Rotala macandra and high alkalinity

[parotet]

Hi all, I bough yesterday a pot of Rotala macandra and searching for some information about its care I noticed that some people consider it a good candidate for being included in the group of high alkalinity sensitive plant. Well, mine is KH15 or more. I read this information in 2 threads on the Barr report forum. In one of them Clive's tank was mentioned for having very hard water and some posters couldn't really believe that he was successfully growing that plant...and curiously I came across this UKAPS post this afternoon...

T. Barr has publicly challenged me to do the same with R. macandra. It's on my list of answering the challenge of gauntlets thrown, in the manner of the noble Knight, Ivanho.,

Wow, that sounds epic So... Clive, if you read this thread how is R. macandra doing?

Other positive experiences with this plant in such conditions?For the moment all the plants I've grown (not much, but probably 20 species) have done well (and when they didn't do well it was my fault, not really my water fault) despite some of them in the websites or even the nursery info states something like 'do not thrive in hard water', but I wonder if this species can be really included with Tonina and these plants that are really sensitive.

Jordi

 

[plantbrain]

I cannot say either way, I'd need to add a lot of baking soda to my tanks to do it, but the R mac is a real weed.
Every plant is at lower KH's, how much and which ones are not? That's a more difficult case to say.

I could certainly set up the methods to do it, and add more and more baking soda, say 2 KH, 3Kyh 4, KH, 5 KH, 6 Kh, 7 KH and 8 KH over say 2-3 week intervals starting with the tap I have and nice healthy stand to begin with.
A nice healthy stand is REQUIRED so you have a control for the other potentially confounding factors. But this would require me to have more tanks. I limit my self to 5 tanks.

But that's how you would best do it and see. You could test a dozen or so suspect species in an 80-100 liter tank this way and repeat the test 2-3X or use 2-3 tanks and do it 1-2x as well.

 

[parotet]

Yes, most of us keep only a few tanks at home (at least to make statistical comparisons), of different volumes, with different equipment, with different plant and fish and with the same water... On the one hand it is quite obvious, isn't it? I want my tanks to look beautiful, I prefer it to a collection of tanks with the same plant in different conditions. But on the other hand most of the conclusions in the hobby are pointless. Once you understand this, you are more and more amazed with the comments heard on LFS or read in forums.... People are not that open minded and sometimes you realize that it is much better to shut your mouth if you don not want to be shot down in flames.

Just wanted to know if someone is able to grow this plant at high KH or if it will melt in a few days. If it grows redder, taller, bushier, etc.will probably be a matter of my skills

Jordi