Plant Name : Pogostemon Helferi (Also known as “Downoi” – Little Star in Thai Language)

Category : Stem Plant

Family : Lamiaceae

Temperature : 20’C-30’C

Ph : 5.5 – 7

Lighting Requirement : Low to Very High

Difficulty  : Medium

Growth Rate : Medium

Origin : Thailand

Position in Aquascape : Foreground / Mid Ground

Max. Height : 4 Inches (10cm)

Habitat: Banks of creeks and rivers, sometimes underwater and sometimes emersed

This plant will grow in a large cluster. Sufficient CO2 and nutrients will improve its overall health and looks, and able to grow in a low light setup. Under strong light and sufficient CO2 condition, this plant tends to grow small and compact. Downoi is always not an easy plant for beginner.

When planting this plant, the substrate has to be enriched with nutrients as they are very hunger for iron. Try not to stick them into the substrate too deep and ensure there is a gap of at least 1 inch from each other. As they are also quite a very fragile plant, avoid from planting other plant surrounding them, they are always a “looser” in fighting for nutrition from substrate.

Take precaution when selecting fishes to go with this plant as some species of fish like the rummy nose and rainbow fish have been known to make a quick meal out of it.

Some forum did commented that this plant does not do well in new planted tank with new water but again it has no specific reason behind. The only reason I can think of is, since this is a very sensitive plant, it needs a fully developed bio system to support their growth as well, thus, for a newly setup tank, my suggestion would be try to plant a few stems and monitor the progress first before dump everything inside, since this is not a cheap plant, you will be very regretful if all of them are not doing well.

Most of the hobbyist bought the downoi from LFS in emerse form. But when they plant submerge in the aquarium tank, some of them might tend to convert, during this period the old leaves might melt down and the new leafs will grow. These are normal and try not to disturb this process by pulling them out from the substrate and monitor what is happening. As long as the main stem and roots are not turning brownish, they are still surviving.

If you have enough lighting, the mother plant might be able to grow bushy and multiply, but if it doesn’t, you might need to propagate them or trim them off (as they might be growing too high). Try to cut off the top portion of the plant which the roots are growing out from the stem. This is to ensure the top cut portion can be grown perfectly after they had poked inside the substrate, the roots will help them to absorb the nutrient more faster, but remember not to poke too deep as they can easily get rotten and melted. If the roots are long enough, you actually can just dip the roots into the substrate and leave the stem half floating. There is no specific reason why this plant easily can get rot and melt but by practicing the correct propagation method will help to reduce the mortality rate. When you notice there is a brownish or soften on the bottom of the stem, please always do cut them off, by doing this, you are actually saving the whole stem of the plant from getting infected by the rotten base of the stem, if this is not control in time, for sure, the whole stem of the plant will die off very soon. Just cut them off, remove the rotten base and roots, re-plant the healthy top portion.

In order to have more shoots on the cut stem, please remember to remove all the leafs that still remain on the original cut stem. By doing this, you will observe there is quite a several new baby plant shooting up from each of the leaf base which had been removed, this will gives you higher multiplication rate.

Where it is grown emersed, Downoi produces small flowers that set seeds, which will in turn result in new plants when set in a fine, fertilized substrate with clean water and good light.