How to Plant Blackwood Fern? Detailed Planting Methods and Care Tips

Blackwood Fern is native to West Africa and is a relatively rare tropical ornamental fern. It is now mostly used in aquarium landscaping, so how do you plant it?

How to plant Blackwood Fern?

1. Water quality

Blackwood Fern is an above-water plant and likes to live in neutral to weakly acidic flowing water. It grows extremely slowly in alkaline water quality.

2. Substrate

The root system of Blackwood Fern is usually only suitable for cultivation on a well-aerated substrate. Otherwise, it is very prone to oxygen deficiency, which prevents the roots from breathing normally and causes their death, ultimately directly leading to root rot in Blackwood Fern.

3. Planting

Under the same water quality and cultivation conditions, Blackwood Fern planted on driftwood and rocks, and Blackwood Fern planted directly, can improve the Blackwood Fern needed for aquatic plant landscaping; the aeration of the gravel layer should also be improved. For planting Blackwood Fern, choose larger gravel particles. Sufficiently large gaps between the gravel can allow convection between the water layer and the water in the gravel, so that sufficient dissolved oxygen is sent into the sand layer for the root system of Blackwood Fern to breathe normally, thereby enabling Blackwood Fern to grow and develop normally.

4. Fertilizing

When cultivating Blackwood Fern underwater, care should be taken to control the water temperature between 20 and 28, otherwise the leaves are prone to turning black and rotting. Its fertilizer demand is relatively low, and generally only a small amount of liquid fertilizer needs to be added.

In the early stage of planting, Blackwood Fern will have an adaptation period of 2-3 months, so it generally maintains its original state but does not grow. At this time, no special treatment is needed. After it adapts to the growing environment, it will grow naturally, but the growth rate will be relatively slow.