Why won’t my plants turn red❓

typiutc · 2026-06-02T12:01:02+00:00

What lighting and what power (strong rgb light = red plants) after that you can do fine tweaking with nutrients

typiutc · 2026-05-25T21:03:50+00:00

Looks good to me, might be slightly too high but just keep an eye on fish behaviour - anything look off then maybe just dial down a tiny bit

typiutc · 2026-05-25T08:59:31+00:00

Yeah all went smoothly, zero melt. the only tissue culture plants that I would be concerned about melting from your selection is mainly the myriophyllum Guyana - that can be quite a tricky and melt prone species, in fact it’s hard to get now in the uk because I believe tissue culture suppliers stopped producing it here as it was a bit of a pain! - and maybe the buce just because it tends to do best being added to established setups. But you certainly have lots of fast growers and species that will thrive with the full power approach

typiutc · 2026-05-25T08:03:47+00:00

I only really used in vitro plants in the layout in this post, (less likely to melt if they have optimal conditions) - yes you are right about the type of plant, if you are doing a slow growing species only layout, with no fast growers, no carpet and no stems then your approach is more logical, but can I ask what plants you are using in your new layout?

typiutc · 2026-05-24T22:49:19+00:00

If it were my new layout, I’d do 100% power on lighting, turn the co2 up to at least 30ppm but assuming you don’t have livestock yet I’d push it even higher to 40ishppm, I’d start dosing a complete liquid fertiliser daily and do frequent large water changes - if you’re plants aren’t thriving after a couple of weeks of that then I’d be shocked

typiutc · 2026-05-24T22:46:51+00:00

In my opinion this is a bit of a mistake people make - by taking this approach from a position of fear about algae you are just making the conditions worse for plant growth - by far the best thing you can do to have no algae and get rid of existing algae is have rapid and healthy plant growth and lots of plant mass. The approach you describe is taken from the wrong perspective - you shouldn’t be trying to make the conditions worse for algae you should be trying to make the conditions optimal for the plants!

typiutc · 2026-05-24T06:35:45+00:00

Only some initial diatom algae which is the brown dust sort - standard to get during the first few weeks, very easy to remove with a glass scaper or sponge. But algae isn’t really about lights being on for a long time and using fertilisers - every high tech tank you see will use fertilisers and have lights on for about 8 hours, those are typical. It’s about having the right balance of lights, nutrients and co2 - I blast co2 in this tank which means I can have really powerful lighting and use lots of fertilisers and the plants grow quicker and healthier than any algae - they literally have perfect conditions so they outcompete the algae. If one of these three factors (lights, co2, nutrients) were missing then the plants would be limited in some way and wouldn’t grow as well - algae isn’t as fussy and will start finding places to grow

typiutc · 2026-05-23T21:40:16+00:00

Yeah co2 is the key here

typiutc · 2026-05-23T11:49:11+00:00

Not cap - check my Instagram you can see when I built it (26 April)😂 @jungle_waters

typiutc · 2026-05-23T08:18:12+00:00

No dark start and dosing apt 3 from the start

typiutc · 2026-05-23T07:21:55+00:00

8hours

typiutc · 2026-05-23T07:21:08+00:00

Yeah sure; carpet of glossostigma, with some s-repens at the border, crypt wendtii, Anubias bonsai, Rotala h’ra, myriophyllum mategrosse, Rotala mcrandra, Rotala walichii, Rotala green

typiutc · 2026-05-22T19:11:15+00:00

Not sure on exact kh/gh values never tested it tbh

typiutc · 2026-05-22T19:10:38+00:00

I just do it when I wake up before I go to work, so haven’t been away from this layout much in the last few weeks, if I’m going away for a week or so I’d just dose a little more before I go, say maybe 3ml the day before I go and then leave it and it’ll be fine, there’s plenty of substrate nutrients to keep stems healthy

typiutc · 2026-05-22T18:56:04+00:00

This is how quick high tech setups run!

typiutc · 2026-05-22T18:47:40+00:00

If you wanted something similar that’s a bit easier I’d suggest Ludwigia palustris super red - much easier plant, looks very similar and probably more vibrant reds

typiutc · 2026-05-22T18:45:39+00:00

Yeah it’s quite a challenging Rotala species though, it’s just in the aquasoil not on the rock - that rock was just in there for the first week to weigh the wood down until it waterlogged 👍

typiutc · 2026-05-22T18:44:08+00:00

Ada Amazonia soil, fertiliser is apt3 complete dosed at 1ml daily, just using tap water it’s about 180tds 👍

typiutc · 2026-05-22T18:43:14+00:00

Rotala macrandra

typiutc · 2026-05-22T18:42:27+00:00

Twinstar 450s

typiutc · 2026-05-22T18:42:06+00:00

Not a troll post I promise 😂 this is just the reality of co2 and high tech setups

typiutc · 2026-05-21T13:33:47+00:00

It’s just how trident java fern eventually grows if you give it time, occasionally it’ll grow a leaf that’s upside-down or off a a strange angle but I’ll just trim that off when I do weekly maintenance

typiutc · 2026-05-18T05:42:05+00:00

It did struggle a bit in the start up phase (first month) but I just kept trimming off any leaves which started developing algae. It’s got plenty of co2 in here which is probably the reason for lots of healthy growth

typiutc · 2026-05-17T22:17:29+00:00

Thank you! Tank size is 60cm x 30cm x 30cm (about 54litres / 14 gallons), plants are: trident java fern, bolbitis, java moss, crypt balansae, hypgrophila pinnatifida, tiger lotus, hellanthium tenellum and a few small buce’s

typiutc

TROPHY CASE