My aponogetons are sending shoots to the surface and one has started growing a flower already while two other will likely be tommorow. Is it possible to collect seeds and grow them? If so can anyone provide information on pollinating and growing... Thanks
ps i searched on google and couldn't come up with anything.
A lady's cosmetic brush (the smaller the better) is great for pollinating them. Lightly brush one and then the other once they have flowered. Do this at least twice and gently. The seeds will usually fall into the aquarium in a week or so. Check daily for them as most fish will eat them.
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I've done that lots of times, but I've never seen any seeds. However, I've gotten lots of baby plants, so it must have worked.
In fact, I have two Aponogeton tanks right now which are chock full of tiny little young plants, and in one of those tanks I didn't even bother trying to pollinate them. They just bumped into each other, I guess. For the past month or so I've had several blooms in ,er, bloom, at any given time, and they're so plentiful that they're growing right up against each other in some cases.
Since the baby plants don't have bulbs to feed them, I add "Natural Aquarium Vital" to the tanks, and they are growing like crazy, and these tanks have undergravel filters in use!
Now if I can just get my Marimo ball to get with the program...
Ok so if i find some small plants growing would it be a good idea to transfer to like a 2L bottle and sit on a window sill? I dont really have any means of getting fertilizers as i haven't seen any in LFS... and dont feel like ordering online. Are there any DIY routes that i can get by with for fertilizer? If i put waste water from gravel vacs from main tank into the plant water would that be a sort of fertilizer?