Ludwiga repens (green) ?

odessa · 11-29-2002, 6:05 PM

I have excellent growth but it tends to stay on the green side, I would like it a little redder. I read somewhere that this can be achieved by limiting a certain nutrient but I cant remember which one. Also by reducing a certain nutrient would"t it affect the health of the other plants in the tank?

25 gal. 3.2watts per gal. Co2 injected. 10 ml of Flourish added weekly with 25% water change and 5ml. Flourish Iron.

Robert H · 11-30-2002, 7:09 AM

Its iron that makes plants redder.

Robert H

Cichlid Woman · 11-30-2002, 12:05 PM

With that plant, I've heard that it stays red in lower light levels; the more light, the greener it gets.

Sounds like yours is healthy!

-- Pat

djlen · 11-30-2002, 3:14 PM

Pat, that sounds about right.....I've got them growing in two different tanks....the ones in my 55 with 80 watts are red and the ones in my 40 with 110 watts are green. But what a great plant.
The grow like crazy.
Len

odessa · 11-30-2002, 9:53 PM

I have tried flourish root tabs at the roots and increasing the Flourish liquid Iron dosage, to no avail. Plantbrain was talking about limiting a certain nutrient to make his plants redder I think maybe it was P. It was one of the threads on the old boards.

gcvt · 12-01-2002, 2:56 AM

I'm having the opposite experience - the more light I add to the tank the redder mine gets. It grows very quickly but I've seen the green leaves decrease in numbers as I've added more light. I'm at 3.2 wpg of 5700k and 6500k and pressurized C02.

Here's about 10 days of growth:

djlen · 12-01-2002, 3:57 AM

Odessa, does that P stand for Potassium?
Len

odessa · 12-01-2002, 7:11 AM

Djlen P is for phosphorus- phosphates. K is for potassium.

plantbrain · 12-01-2002, 12:28 PM

Rotala's certainly turn red when you let the NO3 get down low and most other nutrients are high. Ludwigia(most) are the same. L granulosus, repens, and arcurata do this.
But folks sometimes take the NO3 limitation too far and kill the plant.
Iron can be some of it, but I can easily turn a number of red plants green by adding nitrogen.
It's not one single element but serveral that get your plants in great shape.
Each nutrient that you are able to get within a good range brings you one step closer to having your goal. It also allows you to have more flexibilty in your routine if all the other nutrients are in good shape. Light, CO2, K, PO4, traces are fairly easy to get in a nice range but folks many times don't go back and make sure these are in good shape.

Many don't know what the PO4 is at all.
Most have CO2 issues(not enough) especially those that use DIY C02.
Many test with poor NO3 test kits.

One thing that works well for me is having a semi low fish load that gets feed regularly, and adding everything except the KNO3 except at 1/2 doses 2x a week.
I get decent results, don't toast the plants, easy routine, does't involve lots of testing to keep things going.

But it depends on your fish load/tap etc. Some tweaking is required.

Bottom line is to keep the NO3 pretty low.
Add KNO3 and you can watch the red turn green in about 1-2 days.

Regards,
Tom Barr

odessa · 12-01-2002, 7:04 PM

T hanks Tom that exactly what I was looking for