"Pat" wrote in message
. ..
Hello Velvet!
What do you do when your Val grows too tall? Can you simply snip it
short -
I don't think??? The leaves will probably die then, right? I only have a
20G tank now and 4' is way too much, I think. Even the tallest tank
around
here isn't 4'!! Yup, I love tall background plants but not to the extent
of
having poor light distribution in the tank. Suggestions? :-)



Well, what I do *is* snip the leaves off at the surface point - so I'm left
with leaves that have blunt (snipped) ends. The ends *do* die back, but the
entire leaf doesn't seem to. It looks a bit tatty, until the leaves grown
up and start to lie on the surface again, but that's when the shading starts
to happen again. I keep toying with the idea of just doing a *serious*
light upgrade, to take account of the Val shading the tank, but think the
hood would get far too hot (it already keeps the tank temp at 80+ in
summer!). I've also got some red-tipped vallis in there, and that has
slightly smaller leaves (not quite so wide) but that still grows tall enough
to shade the top, too, though I *think* the final leaf length might be less
than the giant val. I'll do an experiment and leave a single red-tipped
leaf to grow and see how long it is. I know the giant is capable of *at
least* 4' long leaves :-) Must say too, it looks stunning in the tank when
the leaves *do* lie across the surface. Wish I had a really deep tank just
so I could let it show of it's full glory, but that's not practical.

I'd suggest giant val for the back whilst your spiralis grows up, but
uprooting the giant once you're done with it will probably cause more
disruption than it's worth, to be honest. And, the runners get EVERYWHERE,
so you really have to start pulling them out as they form to contain it.
It's the single most rampant thing in my tank after duckweed (and that's not
that far ahead of it!). The red-tipped might be a better choice, it's
slightly slower growing, and seems slower with the off-shoots, but the
leaves would still need cutting to length when it starts to shade the tank.
On the plus side, my fish really love the val. They glide and dart in and
out between it's leaves, and hang out in the still bits of surface water
they create when they start shading the tank again.

Velvet