Bucephalandra species

[Tom Barr]

My english is not so good to understand all what you wrote. Firstly - buce don't need Co2 to grow. My first Buce I kept in aqua without Co2. But I start dosed to faster growing. I don't know that I good understand you, but could you call Bolbitis Heteroclita Difformis and Cuspidata as "not aquatic" plants, if it grow in nature on land, but can fast adapted to grow underwater?

Like Anubias, they do not "need" additional CO2, but they do use the little CO2 that is there.
All plants have to to use some CO2.

Many plants can adapt to submersed growth, Ammannia gracilius is a classic example, in nature, it grows on dry land, away from water.

Bolbitus and likely this Genus Bunephalandra do in fact have different leaf morphologies with submersed vs emergent form.
Same for some Anubias leaves, with submersed leaves being thinner and less cutin wax.
Sort of blurs the line between aquatic and emergent aquatic plant.
Still, I've tried many plants that grow along streams, rarely do they grow well in aquariums.

It will be nice to try this genus out and see how the adapt to the Anubias locations I have in my tank.
I would suspect due to their smaller size and nice leaf color and textures, they will eventually become as popul;ar as Anubias perhaps, but that will be a few years off.

Going this direction:

Vasteq, would you be interested in sending some of these plants to Tropica so they can grow and sell them to the Hobbyist?
I am sure Troels would like to see if they do well in cultivation and Tropica will also give % (small, but hey, it is something!) of the sales profits if they bring it into production.

PM me and I'll give you his contact, it would be good for the Hobby and you might make some $.

[Vasteq]

PM sent. If you would like to see other interesting plants see at my flickr photo site (you could find here my 3 small Bolbitis species: Difformis, Cuspidata and Gua Angin). But most of pictures are making long time ago by my old digital camera, and I am not satisfied with them today. So soon I'll have to refresh it with a new SLR camera.

[Crispino Ramos]

I wonder if it's a good idea for Tropica to mass produce Bucephalandra species. I have a feeling that Tropica is like the Walmart for aquatic plants.

[Tom Barr]

PM sent. If you would like to see other interesting plants see at my flickr photo site (you could find here my 3 small Bolbitis species: Difformis, Cuspidata and Gua Angin). But most of pictures are making long time ago by my old digital camera, and I am not satisfied with them today. So soon I'll have to refresh it with a new SLR camera.

Do have the "mini Bolbitus? Mine finally went into the Gameotophyte stage and I have many smaller plants, but it's not a Bolbitus genus (I think).

[Tom Barr]

I wonder if it's a good idea for Tropica to mass produce Bucephalandra species. I have a feeling that Tropica is like the Walmart for aquatic plants.

They already are reviewing 3-4 species as we speak...........I do not view them or any commercial nursery as Wal Mart. Tropica's quality is very high and so is their production. We need good vendors both in Asia, Australia, USA, Brazil, Turkey, and the EU that can supply the demand and lower the prices.
Florida Aquatic nurseries and a dozen others in the USA could be accused of the same thing, so I do support local hobbyist, but I also support a larger company that can grow and supply at the wholesale level.

Tropica nor any of the wholesale nurseries are slashing cost and trying to run the other guys out of town. LFS's NEED someone to buy plants from monthly. This promotes the hobby at the LFS level.
Then we get more people interested in plants, then hopefully the LFS's will survive, if you want to worry about the Walmartization, you should focus on Petsmart and Petco.
Those two chains have done more harm to LFS than anyone in the USA. You will never see them producing or offering Bunephalandra.

I've known the folks at Tropica since 1998.
They are a long shot from anything remotely Walmart.

[Crispino Ramos]

Florida Aquatic Nursery had been generous in donating plants to our SAKE (Southwest Area Killiefish Event) annual meeting. That is true about Petsmart and Petco - I feel sorry for those betta in little cups. It would be nice if Tropica could find or develop a Bucephalandra species that is tolerant to a wide range of environment and still remain aesthetically attractive.

[Tom Barr]

We will see what they bring out for full scale production, they develop and test various horticulture, then they see how it handles shipping etc, it's fairly complete testing for the market.

[Vasteq]

- Bucephalandra Green Velvet2 - medium sized variety


Bucephalandra Pink Lady - medium-sized variety
Beauty, unique shape of leaf, dark green. Outer side of leaf are pink.



Bucephalandra Copper Leaf: small-sized variety
Looks like miniature version of Pearl grey. Densely distributed shining dots. The name suggested copper colour but for now is grey. We will see.


Bucephalandra Shine Green: - medium sized-variety
New Leaves are fresh green. Beautiful looks when have a many new leaves.


Bucephalandra Velvet Leaf 3 - medium or even small-sized variety
The smallest of all Velvet. Leaves ar shorter than other VL.


Bucephalandra Velvet Leaf 4 - medium-sized variety
One of the bigger and darker kind of Velvet Leaf.


Bucephalandra Titan II: medium or even small-sized variety
At first glance leaves looks similar to Metalic Wave but is much smaller and shorter. Interesting is also leaf coloration - two shades of green appear along the leaf. Picture don't show it so I must take a better one.


Bucephalandra Palm tree: - medium-sized variety [if we take into account the size of rosette leaves. I don't know yet how high it will grow. Mine is about 17cm of height]


Bucephalandra Silky Blue 3: small-sized variety
Leaves with a slightly blue tint


Bucephalandra Sexy Pink: - medium-sized variety
Wavy edge of the leaf, outer side of leaves are pink (similar to Pink Lady)



Bucephalandra Belindae (I am not satisfied with this pics so soon I will change for the better) - small-sized variety,
Looks like miniature version of Velvet Leaf.



Bucephalandra Brownie Brown - small-sized variety
See how old emers leaves are green, and new submers leaves are dark Blue+dark red, seems to be really brown.



Bucephalandra Fine Edge - small-sized variety

[Crispino Ramos]

Vasteq is quite good in being able to capture the beautiful features (texture, color, patterns, striations, shades, shapes, and sizes) of Bucepahalandra species with his skills in photography and photographic equipment. However, our naked eye could not see all those details. I'm not trying to minimize the subtle differences between various species, but really they all seem to look similar at first glance.

[Vasteq]

Yes, you have right. Once, I thought so. I could not saw difference between each other. For me, there could be only a few species, the other was similar. Only by photographing them I knew them well. Also only by comparing them in one picture you can notice the difference. Most of them have the same characteristics (similar coloring, similar leaf shape but in a different color, the same leaves but in different size - something for everyone. And this is another advantage of bucephalandra - this large variety, sometimes only subtle. So I am trying collected this most diverse). If you put it all in one place then you will see that all are complementary and making a marvelous scene. Also then you will see, that none of it is the same.
Therefore, you gave me the idea that in a short time I will make a pictures comparative similar varieties. So everyone could see the difference. You can see an example of this idea on "Black Carpet and Kualakuayan1" picture (see below):