Rotala sp Green

[Aquahorti]

I have a 'problem' with my Rotala sp Green.

I planted it 9 days ago, in my Mini-M, and it growing nicely, but I was planning to use it as a background plant together with Rotala sp Shimoga, but unlike the Shimoga that have more than doubled in hight, the Green is just creeping horizontally . I can read in other threads that I am far from the first person to have this issue, and that it does seem to start going vertical after some time, but no mentioning of how long it will take. Naturally the time will vary from setup to setup but due to this aquascape only being up for 3 months before I tear it down again I would like to have an idea about the possible timeframe.

I am posting a couple of pictures so you can see the difference between the two. They both started at roughly the same hight.

 

[Guest]

IME it's a reaction to relatively high light, I guess it's a kind of skototropism. It may adapt and adjust at which point it may start to grow more toward the light...but as for timeframe ?

 

[Mick.Dk]

Rotala sp 'green' will grenerslly gow more "overhanging", than most other Rotala. Higher light intensity will make the growth more creeping. Many of the Rotala rotundifolia varieties have the same growth pattern, but less prominent.

 

[Aquahorti]

I guess I will just have to see what it will do over the next couple of months. I'm now planning on using a Solar II with FPL36 tubes instead of an Aquasky Moon for the next scape where I will use Rotala sp Green, so I hope that might make it creep less.

 

[rebel]

Just cut and shape it into a ball!

 

[Mick.Dk]

I guess I will just have to see what it will do over the next couple of months. I'm now planning on using a Solar II with FPL36 tubes instead of an Aquasky Moon for the next scape where I will use Rotala sp Green, so I hope that might make it creep less.

Just cut and shape it into a ball!

- or just choose a plant that will naturally grow according to your needs.. ........in this case Micranthemum umbrosum, is an obvious candidate.

 

[Guest]

Or you could try Hemianthus micranthemoides I've planted this with R. sp green, and eventually they become pretty much indistinguishable, that is superficially. Initially Rotala leaf size is larger but after a few trims it can become smaller and resemble M. micranthemoides more. It's an "Advanced" plant but it grows like a weed for me, I suspect it likes hard water, like I think H Cuba does. Although, it too can sometimes have a creeping habit so maybe Mick's suggestion is the safer bet.

 

[alto]

in this case Micranthemum umbrosum, is an obvious candidate.

One of my longtime favourites ... and Amano’s too looking back through his Nature Aquarium World books 😉

I don’t know why it’s not included more in current aquascapes - the leaf shape & colour is lovely

 

[alto]

M. micranthemoides more. It's an "Advanced" plant but it grows like a weed for me, I suspect it likes hard water

It grows in my very soft water too 🙂
and survives in even my abandoned non-tech tanks ... though it needs a bit of care to recover leaf size & vibrant growth/colour

 

[Aquahorti]

- or just choose a plant that will naturally grow according to your needs.. ........in this case Micranthemum umbrosum, is an obvious candidate.

The shape of the leaves is far from the look I am looking for, so that is not a candidate, but thanks for the suggestion.

I will just have to see if it will grow the way I'm planning for with the light I'm using, otherwise I can dial the intensity back without changing the overall expression of the Shimoga. Currently I am growing it in a stock Fluval Spec V with stock lights on it (latest gen). I have some Green in a Dennerle Scapes tank with the Scaper light over it, as well as growing some in direct sunlight for comparison.

My main concern is timing, as I am testing plants for next years IAPLC, so I can set up the aquascape and time the growth of the plants to hopefully do OK.

 

[Aquahorti]

Or you could try Hemianthus micranthemoides I've planted this with R. sp green, and eventually they become pretty much indistinguishable, that is superficially. Initially Rotala leaf size is larger but after a few trims it can become smaller and resemble M. micranthemoides more. It's an "Advanced" plant but it grows like a weed for me, I suspect it likes hard water, like I think H Cuba does. Although, it too can sometimes have a creeping habit so maybe Mick's suggestion is the safer bet.

Thanks for the suggestion, but again, not the expression I'm looking for as the distance between the rosetta is larger than I would like it to be.

 

[Aquahorti]

One of my longtime favourites ... and Amano’s too looking back through his Nature Aquarium World books 😉

I don’t know why it’s not included more in current aquascapes - the leaf shape & colour is lovely

I could be because it is classed as an advanced plant, but for me I guess it's because I like Rotalas and that I can do almost anything with them.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion, but again, not the expression I'm looking for as the distance between the rosetta is larger than I would like it to be.

Know what you mean, but the plant has a degree of phenotypic plasticity; the internodes along the stem can become shortened depending on environmental conditions - light intensity and how frequently it's trimmed etc...and it can resemble R. Green a bit more.

