Reply With QuoteYes. Most red plant need higher intensity of lights. You got 72watt, should be enough. Remember to dose fertilizer too.
wat r the requirements for red plants?
I'm currently having a 2ft tank, 2 X 36W PL tubes, CO2 1bps. is this enough?
I've more leaves in my tank!
Yes. Most red plant need higher intensity of lights. You got 72watt, should be enough. Remember to dose fertilizer too.
No, higher light is not the reason here. It may appear to do so as NO3 uptake is faster and can drive NO3 down real fast but low NO3 stability is the key to keeping the plant red. At higher light, maintaining low NO3 stability can be tricky as you can bottom out the NO3 real fast without knowing it. Lower light at 1.5-2w/g or so is good and maintaining low NO3 is much easier without the risk of bottoming out the NO3 due to low rate of NO3 uptake.
Regards
Peter Gwee
I've more leaves in my tank!
[quote:421ee87f="PeterGwee"]No, higher light is not the reason here. It may appear to do so as NO3 uptake is faster and can drive NO3 down real fast but low NO3 stability is the key to keeping the plant red. At higher light, maintaining low NO3 stability can be tricky as you can bottom out the NO3 real fast without knowing it. Lower light at 1.5-2w/g or so is good and maintaining low NO3 is much easier without the risk of bottoming out the NO3 due to low rate of NO3 uptake.
Regards
Peter Gwee
Oh you mean during higher light, red stem plant will absorb nitrate very fast causing nitrate to used up?
[quote:3efadbc525="PeterGwee"]No, higher light is not the reason here. It may appear to do so as NO3 uptake is faster and can drive NO3 down real fast but low NO3 stability is the key to keeping the plant red. At higher light, maintaining low NO3 stability can be tricky as you can bottom out the NO3 real fast without knowing it. Lower light at 1.5-2w/g or so is good and maintaining low NO3 is much easier without the risk of bottoming out the NO3 due to low rate of NO3 uptake.
Regards
Peter Gwee
Peter:
My 6' tank with 3 x 150W MH , with lots of fishes. In which I dose around 4ppm of NO3 after 50% weekly water change, and another 4ppm 3 days later. I find my NO3 still maintain at around 30-40ppm. If according to you mentioned above, my NO3 should be low due to the highlighting. Any other reason for this high NO3 ? Is it because my canister filter is too efficient to convert all the ammonia to NO3. I have around 10Kg of Biohome,100 bioballs in my Eheim 2260.
Thanks !
There are many reasons behind the high NO3...loads of fishes? a lousy NO3 kit? Low CO2 hence poor uptake? Low or no PO4..drop in uptake? Limitations in some nutrients? Pick your poison...I have no idea what is in that tank nor do I know what parameters you have. So..this are the general answers to your question.
Regards
Peter Gwee
so wat are the basic requirements for keeping red plants? intensity of lights, CO2 and ect...
any specific nutrient needed?
I thought red plants require more iron...
I've more leaves in my tank!
So can i say that red plant needs high level of lighting with consistent of nutrient level eg like nitrate and iron and so on so for?
The red colour comes from iron (just like our blood); in fact, iron is also an essential element for cholorophyll. The main use of iron is for gas transport/exchange [CO2 and O2]. As the red component in white (natural) light is relatively low, therefore you need stronger lights to promote healthy photosynthesis/growth.
Most red plants also are stemmed, to promote strong stems, you need calcium.
In a nutshell, you need plant nutrients (particularly higher dose of Fe and Ca) and stronger lights. Many aquatic plants thrive better in cooler water below 28 degrees Celcius. Some shops cool the water down to about 18 degrees Celcius; unfortunately most of the local fishes (other than goldfish, kois and other types of coldwater fishes) don't like such low temperatures.
[quote:d7b0c4bedb="gks"]The red colour comes from iron (just like our blood); in fact, iron is also an essential element for cholorophyll. The main use of iron is for gas transport/exchange [CO2 and O2]. As the red component in white (natural) light is relatively low, therefore you need stronger lights to promote healthy photosynthesis/growth.
Most red plants also are stemmed, to promote strong stems, you need calcium.
In a nutshell, you need plant nutrients (particularly higher dose of Fe and Ca) and stronger lights. Many aquatic plants thrive better in cooler water below 28 degrees Celcius. Some shops cool the water down to about 18 degrees Celcius; unfortunately most of the local fishes (other than goldfish, kois and other types of coldwater fishes) don't like such low temperatures.[/quote:d7b0c4bedb]
No. Anthocyanins, Tannins, or the colour from chromoplast are the reds/purple which folks see and that does not contain any iron which you are saying nor does the chlorophyll(green) which contains little or no iron and mostly of nitrogen. Now, you can blast loads of light at the plant and I can tell you it will remain green not matter how much iron you give it if you keep the N above 10ppm. Its not the iron..its the N element at play here. If you are interested in the bio-chemistry side of things, tom barr has mention something on it in the APD. You can check it out..
Regards
Peter Gwee
In a course i took before regarding plants, my lecturer actually said that the leaves are red because of the strong light, as these plants need to protect themselves, they develop red chorophy instead of the normal green ones by developing some red pigments.
I am not too sure as the course is about emerged plants so for submerged plants, the rule may not applied.
But i did read somewhere that higher kelvin light say 10k which have more blue intensity will promote red plants to grow redder. I will try that out but maybe in a few mths time.
Red plants need the same things green plants do.
Beyond that, you folks are getting marketed into buying and believing red plants need "special" conditions or are somehow more "difficult".
I've never done something special for red plants, other than lower NO3 down. That will reduce the N which plants use a lot of for Chlorophyll, so less green to mask the red.
Add NO3, the green comes back, keep doing it, it takes a few days each direction and is reversible.
You can maintain high excess Fe during this time as well.
If Fe was the factor, then there would be no NO3 effect on coloration.
Then you can do a Fe dependent variable test, keep the NO3 high and reduce the Fe upand down over the course of a 3 week peroid nd note coloration.
Then you will know what has a significant effect on red color.
You can try the lighting issue also in a similar manner.
Red plants are full of myths.
Be careful, hang on to your $ when someone tries to sell you something for red plants specifically.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Natural street freak
Nitrogen is a mobile nutrient within the plant, this means it will travel whereever it is needed in case of a deficiency , often from older leaves to the growing tips.
How come does a low nitrogen level show up in the upper leaves (red) instead of in the older leaves?.
The term "mobile" is relative.
The new growth tips have not yet fully developed and thus do not have as much as Chloropyll as the mature leaves.
Faster growth produces a larger difference(eg adding CO2) and many CO2 enriched tanks are N limited.
It's not the light.
Look up any plant deveopment research and you'll find that the tender new tips do not have much Chlorophyll but do have the antiherbivory agent: anthocyanin.
I ttakes developmental time for the plant to add the Chlorophyll. If the N deficiency is serve enough, the plant will cannibalize itself.
But if you maintain a stable low level NO3 ppm range, then the plant will not do that but maintain the intense red color.
Red color does not signal a healthy plant..............
You may like red color, but the plant ain't that happy about it. It will not die but it would be considered a sign of stress.
Critters eat new tasty leaves, not old green ones.
Just like us, we don't like old tough leaves.
So plants make chemicals to prevent things from eating them.
They cannot run away.
Regards,
Tom Barr
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