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It all happened by accident.
I purchased 2 tubs of In-Vitro HC 'Cuba' from Hortlabs. I am currently starting a Nano Tank using the DSM and I've been dying to try HC for a long time now. When the tubs arrived, I was floored at the superb condition these plants where. Amazing, but I was about to receive a shock when I prepared these for planting.
Instructions state, remove from container, clean off Gel and plant (roots down) into the substrate. Easy enough. I removed the first HC Puck, from the Gel, flipped it over and was shocked to see --- NO ROOTS. Seriously, not one.
How am I going to plant this? Then a simple experiment from Grade School came into mind, the seed and wet paper towel. The seed was able to grow in the paper towel fine. The root grew horizontal in the same orientation of the seed. Then you plant it root down.
So, by science and by gravity, simply placing these onto the substrate (giving them a little press with my thumb), these should develop roots and anchor themselves into the substrate.
I cleaned up the pucks, cut them up and had more than enough to place all over my substrate. I've looked all over the Internet a few people have grown this plant on Driftwood and rocks. Some reports I question, others I know to be 100% genuine (James Findlay being one of them).
So I've decided to run this experiment to see if this will actually work. If it doesn't work, Iwill purchase more that have visible root systems from somewhere else. If it works, I found a relatively painless way to get HC to root in an Aquarium using the Dry Start Method (DSM).
Soil is moist, and the humidity is at 75%.
If anyone has information regarding this, please chime in. I would love to hear views on this.
Gary
I purchased 2 tubs of In-Vitro HC 'Cuba' from Hortlabs. I am currently starting a Nano Tank using the DSM and I've been dying to try HC for a long time now. When the tubs arrived, I was floored at the superb condition these plants where. Amazing, but I was about to receive a shock when I prepared these for planting.
Instructions state, remove from container, clean off Gel and plant (roots down) into the substrate. Easy enough. I removed the first HC Puck, from the Gel, flipped it over and was shocked to see --- NO ROOTS. Seriously, not one.
How am I going to plant this? Then a simple experiment from Grade School came into mind, the seed and wet paper towel. The seed was able to grow in the paper towel fine. The root grew horizontal in the same orientation of the seed. Then you plant it root down.
So, by science and by gravity, simply placing these onto the substrate (giving them a little press with my thumb), these should develop roots and anchor themselves into the substrate.
I cleaned up the pucks, cut them up and had more than enough to place all over my substrate. I've looked all over the Internet a few people have grown this plant on Driftwood and rocks. Some reports I question, others I know to be 100% genuine (James Findlay being one of them).
So I've decided to run this experiment to see if this will actually work. If it doesn't work, Iwill purchase more that have visible root systems from somewhere else. If it works, I found a relatively painless way to get HC to root in an Aquarium using the Dry Start Method (DSM).
Soil is moist, and the humidity is at 75%.
If anyone has information regarding this, please chime in. I would love to hear views on this.
Gary