 

[Aquahorti]

Hm, that is close, but not quite there. My wife was kind enough to show me a video of the aquascape today, and the Green have started going through the cracks in the rocks and shading the Pangolino. I am a bit surprised by that as it was planted 13 days ago, but then again I have been running with a photoperiode of 12-13 hours per day. I will probably run with the 12-13 hour photoperiode for another fortnight, and if the Green still haven't started climbing I will probably cut it back to 7-8 hours.

Before anyone starts saying that that 12-13 hours is to much for a new aquarium I would like to point out that I run HC with 24 hour photoperiode for the first week of a new aquascape, and then stepping it down to 16 hours for the following week. This makes it possible for me to fully mature an Iwagumi carpet in less than 28 days. I have been experimenting with using 24 hour photoperiodes for a couple of years, after reading quite a bit about it in journal articles, and should you be interested I would suggest starting here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225040540_Plants_under_continuous_light_review . It is not all plants that benefits from this, but I have still to find any plants that suffer from short term exposure to a 24 hour photoperiode, and only a few cases of it just being a waste of light, CO2, and ferts.

 

[Guest]

12-13 hr photoperiod is very long. And 24hrs in a newly set up tank for a week and then 16hrs after that. By the way you describe it, that's not dry start either, but with water, yes?
I'm going to ask the question that everyone wishes they knew the answer to, and that is how the heck do you manage it, how are your tanks not algae farms?

 

[Onoma1]

Really interisting article. Thanks. Suggests to me the need for very high ferts, high c02 and perhaps starting with a 16 hour period before 24. I also think it could mean the need for lower light intensity.

Much of the work focused on growing from seed not division.

Btw how do you manage algae?

 

[Aquahorti]

The way I manage it is 50-90% water changes every day and loads of nutrients in the water column, as in 30-50% of a weeks normal fertilising dose. That combined with cleaning at a slightest hint of algae (if you set it up with in vitro plants, and everything is sterilised before use, including your hands, I have managed to go the first 3 weeks without cleaning, but just doing water changes). I made a guide a couple of years ago that I posted on a Danish forum, including pictures of how the setup looks on a weekly basis, but I have never bothered translating it. My wife mailed to a couple of people in the US who wanted the guide and they just used a translating program for it, but to be honest it's so simple that a guide is overkill. The nice thing about the guide is that I have put pictures in it for progress reference as well as links to a few articles explaining why I recommend doing things that way, it does have photoperiode, CO2 use, water change volumes, fertilising volumes in it so if you are completely new to the hobby you can plug and play.

The reason why I experimented with the 24 hour photoperiod was down to me always questioning established truths, especially when research indicates that that can't be right and I do question everything in this hobby even my own ideas.

 

[Onoma1]

Aquahorti,

There is a new paper on a similar approach in Nature: Watson, Amy, et al. "Speed breeding is a powerful tool to accelerate crop research and breeding." Nature plants 4.1 (2018): 23

The authors suggest that in controlled environments a 22 hour light and 2 hour dark approach works.

The key to success seems to be sterilisation of the environment. Probably explains how the plants we buy in vitro are cultivated.

Could this be taken into another thread? Rather than divert this one?

 

[Aquahorti]

Aquahorti,

There is a new paper on a similar approach in Nature: Watson, Amy, et al. "Speed breeding is a powerful tool to accelerate crop research and breeding." Nature plants 4.1 (2018): 23

The authors suggest that in controlled environments a 22 hour light and 2 hour dark approach works.

The key to success seems to be sterilisation of the environment. Probably explains how the plants we buy in vitro are cultivated.

Could this be taken into another thread? Rather than divert this one?

I don't have access to Nature articles from my current location, but I managed to find the full article here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/07/09/161182.full.pdf although some of the figures are missing from the last part of the article. I am not sure that you can draw the conclusion that the key to success is sterilisation in the way that you can't do it if you don't start from a sterile starting point. It is good parameter control though.

As to making a different thread, I am all for it, but where should it go, and what should the working title be? because my best suggestion is 'extended photoperiod effects on the circadian rhythm in plants' and I don't think that would be a hit in here...


Nonetheless going back to the original problem, it looks like the Green might start climbing soon ans it is moving up, but that could just be down to it running out of soil to creep across. here is a picture taken 14.5 days after planting, and 5.5 days after the last picture:

This is taken before cleaning (5 days past last cleaning), and the Green is beginning to show the same leaf form as the Shimoga, which is what I am looking for, now I just hope it gets the hight as well.

 

[Guest]

What's your water source?