Why are roots growing from everywhere on my plants?

[fabsroman]

I'm having a problem with roots growing from everywhere on my plants when I try to establish cuttings from them. This is happening with my green and purple cabomba, my green and red foxtail, and my red broad leaf ludwigia. Every time I plant a new cutting, it starts to grow roots from everywhere along the plant, instead of just the bottom that is stuck in the flourite gravel with a plant anchor.

Is this natural? If so, will the dangling roots go away once the plant establishes its bottom roots in the gravel?

 

[Bk718]

are you dosing the tank with fertilizer? whats your lighting?

 

[Mgamer20o0]

some roots is natural the more they send out often means its looking for more food source.

 

[fabsroman]

I am dosing it with Flourish, Flourish Iron, Flourish Potassium, and Flourish Trace, with Flourish tabs in the gravel.

The lighting is extremely high. 260 watts on a 75 gallon tank for 6 hours of the day and half that for 12 hours. In my 55 gallon refugium, I have 260 watts for 10 hours.

Could it be that my nitrate levels are too low at 10 ppm and the plants are growing the roots from everywhere to try and take in as much as possible? What about a nitrate level at 20 ppm?

 

[derekp]

Thats a good thing. They do that naturally. It means your plants are happy. Great job.

 

[IsaacMTSU]

...or it could mean that the bottoms of the plants are not as healthy as the tops (happens sometimes if you replant the tops and the bottoms are kept in place)

 

[derekp]

Good point. How are the bottoms of the plants. Are they decomposing or are they solid? If they are solid, your plants are happy, if not, then there is something wrong.

 

[aquaman66]

that's normal, if you let those roots grow all the way down the substrate, it will anchor to the substrate/gravel thus making their stems more secured and less chances of getting uprooted...

 

[Robert H]

It depends on the plant. With some stem plants if there are a lot of aerial roots it is a sign of insufficient light, particularly if leaves are also falling off or rotting off. If you have stems planted too close together, or too crowded together with other types of plants, not enough light is reaching the bottom portion of the stem. The solution is to have more space between the plants and increase the light level.

How you prune stem plants also has an affect. If you cut a stem, and allow the "stump" to continue to grow, it often grows for a few inches with no leaves and a bunch of hairy roots. If you only keep and replant the top portion, you retain more dense leaf growth.

And then there are some plants that just have a lot of aerial roots no matter what.