Wow, if I lived in a warmer zone I would love to trade, what a beautiful tree!

Carol, mine would generally be considered partially to mostly closed, I believe. When I obtained my 90 and 55 gal tanks, the top glass came with each. (The 90gal was a garage sale purchase, and the 55gal a hand-me-down from a friend's father who decided that after 20-30 years he was tired of keeping cichlids.) With the 55gal, the top glass covers about 75-80% of the tank -- it's missing the rubber "hinge" section as well as the plastic backsplash section. With the 90gal, about 90% of the tank. Having the top glass does help with keeping the humidity higher and more consistent. The only way the "above fluoros" would be anything more than useless would be if the tubes sat across the top of the tank. Sorry about that. You are absolutely correct that you would need to provide supplemental lighting. I did have a buddy who did just that with one of his larger terrs. He got 2 -two bulb 4ft shoplights and sat them across the top of the tank. Worked well. My tanks both have simple hoods I designed and my dad helped me make years back when I went upstate to visit. Each hood is hinged so I can flip back half of the hood to access the tank and the bulbs. The hoods -- from front to back -- cover about 90% of each tank. For lights I use six 200W equivalent coiled fluorescent bulbs in my 90gal and four 200W equv + two 100W equiv in my 55 gal. I have pondered trying some of the newer tube LEDs (I know a grower who supplies plants to the pdf hobbyists. He has done a great deal of investigating to find a brand of LED he feels will actually work for growing plants... as opposed to the junky ones you will find at a BBS.) Unfortunately, the suckers are EXPENSIVE. That has held me back. I'm currently testing out 2 LED tube bulbs on my plant stand. I'll see how they work out. (Definitely a LOT less heat than even regular fluoros, but haven't had them in play long enough to see what the plants think of them.) If your tanks are open, you will have to play much closer attention to humidity issues ... or more to the point a lack there of. Even without a top, you should wind up with an overall higher humidity level within the tank than the rest of the room. And depending upon just what plants you wish to grow, the humidity levels you will need to maintain may or not be more challenging to maintain in an open system. The buddy of mine who had the shoplights lying across his tank had a stream running through the tank (I think it may have been a 125gal L tank but it has been too long so memory is fuzzy.) The stream kept the tank envir. quite humid even though the tank was open.

Yep, I'm still climbing the curve and likely will be for a long time, judging by your comment. I'm actually a much better photographer ( amateur ) than what the photos I posted allude to. There's only one good photo I ever posted to this GW Site. The most of them are just 'pictures' to convey visual support for my verbage. This dang digital camera is nice, but ... really has some serious limitations when it comes to getting artistic. I have a Minolta XE-7 SLR that I use when I want to do some art. And additionally, I use Photoshop 7.0 to manipulate what I 'scan' in from negatives. The digital camera allows me to skip the negative development, but there is very little control over exposure, depth of field and no interchangable lenses. The digital only give one the ability to get instant photos, kinda like the polaroids did back in their hey day. The best one can do is frame the shot and hope the internal electronics handles the light well enough to get a decent pic. I seriously need to get something better like an EOS. But thanks for you comments. Good News! I just affirmed germination and sprouting of an Anthurium Crenatum ... something new has started to grow!

Thanks for the reply John. The *pot idea* is/was only for its first year. I was intending to put it in a good size pot - 5 gall or larger - hoping to allow it to develop a stronger root system over the summer. I have a smallish garden shed which has reasonable light and a heater in there should the temps fall drastically. I was thinking if I put the EC in there during say Dec/Jan + may Feb, then come March or so I could bring it out and plant it in ground. Interesting your comments that they took quite a considerable length of time to put on height. The reading I've done indicated they were fast growers but seems that is not the case given your experiences! I can live witih the 5-7 years for bloom thing if that's the way it is. I'm getting a couple of Davidia involucrata and gather that they also can be 10 years to bloom. Hope I'm still around for the bloom of both. LOL!! Again, many thanks for sharing your experience. Holly