[fish4phil]

I recently ordered Marsilea Hirsuta, a ground cover plant, but received Marsilea Crenata instead. I've read these are technically different, but aesthetically are identical. Is this true? How are they different?

 

[exv152]

I just picked up Marsilea Crenata and have been researching it. They're apparently two different plants (Crenata & Hirsuta), but have very similar demands. Both grow well in med to high light, but do best with ferts, co2 and strong light. In terms of appearance, I don't think you'd be able to tell the difference bewtween the two.

 

[fish4phil]

Good to know, thanks for the reply! It's been about 2.5 weeks since I planted 7 pots of it. It still looks scraggly, but it's definitely growing and starting to spread new shoots. I can't wait for it to fully grow out, maybe 2-3 months?

 

[exv152]

Just curious, what conditions are you growing it in? Like what kind of light, substrate, ferts and CO2 are you using?

 

[fish4phil]

36G Community, Fine-grade Eco-Complete substrate, EI dry ferts with Seachem Flourish, pressurized CO2 to 30, Dual Bulb T5HO (1 of the 2 bulbs is rosette) (I've been told this is Medium, High, Very High, so really I don't know the subjective strength of it). After almost 3 weeks, some (maybe 25%?) of the planted stems turned brown, but are green in the substrate.

What about you?

 

[exv152]

The stuff I bought was submerged at the LFS for a week or two already, a friend of mine who works at the shop, advised it’s been recuperating nicely and recommended it. The longer clover leafs were dried up, and you can see small minature clover leafs developing and sending runners. So I took it out of the pots, cut off the dry bits, and planted them in two tanks. Half was put in a dry start with ADA aquasoil, and very strong LEDs, and has already responded slightly from Saturday when I planted them. The other half went into a very high light (4x T5HO bulb tank, w/ ferts/pressurized co2, and seachem fourite sub). Believe it or not the dry start looks to be doing slighty better (maybe it likes the AS better). So we’ll see.