wendelov questions

[wijnands]

I've got some wendelov tied to driftwood and that's mostly doing very well. Few questions though for someone with more experience.

1. Can you prune the roots without harming the plant?
2. what's the best way to shape the plant? I'm thinking cutting away leaves as low as possible
3. How do you propegate this plant? My daughter's shrimp tank could use one or two.
4. The top most plant has some brown tips on the feathery ends of the leaves. I wonder if this is flow related or because it gets above the water level when I do water changes or possibly it's because of excess light.

[Darkblade48]

Originally Posted by wijnands

1. Can you prune the roots without harming the plant?

Yes

Originally Posted by wijnands

2. what's the best way to shape the plant? I'm thinking cutting away leaves as low as possible

Shape in what way? It generally grows quite slow, but if you want to (say) train it to grow lower, you can try trimming the taller leaves.

Originally Posted by wijnands

3. How do you propegate this plant? My daughter's shrimp tank could use one or two.

Baby plantlets will emerge from the tips of the leaves and/or as the long rhizome elongates, you can cut off pieces and attach to new driftwood.

Originally Posted by wijnands

4. The top most plant has some brown tips on the feathery ends of the leaves. I wonder if this is flow related or because it gets above the water level when I do water changes or possibly it's because of excess light.

A picture would be helpful; it is either baby plants as mentioned above, or algae.

[wijnands]

Thanks Anthony. The biggest plant is getting a bit wider than I really want it.

As to the tips, this pics is already a few weeks old but it's best I got at the moment.

[Darkblade48]

The picture shows your shrimp much better than the plant

From the looks of the plants, some of the tips seem to show root formation, while on others, it could be algae, or it could just be the leaf starting to die (old age, etc).

For pruning, just prune to the width that you desire; if you keep at it, you will eventually be able to "train" it to some degree.

[driftwoodhunter]

haha - you see the shrimp, I see the beautiful bokeh at the top of the pic

[Wannaberooted]

It looks like you may have one baby plant, they sprout right from the leaf, with little roots at the bottom. I have two growing in my substrate right now, I had nowhere else to put them, but they are growing nicely.
Attachment 78522

As Darkblade said, they tolerate trimming well.