1.8 watt/gal with nice red plants

I understand that high light is not what brings out the reds. Any idea what IS making the plants red? For example, i have a 29 gallon with 65 watts power compact 6700k lighting on an ahsupply kit. Pressurized co2 at around 30ppm. About 400 gph flow. I dose EI using chuck gadd's calculator. My macro ratio is 8ppm N 1.5ppm P and 8ppm K per dose three times a week. I double up on micro and iron dosing. I have good green growth with no algae. I would really like my rotolas, ludwigias and limnophilas to go red. No such luck. Rotola are straight up green. Ludwigias start to get orangish close to the light and the Limnophila is lavender on the underside of the leaves, but green everywhere else. Any suggestions? I would love to see some red.
 
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Likely stability, good CO2.

The red colors are from long reduced carbon chains that the plant makes.
There's no Fe in the red color itself. Plasnts us eFe for many things, but it's not directly related to color near as I'v ever been able to see, demonstrate or show.

You can argue low N will enhance reds, but not by adding more red, only by reducing the amount of Chlorophyll, which is at a considerable cost to the plant obviously since it means reduced light capture.

Others' have suggested high luight since the plant does not require as much Chlorophyll for the same rate of growth since each light harvesting complex has more light coming in.

But........plants run these centers are very high efficiency anyway.
They use accessory pigments which are much less expensive metabolically to grab the light if it's reduced. So they modualte the light capture to keep things going along smoothly.

If their supply of carbon is messed up, moved around a lot, then the plant has to divert more resources to that process, and cannot use the reduced carbon for gathering light.

Seems that reduced carbon supply is the key.
Some color due to the lights themselves and our preceptions also seem to play a role.

So focus on good CO2/nutrients, and then lower light.
Should be easier no matter what.

The plant above stays red under most all conditions light wise, so try and different plant if you want a specific color rather than color variable species.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Hello Peanutbowl, I have better luck with reds when my bulbs are less than 8 months old. I've just replaced a 13 month 65w 10k bulb with a new 50/50 10k/Actinic. Not sure how the klinerbar sword or limo aromatica will react. The other bulbs in the 4x65 on the setup are a mix of 8800's and 6700's over the 75g will remain the same. Hopefully the plants will remain happy until I settle on which new T5ho fixture & bulbs are in the budget.
 
plantbrain said:
Likely stability, good CO2.

The red colors are from long reduced carbon chains that the plant makes.
There's no Fe in the red color itself. Plasnts us eFe for many things, but it's not directly related to color near as I'v ever been able to see, demonstrate or show.

You can argue low N will enhance reds, but not by adding more red, only by reducing the amount of Chlorophyll, which is at a considerable cost to the plant obviously since it means reduced light capture.

Others' have suggested high luight since the plant does not require as much Chlorophyll for the same rate of growth since each light harvesting complex has more light coming in.

But........plants run these centers are very high efficiency anyway.
They use accessory pigments which are much less expensive metabolically to grab the light if it's reduced. So they modualte the light capture to keep things going along smoothly.

If their supply of carbon is messed up, moved around a lot, then the plant has to divert more resources to that process, and cannot use the reduced carbon for gathering light.

Seems that reduced carbon supply is the key.
Some color due to the lights themselves and our preceptions also seem to play a role.

So focus on good CO2/nutrients, and then lower light.
Should be easier no matter what.

The plant above stays red under most all conditions light wise, so try and different plant if you want a specific color rather than color variable species.

Regards,
Tom Barr
Click to expand...

Hi tom, thanks for the detailed reply. Are you saying a fluctuation in the co2 ppm will affect the plant's color? For example i leave my co2 running 24/7 at a constant bubble/sec, so when the lights are on the co2 concentration in the tank will be less as plants are absorbing them, but when the lights are off, the concentration of co2 are higher as plants cannot perform photosynthesis/absorb co2. This will affect the coloring of the plant?
 
yes, thank you plantbrain and izzy for the replies. co2 still flusters me to an extent. i'm making a compromise now for good distribution in the tank, but it's not efficient or really all that well dissolved. my next step was to try different bulb colors anyway, as i know lots of things can be accomplished in this respect, even if it is more about perception. the physiology is good food for though. THAT was the best explanation I've read on what's going on with reds in the tank. in the long run, it's all about plant health. everything always seems to come full circle right back to the basics.
 
gagaliya said:
Hi tom, thanks for the detailed reply. Are you saying a fluctuation in the co2 ppm will affect the plant's color? For example i leave my co2 running 24/7 at a constant bubble/sec, so when the lights are on the co2 concentration in the tank will be less as plants are absorbing them, but when the lights are off, the concentration of co2 are higher as plants cannot perform photosynthesis/absorb co2. This will affect the coloring of the plant?
Click to expand...

No, it's more specific than that and rather tough to measure directly.
It's the availability relative to light/nutrients over time, says weeks, months etc even.

If there is a stable ample supply of carbon for the plant to make sugars, to make all these components, then you get really nice color.

CO2 is more difficult to tweak than any other "nutrient".
While we can use some test methods, there's no one good method we can really know that CO2 is good and right over the entire daylight cycle.
It changes much faster than anything else, minute to minute even etc........

So I think a mix of careful adjustments, and good eyeballing of the plants, fish etc helps, also, use less light since it means less CO2 demand, more wiggle room for CO2 dosing.

Tropica has a good article on the topic about light and CO2:

Please read this article and a few times to make sure you understand it well.

http://www.tropica.com/go.asp?article=835

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
what kind of plants of those?
 
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