Riccia Growth Rate

[jonathan03]

I'm looking at some Riccia for my tank and I have a few questions. I have 2 watts per gallon and DIY Co2. I'm wondering about how fast this palnt grows? I would like a carpet of it in my tank and I'm wondering how long it will take to grow this much? I will start with a tennis ball sized peice and I have a 38 gallon tank.

The problem is that this plant is kind of expensive even for a little peice. I want to grow a lot of it quickly. Can anyone give an estimate on how fast is grows? Is it a slow grower?

 

[midiamin]

You you really want to grow a lot quickly, take your starter culture and float it loose in a small well lit tank with guppies, mollies or angels doesn't really matter and feed the fish a rich fish food such as OSI shrimp flakes. Run a CO2 on it as well as a pump or filter to circulate the water column also. You culture will triple in a month and you can start to strategicly place you cultures in you fish tank. Believe me this stuff grows like wildfire when left free floating with proper nutrients. Make sure you don't overfeed so algae will not develop.

The PlantMan cometh................................

 

[biogirl361]

i have a good amount of it in my tank now after having started with a very small chunk that the LFS could spare me from their show tank. in my tank with diy co2 and 3.8 wpg it takes about 2-3 weeks for it to cover the net so that you can't see the net anymore. for me it takes a couple months before it's long enough to cut and spread more around the tank.

 

[djlen]

As biogirl mentions, good light and CO2 will produce huge 'pads' in a very short period of time.
I just sent a bunch to one of our forum friends, that grew to cover the top of my tank, was darkening the tank, and was approx. 1.5" thick. This is the way to plant it over an object on the substrate. Let nice pads develop and lay them over the object.
But once again, if you don't have good, penetrating light you may be disappointed with growth when it is planted on the bottom.

Len