Best Red Aquarium Plants for Beginners

[canton-aquatics]

Adding red plants to your aquarium can create a stunning contrast against green plants and fish. But not all red plants are easy to grow. If you're a beginner, here are some of the best red aquarium plants that require minimal care:

🔴 Ludwigia Repens – One of the easiest red plants, thriving in moderate lighting and basic fertilization.
🔴 Alternanthera Reineckii (AR Mini) – A great choice for foreground or midground, needing moderate light and CO₂ for deeper red hues.
🔴 Rotala Rotundifolia – Turns reddish under good lighting but stays green in low light, making it a flexible option.
🔴 Red Tiger Lotus – A unique, hardy plant with deep red leaves that grows well in most conditions.

To enhance the red coloration, provide sufficient light, iron-rich fertilizers, and, if possible, CO₂ supplementation. Which red plant is your favorite? Let’s discuss!

 

[Simon Cole]

It's got to be the AR Mini for me. It can really bring a design together. Reminds me a bit of the <red buoy incident> between the great artists William Turner and John Constable, but also of legendary scapes like Crimson Sky.

 

[Andy Pierce]

Super topic for discussion.

AR mini is great, but shrimp, particularly amano shrimp, can potentially like to eat it. I had a lot of success with ludwigia but eventually got tired of relentlessly trimming the stems - Ludwigia palustris mini ‘Super Red’ didn't stay very mini for me and comfortably broke 50 cm. If you're ok with reddish rather than straight red then I find a lot to like with Cryptocoryne nurii which does a nice mottled red/green leaf, grows well and stays reasonably low (15-20 cm). Others like Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Flamingo’ but for me it never actually got red. I don't know if I just got a mislabeled plant, or whether it's crazy sensitive to pH. I was growing it in a CO2-injected hardwater tank. I tried to grow Rotala rotundifolia ‘Orange Juice’ in a low tech setup and it just rotted away, but that was true for a lot of plants in that tank at that time so not necessarily the fault of the plant and I might give it another go.

 

[Ehcosbie]

I love a red tiger lotus, they can look absolutely fantastic.

 

[PARAGUAY]

It's got to be the AR Mini for me. It can really bring a design together. Reminds me a bit of the <red buoy incident> between the great artists William Turner and John Constable, but also of legendary scapes like Crimson Sky.

nice story about two great painters Simon

 

[G H Nelson]

Ludwigia palustris "Super Red"

TODO

www.flowgrow.de

 

[bazz]

Others like Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Flamingo’ but for me it never actually got red. I don't know if I just got a mislabeled plant, or whether it's crazy sensitive to pH. I was growing it in a CO2-injected hardwater tank.

I think a lot of this has to do with lighting, mine looked practically green under a A360X but immediately looked shocking pink when the A360X was replaced with a P900.

 

[ElleDee]

I think a lot of this has to do with lighting

Good lighting is the real secret to reds, both in the sense that higher lighting brings out better coloration and better color rendition makes plants look better immediately.

Rotala 'Blood Red' is a super star for me provided it gets enough light. Ludwigia 'Super Red' will also get electric red, but I can get it happy until a tank is well seasoned for whatever reason. Red tiger lotus is probably the easiest to grow in a variety of conditions and is my recommendation for tanks with less light.

 

[Cazza]

Love the AR. Mine was thriving in my low tech aquarium... until I added two Amanos, who have decimated it. Red lotus is a lovely plant, relatively easy and adds completely different shapes to an aquascape.

 

[PeerUnk]

My all time favorite is Rotala rotundifolia “blood red”! Requires definitely no CO2 injection and has steady growth and nice red, purple, pinkish colors for me. Can grow very dense packed, easy to trim, no stunting, even at 17 *C, 0-10 KH
But then again, I’m not a beginner, just low tech enthousiast. But would definitely recommend it to try it out. It might need from some soil addition and/or NPK/daily micros like I do,