Cultivation of Aldrovanda

From: Ippenberger (S.Ippenberger@t-online.de)
Date: Mon Feb 14 2000 - 12:49:30 PST


Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 21:49:30 +0100
From: S.Ippenberger@t-online.de (Ippenberger)
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg445$foo@default>
Subject: Cultivation of Aldrovanda

Hello all, I want to share my experience with indoor growing of
Aldrovanda. Saerching the old cp-lists for information I found a very
helpful message of Paul Temple dated from 02 Jan 96. I made a similar
setup: 40l aquarium, 2 cm of sphagnum moss peat, 4-5cm of aquarium sand,
rainwater, heater keeping temperature about 25Celsius, all put on a
south faced windowsill plus a window cleaning fish (Ancistrus I think).
No aerator or artificial light was used. I obtained a small piece
(1cm)of Aldrovanda (Australian strain, Darwin, thank you M.!) branched
into two really tiny growing points and put it into the aquarium. First
I got an algae invasion of filamentous algae overgrowing the small
Aldrovanda. I added boron hoping to control algae and stabilise the
Aldrovanda but it didnot work on algae. (Yes, I know, it is a nutrition
factor). Then I added ToruMin, a peat made blackwater-extract used in
fishkeeping. And interesting I got rid of algae within two days. Now
the water color is light tea brown and maintained by ToruMin addition
every 3 or 4 weeks. The 2 Aldrovanda plants grew to a length of 15 and
10 cm, the bigger one branching now. Hopefully they will turn red with
increasing daylight soon. I think that ToruMin together with peat is an
excellent medium to control filamentous algae. Hope this helps some
Aldrovanda growers! My Polish strain plants are still in the fridge and
quite green! Stefan



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