Alternanthera Reineckii Mini

[Wisey]

Hi all,

Having difficulty growing my Alternanthera Reineckii, it's been in a couple of months since I probably made a mistake and uprooted it, removed emmersed growth and replanted, but it's still hardly going anywhere.

As I increase light, it seems to do a little better, but I'm on 50% intensity with an Aquaray 1500 tile for 6.5 hours a day and it's still not turning red or doing much in the way of growing. It's not as green as it was, but it's not red.

I've been slowly adding light, intensity at first, up from 20% to 50%, now I added half an hour duration. Trying to take small steps.

My tile is quite high, 30 cm above the water and therefore around 70 cm above the substrate.

I'm keen to hear how I might make this plant grow, I have EI dosing, no other plants showing deficiencies. Pressurised CO2, runs way longer than the photoperiod. I'm convinced light is the issue, I also have Limnophila H. growing nicely but only green.

My main question is intensity vs duration? To get the Reds what do I increase? I have no algae, anything I do get is consumed by the Otos before I see it. My most recent change was another 30 minutes duration yesterday. Dropping the tile could be another option as it's quite high, but it gives me good spread as it is.

Any thoughts appreciated, pic so you can see what I have after two months. Was tissue culture to start.

 

[Martin in Holland]

I did reed somewhere that Phosphate levels (lower) can influence red coloration in plants, but if you look at Tom Barr's tanks I'm not sure about that....not much help though

 

[Jose]

You can/should only increase photoperiod so much. Up to maybe 8 hours top (I would only do 7 hours or so). After some weeks you can start increasing light intensity but remember AR is a slow grower so will take time to show results.
Ive noticed main thing with this plant is CO2 if you are adding EI nutrients. Another important thing is KH. If your water is very very hard then it might be a problem for you. If KH is under 15 dKH or so then you should be fine.

 

[Wisey]

My water is straight from the tap, but soft up here in Aberdeen, about 2 German degrees. I guess I will just have to be patient, I'm up to 6.5 hours now, will leave it at that for this week and probably next week as I am away most of next week and don't want to do a light increase when I am not there to keep an eye on things. If all is well when I get back home end of next week I will push up to 7 hours, observe that for a week then consider intensity again.

 

[Jose]

My water is straight from the tap, but soft up here in Aberdeen, about 2 German degrees. I guess I will just have to be patient, I'm up to 6.5 hours now, will leave it at that for this week and probably next week as I am away most of next week and don't want to do a light increase when I am not there to keep an eye on things. If all is well when I get back home end of next week I will push up to 7 hours, observe that for a week then consider intensity again.

When I go on holiday I leave my photoperiod on 4 hours only. This way you minimize the chance messing up your tank too much. I just returned from a two week holiday. Plants look healthy and grew a lot but had a bit of algae due to co2 pump falling out of place, so co2 was probably quite bad but I dont know for how long. Imagine if I had left it on an 8 hour photoperiod.

 

[Wisey]

It's only a long weekend, so I'll probably take a chance as everything is stable and the FE is only a week or so old, so should be no issues running out.

 

[Mick.Dk]

Sorry to hear about your "problems" with Alt. 'mini'..........this plant should really not be very difficult to grow. I have grown and tested this plant more times, than I can count - so I really think I know it, by now.
Alt. 'mini' does need a "decent intensity" of light, to turn its best red, but usually colour turn a bit more brownish, in less intensity. Becoming greener, though, is also a possible sign of too low intensity.
T.C. plants allways need more ferts and more light from very beginning, since they have minimal amount of stored energy, to grow from.
Your picture show quite small plants. Most red stem-plants need to grow some size, before they really show their colour. That said, they do look a bit on the pale side.
I think I see improvement in very newest leaves on their way, if this is of any help.

 

[EnderUK]

Sorry to hear about your "problems" with Alt. 'mini'..........this plant should really not be very difficult to grow. I have grown and tested this plant more times, than I can count - so I really think I know it, by now.

Any idea how it would do in a soil based propagator to get the energy levels up?

 

[Wisey]

Thanks for all the input, I'll persevere and see how it goes! Fingers crossed!

 

[Mick.Dk]

Any idea how it would do in a soil based propagator to get the energy levels up?

There is a reason, you (allmost) only see this plant as T.C. - it is a variety, and does not perform very well above water. It is not impossible, though.
Plant will be quite "skinny" looking, leaves gray-ish and very narrow and quite long distance between leaves.

 

[oviparous]

I only have this plant in a shrimp tank with 2 x 9watt PL lamp, and it does pretty wel.
You really got to be patient with this plant, it's a slow grower.
In my heavely planted tank my Japonica's eat it every time, so unfortunately i can't keep them in there.

it's my favorite plant for my wabi kusa's, grows much faster but less compact.