Water Sprite Propagating?

[flamechica]

So, in my tank journal, I mentioned that I few days ago I moved my water sprite to a newly set up 10g tank with less light. I have had a hard time with this stuff. When I moved it, I cut off a bunch of stems that were rotting or so covered in algae that I figured it was gone anyway. So, I lost quite a bit of each of the plants. Today I look in the tank and notice roots growing towards the tops of each of the plants. Is it propagating or what is going on now? And what do I do with it?

 

[Bob]

My java fern used to do this, it was not very attractive, it stopped when i started dosing ferts though.

 

[Seattle_Aquarist]

Hi flamechica,

If you watch that area closely you should see a small 'baby plant' (plantlet) forming at that point on the plant; usually at a leaf / stem junction. Once the plantlet has 3-5 leaves it can be removed and planted. I usually remove the entire mature leaf with the small plant from the plant; it makes it easier to separate the plantlet from the mature leaf.

 

[flamechica]

Thanks! I was really hoping that is what was going on. My husband looked in the tank and said, "I think one of the roots from your water lettuce fell off and landed on them" But I assured him, I checked, it's attached. I tried to find some information online, but I couldn't find much, because a lot of people tend to get water sprite and wisteria mixed up it seems, so the info I was getting googling was kinda mixed up between the two, so I just figured I should post here to be sure and someone had to know. Well, after losing so much of the plants recently, this is really exciting! Things are looking up!

 

[tazeat]

When plants are lower on nutrients they often shoot off roots even above the substrate to try and absorb more so that may be what's happening as well

 

[flamechica]

I did notice last night that right where the roots are growing, there is a little itty bitty sprout of growth, just like Seattle_Aquarist said there should be. It's really itty bitty and hard to see, but it's there.

I'm pretty new to planted tanks, but I've been fertilizing them what seems to me quite a bit, but it's the recommended dosages on the bottles...they all have root tabs under them, they have been getting Seachem Flourish 2 times a week, Seachem Excel 3 times a week, & API Leaf Zone once a week. Once all this liquid stuff is gone, I will be making the transition to dry ferts, because I can see this is not the way to go as I keep adding more tanks, but it's the way I went since I am so new to ferts right now.

I do have a little bit of water lettuce in each tank and have wondered, if due to having such a high nutrient sucker in each tank, if maybe I should up the dosages on the ferts....but being so new to all this I am afraid of hurting the fish somehow....so far, none of my water tests of indicated any spikes, but I am not sure if there is something else I should be testing for that wouldn't show up on the basic tests. Right now, I just use Tetra 6 in 1 test strips. I plan on getting a better test kit, when money allows, but in the last month or so I have spent a lot of fish stuff....

 

[Bob]

Definitely don't waste anymore money on the test strips, those thing are garbage. Actually i have found that if something says tetra on it, it's most likely garbage. Good to see you will be getting a better test kit when finances allow. API has the test kit which most use, they also have GH and KH test kits would could be useful.