Cardinal Plant Not colorful

bradlgt21

bradlgt21

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May 9, 2009
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Chicagoland, Illinois
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Brad
I picked up a cardinal plant about a month ago from a local fish store. In there tank it was purple, red, yellow all different colors. It looked really nice. Well now it's all yellow. It's growing well, new leaves and getting taller and looks healthy but no color anymore. Fish store guy told me Iron i what makes it so colorful. Well I dose .2ppm of CSM+B which is iron and traces on water change day then .1ppm every other day until next water change day (saturday). Should I dose more CSM+B or is the color of the cardinal more about lighting. Or maybe CO2. Neither of which I have a lot of.
 
Cardinalis?? Maybe?? Pic may help.
 
A general rule is that red pigments in plants intensify with increased light.
 
Lobelia Cardinalis.

How much/what light do you have?

You need to dose even more iron that what is being provided by the csm + b.

try adding a few nails to your filter to get extra iron chelate(rust). If that isnt doing the trick add a little steel wool, as it has more surface area and will rust faster.
 
Great tips!

247Plants said:
Lobelia Cardinalis.

How much/what light do you have?

You need to dose even more iron that what is being provided by the csm + b.

try adding a few nails to your filter to get extra iron chelate(rust). If that isnt doing the trick add a little steel wool, as it has more surface area and will rust faster.
Click to expand...

Great tips! Thanks for sharing! :thm:
 
Here's mine, under 2.8 wpg, EI dosing and pressurized.

Lobeliacardinalis.jpg


Of course I am expecting to lose some of the blues and purple because I think the reason why it's blueish-purple is because of its emersed growth from the distributor.

-Chonh
 
That's how it looked at the plant store. But they had it under intense light and only in about 6 inches of water. I was thinking lighting was the issue. I am only at about 1.25 watts from my T5 setup. I want to add more lighting but won't do it until I have a good pressurized CO2 setup.

I have never really heard of adding steel wool or nails to the filter. It makes sense but isn't that bad for inverts? I have a few amano shrimp in the tank and wouldn't want to harm them or any of the fish in have in there.
 
As long as its all iron, there wont be a problem. Copper is what inverts are sensitive to.
 
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