Keeping Plants in Substrate

[Squatchmen]

I would absolutely love my aquarium, not just 2 times or 4 times, like a hundred times over again if somehow I could just keep my plants in the substrate. These are the plants I bought:

- Taxiphyllum sp.
- Glossostigma Elatinoides
- Nasea sp. Red
- Rotala Wallichii
- Alternanthera Reinecki Roseatolia
- Cabomba Paleafformis
- Dwarf Onion plant
- Hygrophila Corymbosa
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Now what I did to at least greatly reduce the amounts of plants still uprooting, is I gathered all the same kind of plants together, got them out of the water and took sewing thread and put all the stems lined up and then wrapped the ends of the stems up tight, then I took a small rock, like 1" to 3" in diameter put that on the bundle and then used the thread to wrap the stem bundle to the rock itself like everyone else's advice. Then I put the bundle with rock attachment back in the water and position it in the tank that I want and with my cupped hand holding the bundle, dig into the substrate pretty deep, I have 3" substrate and then make a tiny mound on top of the root bundle/rock combo. And then repeat for every other plant.

What do you know, somehow, I don't know how, they are still coming loose and being uprooted, most of the plants are actually ok, not perfect but for the most part they stay in the substrate, it's these Houdini plants that don't want to stay in.

- Rotala Wallichii
- Cabomba Paleafformis

I've heard of some people taking larger rocks like slate that would be larger than the rocks that I tied the stems to and the larger rocks would be there to lay on top of the stems underneath as a last ditch effort.

I don't know, I'm kind of in desperate mode right now.

Thanks

[madagascariensis]

what type of substrate do you have? fine substrates(sand, plant substrate) are much easier to plant than coarser substrates(gravel).
artificial means to hold a stem down are only meant to be temporary until a plant roots itself. by tying them in large bunches. to rocks, etc you are
preventing the process of rooting. chances are you've just got to be persistent in sticking the stems back in the ground singly until they hold.
stripping leaves off the lowest inches of a stem, using aquarium tweezers and planting them in deep are various things you can do to maximize the chances that a
stem will stick in the ground for good.

[Stlouisfish]

Although I'm not familiar with a lot of your plants, someone I know has had a variety of plants and recommended that sometimes it works well to let a plant float for a bit and let it grow better roots. Even though I don't care for the look of floating plants, it paid off in the end when I was finally able to keep a plant down there.

[DKRST]

Perhaps it's not the plants?
What fish do you have in the tank? They could be "nosing around" and uprooting your plants. My BN plecos and sometimes even my corys will uproot stem plants. The only solution I've found, that still doesn't always work depending on the fish, is to plant my stem cuttings with a couple of leaves buried at the base to hold them long enough to root.
Sometimes, spreading the plants out so fish don't bump them as much can help also.

I wouldn't recommend bundling the bunches too tightly together at the base, it can cause the base to rot.