow growers.


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## aquaphish

Here is a picture of some Anubia Nana growing in a tank w/2.5 wpg. 

I started with only 4 small plants and now this is what happened in just a few months

This is an older picture. They have grown even more since this was taken



http://www.plantedtank.net/forum/download.php?id=637


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## Fosty

My tank has 2.5 wpg light and diy co2 (17 ppm) and my anubias grow pretty fast, the problem is one of my fish is chewing on the leaves at the same rate its growing. Thats why I want to try to grow it emersed. I searched online but couldn't find anything on growing anubias emersed. I dont really know whether to plant it in gravel like in my aquarium, on driftwood, or in regular soil. I just know that it has to be in a moist enviroment. Any more info would help a lot.

Thanks,
Fosty


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## mario

If you want to grow it emersed, the best subtrate is rich potting soil. Wet it down and make sure the humidity is very high. Otherwise the leaves will dry out and rot away.


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## SCMurphy

When I started keeping anubius, many many moons ago, I found that if I kept up a dosing schedule of Fe once a week the plants would put up new leaves. If I let it go for a couple weeks and then dosed I'd see no growth then suddenly a new leaf on every plant. I concluded after trying this several times that a little iron in the water column stimulated the plants to grow. Later came the realization that I needed to add K to prevent pinholes in the leaves, but that's another story. 

Anyhow, if you cut the 'growing' end off of an established plant, 3 leaves or so to keep that as a plant too, new branches sprout off the main stem. How this would work in emmersed culture I don't know as I have never had to try it out there. I do know I had an A. nana that tried to overtake a 30 gallon tank.


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## eds

I have 3 pieces of a.nana, each about 4-5" long, growing in one area of my tank. Tho they have really healthy roots along the length of the rhizomes, each section seems to leaf primarily from one end, with only a couple of leaves along the rest of the rhizome. 

I would welcome thoughts of how you would manage these plants.

Would you suggest slicing off the relatively unproductive sections of the rhizome? 
Leaving well-leafed and rooted sections of how long? 
Would you keep the other sections - either to establish a thick bed of a.nana, or to get some growth to trade in to the LFS? 
If propagating them for sale/trade, how long would you make each section of rhizome? 
Need each section include leaves?

On another topic, while my a.nana is doing pretty well, my congensis and frazerii seem pretty static. They occasionally send up new leaves - maybe every month or 2. But root growth is VERY minimal - far less than with the nana. Any thoughts? I don't currently add iron. Ought I start? (There may be a small amount of Fe in TMG - I'm not sure. And I just finished a bottle of Flourish. I figured my next bottle would include iron.) 

TIA


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## SCMurphy

I've had plants that end up with 3 or 4 inches of leafless rhizome, I just didn't notice the 'forward movement' growth of the plant in the jungles I keep. Left alone they would start growing daughter plants all along that bare stem. 

In my experience you need to leave a few leafs on every section that you cut from your plant.

I think you might have answered your last question yourself. :wink:


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## Gomer

In my high light tank, I get a new leaf about every 2 weeks. I find that trimming old leaves accellerates leaf growth.


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## pedietz

My Anubias in my 10 gallon tank had a 12 inch rhizome with 3 leaves at one end....

funny looking thing.

What happened was the rhizome grew vertically towards the light, and the huge leaves on top blocked the growth of new leaves anywhere else...

So I chopped it up. I'll let you know in 14 months how its doing


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## jread

Thanks for all the good info, guys 

A. nana has to be one of my favorite plants of all!


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## lmvt

I had a massive amount of A. nana covered with algae. I cut all leaves with any traces of algae. I end up with some rhizomes with no leaves and new plants emerged from several places.

Luis


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## aquaphish

IMO these plants just will not die no matter what happens to them!!! They remind me of the Energizer Bunny " The just keep growing and growing and growing!!!"


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## Oqsy

here I go, digging up an old thread. I was doing a search for pinholes in anubias nana, and this was the only result. 

SC, were your pinholes on old or new leaves? I have yellowing and pinholes on older leaves, but new leaves are springing up and looking great. I dose K+ very generously and would be surprised if it's a K deficiency. Any ideas?



SCMurphy said:


> When I started keeping anubius, many many moons ago, I found that if I kept up a dosing schedule of Fe once a week the plants would put up new leaves. If I let it go for a couple weeks and then dosed I'd see no growth then suddenly a new leaf on every plant. I concluded after trying this several times that a little iron in the water column stimulated the plants to grow. Later came the realization that I needed to add K to prevent pinholes in the leaves, but that's another story.


