Nesaea sp.

[Thor]

Hi everyone,

I just bought a pot of nesaea sp. and really love the reddish pink tone.
My question is: how can I keep the Nesaea at its healthy colour?
I noticed in the past that new leaves of red stem plants tend to become green.
Is it because of insufficient light or nutrients?

[plantedpimp]

Hey bro,

Have been looking real hard for Nesea... can I ask where you got it from? thks!

[Thor]

I bought it from the LFS at CCK (near the MRT). The shop owner's name is Clement. $2 a pot.

[plantedpimp]

Tts a good plant...at a better price All the best with it!

[PeterGwee]

Keeping your NO3 lean while having other nutrients and CO2 high should give you the redness back. Caution here though, too low or no NO3 could well stunt your plants making it worst.

[juggler]

This is a very difficult plant for me. One of the slowest growing stem plant around. Mine grew green leaves too. And was plagued by algae.
In the end I gave up.

Keep us posted on how it grows.
Anyone having success with this can post some pics?

[gchoo]

Bro,

Nesea sp requires the following parameters to grow well:
a) very soft water
b) high light
c) high iron trace.

[Thor]

Thanks for your advice. Could you please give me the specifics on:
1. soft water. I am following Tom Barr's recommendation of keeping kH at 3-4 deg.
2. CO2. I am currently running at about 15 mg/l.
3. iron trace. I am using TMG and following its instruction (dosing 5ml/50l/week)

Thanks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
one drop of water helps to swell the ocean; a spark of fire helps to give light to the world.

[PeterGwee]

15mg/l of CO2 is too little. Get it up to 20ppm at least but try to error on the higher side like 30-35ppm. What you need to do is to fertilise and make sure your CO2 enough all the way. NO3(Running lean), K (10-20 or 20-30ppm depending on folks...), traces (5ml/20gallons) and finally phosphate (drives high NO3 uptake when CO2 is real good. Just make sure there is enough for the week.)