What do red plant & leave needs?

[fleekk]

Hi Bros,

I am currently having red tiger lotus & some red leave plants. I am wondering beside the usual lighting & co2, any special treatment do they need? Any liquid fertiliser to enhance them or what?

Please Help

Tank Dimensions (LxWxH): 4ft
Lighting Intensity(No of Watts) : 3 W/gallon
Type of Lighting (FL/PL/MH) : FL + PL
No. of Hours your light is on: 9hrs
CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : 3-4bps
Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : tank
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor): Reactor
Substrate Used : Sera
How Thick is your base fert : 1inch
How thick is your gravel : 3inch
Liquid Fertilizers Used : none
Frequency of fertilization : none
Tank Temperature : 25-26 degrees
Type of Filter (overhead/internal/canister) : juwel system
Filter media used : juwel sysytem
How long has your tank been set up : 2mths


Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
---------------------------------------

Carbonate Hardness (kh): 4
Total Hardness (gH): -
PH : 6.5-6.8
NH4 (ppm): -
NO2 (ppm): -
NO3 (ppm): -
PO4 (ppm): -
Fe (ppm): -

Bioload (Your Fish and Plants)

40+ tetras
2 angels
5 otos
10 SAE
10+ yamatos
2platys + 5 BABEs

Aponogeton ulvaceus
hygrophila difformis
Ludwigia repens
Microsorum pteropus
polygonum spec
rotala wallichii
sagittaria platyphylla
Red tiger lotus
Vallisneria spiralis
sunset Hygro
baby tears
willow moss
xmoss on log

[chua]

You can actually do a search to find out the macro and micro nutrients that plants need.
I heard from someone in Teo that maybe red plants need slightly more iron to keep its red red.

[PeterGwee]

No, its not the iron... Keep the NO3 low while keeping the CO2 and the rest of the nutrients in good shape should redden most "red" plants up. The problem is most folks love to give their plants loads of light...maybe a bit too much. Hence, keeping the nitrates at lower levels can be tricky at high light/high CO2 tanks, without running the risk of it bottoming out. Lower light tanks can maintain low NO3 better as the uptake is not as fast as those of high light tanks.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Plantbrain]

I'm not sure where the red plants need "this or that" vs green plants but they both do better with good CO2/nutrients.

If red plants need more light, why do red plants turn green above the water's surface? Most red plants are green in emergent growth and there's a lot more light above than below the water's surface.

Lowering the NO3 can enhance reds, but that's about the only thing.
You can also dose more traces to enhance reds under some conditions, but this also helps green plants just the same but you don't see color shifts so much in those.

With less light, you can maintain NO3 levels better at lower levels without running out so fast. In some low light tanks you can supply the Nitrogen needs from fish waste and a little KNO3 and keep things at pretty easy to maintain very low NO3 levels but not bottom out and stunt the plants which is easier to do at high light.


Regards,
Tom Barr

[Charmaine]

Hello, I searched around and found an interesting article on the water plant Nymphaea Lotus: the Red Tiger Lotus and Green Tiger Lotus to share. But it's quite scientific, so please bear with the long essay. It states that at the end of their experiment :

"For the Red Tiger Lotus, the peak of the graph (the lowest point) existed at 415 nm, with 0.190 absorbency. The test verified its greatest absorbency at the blue end of the spectrum and reflects the red color for the naked human eye to see. For the Green Tiger Lotus, the peak was at 590 nm, with a 0.200 absorbency. This shows that the Green Tiger Lotus absorbs orange light the best and reflects the color green for the naked human eye to see. This helped to explain why we see different colors in the two plants, but did not really help in the aspect of photosynthetic properties so we turned to another spectrum experiment. "

The full article is here: http://www.msu.edu/course/lbs/145/lu...champagne.html

I hope it helps.