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:
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?
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
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:
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?
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