# What does it take to keep plants red!



## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

Here's a question for the seasoned plant enthusiast (Eric, Stuart)

I recently bought a red plant off a member here and would like to keep the leaves red!!

Here are some specs for my tank!

33g long
2x65w pc raised 4 inches up
Co2 at 1bps
ADA substrate
I don't EI dose ATM
Lots of fish, 12 rams 6 cardinals 1 bnp 4 amanos and 20 endlers

What can I dose to keep the plants red?


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

which plant to be exact?

Reason why i am asking is each plant is different
Some are High Nitrates, some Are Low nitrates
Some are high light, some are only with medium/Low light
Some are High CO2
Some are need iron
and some even neet potassium to deepen their reds.

without knowing which, i'd say lightly dosing kno3 will be a start, alternating with a trace mix will help with deformities


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

This is the plant in question!!

nesaea sp red

http://www.defblog.se/pictures\picture1509.jpg


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

some posts say more nitrate for this plant but....others say its iron aswell although they never confirmed that iron keeps this actual red they only stated it made their tiger lotus more red....

I dont dose iron yet my tiger lotus is red so there must be something else!!!!


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

The ada will handle the iron from what i understand


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

neven said:


> The ada will handle the iron from what i understand


thanks but its not ada.... I also posted it on planted tank as there lots of guys in the USA that keep this plant!

I hope to get to the bottom of this...


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## Atom (Apr 21, 2010)

I saw this plant at PJ's today. It was amazing. I loved the colour, but questioned if I could actually keep it that red. I dose iron for my reineckii and so far it is still red not sure about your plant.


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## CRS Fan (Apr 21, 2010)

Nesaea is not an easy plant to keep, Chris. You will definitely need to column dose and pressurized CO2 is a must. I gave up on this one myself. Here's a link from APC regarding keeping this species. I get excellent reds using Geissemann bulbs too (I only use them in my high tech set-ups and swear by them) !

Best regards,

Stuart


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## EDGE (Aug 24, 2010)

bulbs with a high peak in the red spectrum helps bring out the red pigment in some of the plant hence why Stuart plants are always so red.. gieseman has a good peak in the red spectrum.

If the plant is naturally red, like your lotus, then not a lot is needed for the red to come out.. For plants like limnophlia aromatica or ludwigia inclinata var. verticilata 'cuba', ludwigia repens 'rubin' which is normally green, red spectrum bulbs, iron, low/high nitrate, etc will bring out the red.

Cryptocoryne I found, turns more red/brown with iron, or red spectrum bulbs, and or high light. 

The reason neasea sp. are considered harder to keep is because they are more sensitive to the TDS in the water, could be the ratio of Ca/Mg/K. Also need high light. When I kept neasea crassicaulis, I found it didn't like a lot of K in the water. I never did as much testing back in the days, but every time I add K2So4, the plant would grow all crooked. This was in a planted discus tank.

ADD: if you are using equilibrium, you might run into twisting problem. There is a huge amount of K in the product.

sp. 'red' is suppose to be the most difficult of them all, I wouldn't mine giving them a try, but don't have the space to try them at this time.


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

Ahah!

Eric and Stuart very useful advice, And once both of you mentioned that light and spectrum is a suspending factor in colour of the leaves it actually makes sense.

I am going to dose some Iron, and whilst still looking for a 4ft T5 like maybe a glo I am also gonna experiment with the other stuff you guys suggested.

With Ada I have never found a reason to dose and actually came up with bad results previously when experimenting with EI...

but this time around I will have better luck...

Eric do you know if Pc bulbs come with more of a red spectrum bulb?


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## EDGE (Aug 24, 2010)

Your best thing to do is look at the color spectrum chart. Coralife T12 bulbs has been pretty good to me back in the days. Their colormax should provide ample amount of red spectrum. For a while, coralife was making a bulb with 6700k and colormax in 1. fairly interesting product.

http://coralifeproducts.com/product/lamps/

I have found similar results with ADA and EI dosing myself. Even now with the depleted ADA soil, the organic matter in the substrate is still causing problems. mostly rotting from anaerobic environment. The bacteria that breaks down organic needs a lot of O2 and they are competing with the plants for O2 causing the rot.


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## Mykiss (Apr 22, 2010)

I believe they still make it as I just placed an order for someone on BCA and picked them up 2 bulbs. I may have to double check on that one as it may have just been pure colour max (?) and not 50/50
________
Buy herbalaire


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

It's probably just easier to get the NO T5 with a single 6700 and a Colormax which is what I am using right now, and will be using in the HO versions on my cube. Tried the 10000k and it's nice on the discus but not as much for the plants.


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## EDGE (Aug 24, 2010)

Coralife still makes the 6700k and color max PC bulb in one. Just need to find a source for them. At least that is what the posted on their page. A fairly good product for someone running only 1 row of PC.


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

thanks guys but I may consider going with t5 now as I have seen what they look like on Stuarts tank....I am seriously considering!


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