Rotala wallichi in community tank

[KnownStranger]

Anyone who grows Rotala Wallichi in a community tank with other plants sp , and do water column dosing with salts?
1.can grow in new soil easily without any water column dosing
2. can also grow in old soil with lean fertilizer dosing which available in the market like tropica,ada etc
but my question is can it be grown with heavy salts dosing in a community planted tank without getting stunted? If can please help i am struggling to grow it in a community tank, what are the parametres to be kept to make it healthy and not get stunted?thanks

 

[G H Nelson]

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Indeed Rotala sp can be a finicky plant in fertilized aquariums!
There have been some suggestions that Potassium might cause stunted growth.
Others think Iron availability causes this issue also or too much Micro fertilizer!
It's a bit of trial and error really.
Try tweaking your fertilizer regime....reduce Potassium etc
Do one change at a time over a few weeks!

 

[KnownStranger]

thanks, will add a detail of my tank tomorrow, fertilizer regime and pics of wallichi aswell , thanks for the reply we will continue the thread after that

 

[Gorillastomp]

I am currently doing a test in my planted tank with heavy dosing water column.

It was groing fine before that, its been about 1week and half of heavy dosing. I can report back with the result in a couple week.

 

[Conort2]

I found it grew like a weed with water with low nutrients/low tds. No CO2 or bright lights were needed.

 

[erwin123]

For Wallichii:
Heavy dosing + Hard water = stunt
Lean dosing + Hard water = will survive
Any type of dosing+soft water = weed

High Light/CO2 - only needed if you want it to turn red. When it comes to red stem plants, I prefer M. 'Roraima' and M. Tuberculatum over Wallichii 😎

 

[Heelllooo]

Not an expert advice by any mean but it grows well in my Lowtech medium light.
KH = 3 / GH = 5
I was dosing near EI level without issue at some point. But I have a lot of floating and emersed plants.

I did make it stunt when I started dosing the water column for the first time : EI level of K and N and when it gets too much shade from the floating plants.

Even in a low CO2 environment, it never gets CO2 deficiency for me and really benefits from more lights.

It doesn't take trimming well though and can be an algae magnet for a week after being trimmed, I try to never trim it to hard.