• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Rotala Rotundifolia not growing

M

MattB

Member
Joined
5 Apr 2009
Messages
30
Hi Everyone,

I recently had a complete re-scape of what was going on in my Rio 180. Basically, I had no luck whatsoever with glosso/HC, and the tank itself was looking quite sparse with no enough hardscape for my tastes. So I bought a lot of plants, slightly more tolerant species than I had before, and set about rescaping. Now, it is turning out quite well, but there is one plant I seem to be having some difficulty with - Rotala Rotundifolia.

I bought a couple of pots of this, as I had read it was a relatively easy stem, and I thought if I could get it to turn red, it'd be even better.

The pots arrived like this, but the leaves were slightly redder at the top:

033-Rotala-Rotundifolia.jpg


I planted them, about 4 weeks ago, and they don't appear to have grown at all. They haven't died, leaves are still green/red, plus they appear to have stood up a little to reach for the light, but nothing else.

The tank is a Juwel Rio 180, stock Hi-Lite lighting (2x 45w T5), I have pressurised Co2 via a FE, with a solenoid. Co2 comes on 3 hours before lights on, and goes off 2 hours before lights off. Photo period is only 6 hours, as this tank is in early days. I also add 5 ml of TPN+ each day. I did struggle with Algae (BBA, diatoms and green spot) at the beginning, but my 4 otos and some re-arranging seems to have helped.

Am I doing something wrong with the R. Rotundifolia? Any tips to make it look like this?

rotala-rotundifolia.jpg


Any advice would be greatly appreciated - I will try and take some pics from my aquarium tonight, to show you what I mean. I've been meaning to update my journal for a while anyway!

Thanks,

Matt
 
The pot you've pictured has been grown emersed so the plant may be taking it's time to adjust to being submerged. If they haven't died then I wouldn't worry too much. Is everything else growing well?

The one thing I did thing is you don't mention a drop checker to check your CO2 level. Is it at 30ppm? You really need a drop checker filled with 4dKH solution to measure this as just having the CO2 is great, but having it at the right level (with enough circulation) is crucial for plants such as glosso and HC and may be affecting your Rotala.
 
Hi Ed,

Thanks for the advice. I should have mentioned that I also have a drop-checker (with 4dKH) which shows lime-green during the photo period pretty much all the time. I have a Tetratec EX700 on the left hand side, the original Juwel filter on the right hand side, and a Hydor Koralia 1 shooting the mist out into the far reaches of the tank. I tend not to have flow issues at the moment, unless I have a lot of stems clumped together at the back, when I tend to get some BBA.

I did think about the emersed/submerged thing - it just seems to be taking an abnormally long time. It still has the round-looking emersed leaves. When I had Rotala sp. "Green", it adjusted within a day or two, then took off like there was no tomorrow (it is a bit leggy in the light I have though.)

I fugred it must be adjusting, but I've never had a plant take this long...

Thanks,

Matt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top