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## Osteomata

Extremely hardy plants. I had 2 in a turtle tank under poor conditions, including a bad light source (15watts in a 10 gallon, but a light designed for reptiles not plants), no ferts, no CO2, questionable water conditions, and constant harrassment. The turtles decimated every other plant i put in the tank, including a large Pond Lily that they took down "beaver style" by chewing through the thick base. The mostly left the anubias nanas alone, until they reached over 2 inches in carapice length. At this point they began to eat new leaves. I pulled the plants out, put them in a good planted tank for a week of recovery, and traded them for cherry shrimp. The new owner (whom I warned about the new leaf damage) was quite happy with their quality. One tough plant.

Holy cow, I just realized that the poster above me is the guy I traded them to!
Oqsy, are you developing pinholes in the plants I sent you? Do you need to send them back to me so they can "recover" in the turtle tank, hehe. Need some more info on the tank conditions they were in before I sent them?


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## Oqsy

nope, not those. (i see the turtle munches on yours though) this is on the leaves from a plant I've had for a couple of months 

Oqsy


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## Hawkeye

I have noticed Ahubias that had large amounts of algae on them and then cleared up. The older leaves will get pin holes where the algae died. But as far as growth. I have yet to fined a tank I haven't been able to grow this plant at a rate of 2-3 leaves/month. In some tanks I would get one new leaf/week. 

Hawk


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## Overfloater

I get 3-4 leaves per week on each plant in my high light CO2 setup. They can grow pretty quickly under lots of light if you can keep the algae off them. But certainly not as fast as most stems.


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## Samosette

The Anubius are great plants. I have found that if you cut up pieces of the plant as long as there is one root and a leaf it will be ok and grow bigger. They are really hard to kill and you must do something really really wrong for them to die. I had a little piece of nub of an A. Nana with no leaves bout a few roots and within a month or two there were three leaves on them. I even got an A. Barteri to flower underwater. Best way to propogate them are to cut them up and tie them down to pieces of bogwood, but thats not necessary.


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## Thanks

Fosty said:


> My tank has 2.5 wpg light and diy co2 (17 ppm) and my anubias grow pretty fast, the problem is one of my fish is chewing on the leaves at the same rate its growing. Thats why I want to try to grow it emersed. I searched online but couldn't find anything on growing anubias emersed. I dont really know whether to plant it in gravel like in my aquarium, on driftwood, or in regular soil. I just know that it has to be in a moist enviroment. Any more info would help a lot.
> 
> Thanks,
> Fosty


what kind of fish do you have?! Anubias taste bitter to fish, and thats why they dont eat them, even the most herbivorous fish, like severums. 
I have 6 different rhizomes of anubias, each with at least 15 leaves. In my DIY CO2, 3.5 wpg tank, I get about 10 new leaves every week. Slow growers? Not in my tank :tongue: 

If you want them to grow into a specific shape, just trim off the leaves that interfere with the shape. Or, you can make small, shallow slits into the rhizome with a razor blade, and in a week or two the rhizome will branch out of the slit. then, when it gets big enough, you can trim it off and replant where you want it. roud:


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## SCMurphy

Oqsy said:


> here I go, digging up an old thread. I was doing a search for pinholes in anubias nana, and this was the only result.
> 
> SC, were your pinholes on old or new leaves? I have yellowing and pinholes on older leaves, but new leaves are springing up and looking great. I dose K+ very generously and would be surprised if it's a K deficiency. Any ideas?



I'm amazed I noticed this question. The tanks were non-CO2, 2wpg (maybe) with a thick cover of floating watersprite. I had read someplace in the Science Library at UMass that K limitation showed up as holes in the leaves of aquatic plants so I gave it a try. The holes healed, in both the anubius and the sword plants. The pin holes did not have any yellowing associated with them.

Your problem jumps to another topic that came up and was never settled. OD'ing K. It's possible that your plants are having Ca or Mg uptake blocked by the excess K. The idea for this came from agricultural studies, not aquatic plant studies, may be right, may not. The blockage of Ca or Mg shows up as a similar deficiency as K. I think if you search here you'll find threads that end in each camp, one case the guy changed a light bulb and the problem was fixed. Try reducing the K dosing and dose a little Ca and Mg and see what that does for you.


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## Buck

> Anubias taste bitter to fish, and thats why they dont eat them, even the most herbivorous fish, like severums.


Please tell that to my Congo's ! Them suckers eat my Gigantea leaves like a spinach salad. It puts out a new leaf every two weeks and if it makes it past the 3rd day then chances are it wont see the 5th day. :angryfire 
Now they are on a kick for my hairgrass... dont know if they are eating it or just racing my angels to see who can pull up the most in one day ! 
But the anubia leaves... dem suckers are EATIN' ! ooooof


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## threadfinfanatic

I read an article from Tropical Fish Hobbiest that stated that Anubias is easier to grow above water. however, it stated that leaves that form above water cannot live under water. The plant should still survive, but it will go through a period where the leaves will all die.


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