G'day, i've been reading a heap of Takashi Amano's books and love what he does with this plant! Also known as Crystal Wart.

So now i've got some and i thought i'd just share the experience that i'm going to have trying to do stuff with it so people will be able to learn from my mistakes! :blink:

Anyways this stuff is a floating plant and i don't think it shoots out any decent roots so the only way to make it carpet the floor of my tank is to get some tied onto some flat rocks.

Here's my riccia as i'm about to start putting on the rocks...



First i spread some onto the rocks thinly but making sure that i covered the whole top of the rock so that the riccia grows evenly.



then i just wound some cotton around and around in a criss cross fashion to hold it down.
Once i had done that it all went into my plant growing/cultivating tank and we'll see how see grows.




Its supposed to grow thick so that you don't see the rocks anymore and once it gets big enough you can shape it with scissors.

Also i just love the little oxygen crystals that it gets on the tips of its stalks!

If anyone has some experience with this plant please feel free to share it here with me. :smoke:

Should rocket off man! Good amount of Light too. Does even better under CO2, but that aint essential! I had the stuff floating and it grew so mad, it was a carpet covering my syrface until I sold it off.

You might have to scoop out little peaces out of the water colum and off the surface every week, and thats why people dont always keep it long term. Its surprisingly a PITA.

Keep us updated with shots! ;)

I can't wait to see how it goes, cool project! jay

I used to have Ricca in my planted tanks...it grows like crazy! Just my 2 cents...make sure you don't pile your ricca...it starts dieing and rotting underneath and becomes a breeding ground for string algae. String algae is horrible..>.<

I had to get rid of mine becuase of it...;-;

Thanks for the tip!

I'm a lil concerned about mine cause i was away for work last week. it turned up earlier in the week wrapped in damp news paper. i left it in there until the weekend when i got back so i hope its ok. :green:

it should be ok, i got java fern send to me from ausi, wrapped in wet papper, it showed up about 3 weeks after i bought it, and it was fine, but it is hardier than rica fluitans....lol


can you post some new pics when you can notice growing? lol



Tyler

I got a bunch from Singapore and it took two weeks for it to reach here....most of it survived and grew...a lot. Yours should do fine. :)

yeah it seems ok, i'll give it about two weeks from my first post and then i'll post new pics.

FBG how much would yours have grown in two weeks?

Here is a pic of how I did mine. Its held together with a cotton hairnet, driftwood and ricca.



6 weeks later:

Hey thanks for the pics susan, they look great!

How often do they get o2 bubbles on them?

Quite often even though not running CO2. But lots of light and give them flourish excel.

Florish excel, i have a bottle of just florish will that be ok?

I wonder how this would do for extra Mbuna food? Does it grow quickly and survive in a higher pH and hardness?

The fourish will help it a lot, but also get some excel or do CO2 injection, as it does need the oxygen.

It is a very fast growing plant in my tanks. Most of them run at a ph of 7.6 but should do good with higher ph and hardness as long as you dose it with ferts and some sort of carbon additive like CO2 or flourish excel.

hmmmm mine seems to be dying off, maybe it was out for too long like i thought :banghead: .

I'll run some water tests to see if there's another explination. :hmm:

i'll post a pic of it later.

I have a fresh, bigger bunch of it coming next week and i won't be away this time!

Ok this is what it's looking like......



I did some tests on the water and here's what i got....

Amonia: somewhere in between 0 and 0.25

Nitrate: in between 5 and 10

Ph: about 7

Is the problem not having enough nitrate?

Nitrates are bad...they can spark algae explotions. Is your tank new?

Yes it is new, about 2 weeks and well due for a water change!

It will get one today.

5-10 ppm of nitrates is well within acceptable levels honestly. I wouldn't stress it until about 25 ppm even for algae.

What is your watts per gallon on this tank, even though its a new tank, the plant looks as though it isn't getting enough light.

What you might try is tying it into a hair net and letting it float for awhile. that way it would be closer to the light. Ricca is actually a floating plant that can be tied to rocks and driftwood and still do good if it gets enough light. If the wattage isn't high enough to reach the bottom at high levels you need to raise the plant to reach the lights.

its a 15w light

Don't you need 3-5 watts/gallon of a more red green spectrum light for plant growth?

you tell me, i'm a noob :hmm:

I'm by no means an expert but I have been told that it depends on the plants. Some can get by with 2wpg others, especially if they are red, require up to 4-5 wpg, but I think that those also require extra stuff too- ferts, cO2 etc.

The riccia seems to be finding some life again...

I run 2.5 watts on most of my tanks. Using flouresence daylight bulbs. Plant growth is great. I trim my tanks every couple of weeks. The 3 main ingrediants for plant growth is light, ferts and oxygen. There are different levels of light requirements for the different plants. Low level plants will grow good at 1.5 wpg with the right ferts and such. 3 watts and over I would suggest CO2 injection as the higher light will deplete the oxygen faster.

thanks susan, i have some co2 coming in the mail and an't wait to get it.

Well my co2 turned up today for both tanks! i can't wait to set it up! jay