banana plants

[Kuhlifan]

My two banana plants just recently started growing long and thin little roots of some type from mid-stem. Until recently, they sat on the substrate, but they are now suspened about one to two inches above the substrate by the little "legs" coming out of their stems. Is this normal?

[mellowvision]

yup. they grow lots of them.

[vampie]

I'm not sure if it's normal, but it always happens to me as well. I've corydoras hiding under there.

If you want to keep it down, you'd have to bury part of the bananas in the substrate. Mine always ends up pushing itself back out though, due to the massive root system and floating lilypads.

[bkgodfrey]

what kind of lighting do you have? I have been wanting to get a couple of those plants but was unsure if I could grow them. I have pretty low powered lighting, 20 to 25 watts. I've got an onion and hornwort growing very well currently

[vampie]

Banana plants don't need much light. I've had them grow like crazy in 1wpg and less.

[Kuhlifan]

My tank is a 5 gallon with a hood designed for incandescent lights. I found a replacement at Walmart that is a little flourescent full-spectrum light that screws into the incandescent light recepticle. The incandescents were 15 watt, so I assume the flourescent is similar.

[bkgodfrey]

Great, that is what I have, just under 1 watt/gallon, guess I can give it a try

[Kuhlifan]

depending on what you have swimming around, I also use a mild fertilizer. I use it sparingly, given the size of the tank. Loaches can also be sensitive to some chemicals, so that's another reason to go slow. A lot of inverts, mainly snails, are also very susceptible to things like iron and copper, found in most ferilizers.

[vampie]

Bananas seem to grow the similarly to the onions you mentioned. I buy both small, they'll take off for a couple of weeks and then slow down once they've reached the maximum size the tank would allow them.

[bkgodfrey]

great, thanks for the advice. Yea, my onion really took off and looks great.

[mellowvision]

I've seen bananas witht he bulbous roots turning brown... is this normal?

[plantling]

I've had two banana plants and they both came apart near the top of the banana looking roots. On both, the leaves remained attached and the banana parts were by themselves. There was nothing to weight down the leaves, so I left them to tangle with the other plants in the tank. The leaf parts started growing roots and the banana parts started growing leaves. I buried the roots of one of the leaf parts and it's still alive, but the one I left dangling slowly died. So now I've got two banana plants with healthy looking new leaves and an odd looking banana plant with no bananas but some roots that seem to be sustaining the leaves. Very strange, but true.

[mellowvision]

maybe it's going to grow bananas.

[gregm]

so how do you get this to grow new plants? i have one in my 10 gallon that's doing great. i'd like to get it to grow another plant so i could put the new one in my 40 gallon tank :)