Anubias - Emerse Growing Indoors

Tankquility cultivates its entire Anubias collection as emerse plants. All clones grow well in a greenhouse through the warmer months in our climate, but we have found that variegated varieties such as Anubias ‘Pinto’, A. ‘White’ and A. ‘Panda’ suffer when the temperatures drop in winter. For this reason, some of the delicate Anubias in our collection are grown in a temperature-controlled grow room.

Plants are housed in lidded glass tanks to maintain high humidity. This, combined with daily misting facilitates a trouble-free transition of our emerse Anubias to aquarium conditions.

Within each tank is a raised platform constructed of drainage cell, which can be found in the garden/landscape section of large hardware stores. Egg crate may be used instead of drainage cell, but it is not as strong and can be more expensive. The structure of the drainage cell also helps to reduce light transmission to the sump below, helping manage algae growth. The platform is supported approximately 10cm above the floor of the tank with cut-to-size lengths of 40mm PVC pipe.

The water level in the tank should be 1cm-2cm above the platform. If the water level is too high, algae is encouraged to grow on the surface of the substrate, and this will negatively impact the health of the plant. An airstone operates continuously in the sump below the platform to increased humidity and provide ventilation. A heater can be placed within the sump to increase the tank temperature if or when required. Our grow room is maintained at 23°C, though slightly higher temperatures are preferred by Anubias.

Moderate lighting is provided above the tank with a white LED light bar. Anubias prefer low to moderate lighting. White tissue in variegated varieties will brown off and rot, and green varieties will become pale, if light levels are too high.

Algae growth in the sump water can be a problem initially; another reason to keep light levels on the lower side! Algae will decrease in time.

We find 100mm pots are convenient for growing small Anubias varieties. When it comes to substrate, Anubias are not particularly fussy. We use the following media layers for production:

Layer 1 (capping layer) - Course gravel (particle size range 3mm-5mm). Larger particle size assists with algae control on substrate surface.

Layer 2 - Aquarium gravel mixed with 10% clay loam and some marble chips. The clay loam used is an acid ferrosol dug from our farm. Osmocote slow-release fertiliser pellets are added to the mix.

Layer 3 - Clay loam (acid ferrosol) with added dolomite or marble chips. Osmocote slow-release fertiliser pellets are added.

Layer 4 (bottom 2cm-3cm in pot) - Jumbo perlite.

With the pot standing in water, the bottom perlite layer wicks water upwards and helps maintain the moisture level in the substrate layers above. Plants are misted once per day by hand to wet the leaves and supply additional water to the substrate. Misting is essential in bringing out the white colouration in ‘Pinto’ and ‘White’. If your ‘Pinto’ and ‘White’ turn green, you haven’t been misting frequently enough!

Lastly, keep the tank clean. Fungus is encouraged when dead leaves and spent flowers are left to decay within the tank.