# Red plants not turning red!



## Tanan (Mar 11, 2009)

Hey everyone. I am posting after a long time. 
A few months ago I started a tank with all the high tech red fancy plants. 
Pogostemon stellatus, Limnophila hippuroides, rotala macrandra, rotala macrandra type 1, type 2, type 4, Dilpidis diandra, ludwigia sengalensis, Ludwigia glandulosa, cuphea anagolidea, prospernica palustris. None of these plants have turned red. The tank is 48" x 15" x 18", the lights are DIY 2 panels each of 18 x XTEs (6500K and 4500K) at 900ma, 4 x 660nm red and 450nm XTE blues. The lights are 5" above water surface. CO2 is pressurized with almost 5 bps. No fish just a nerite and ramshorns. I dose NPK twice a week and micro twice a week. 
The plants that does turn red are ludwigia arcuta, myriophyllum tuberculatum, rotala yai yao, alternanthera reineckii mini.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Red coloration depends most strongly on lighting intensity and to a lesser degree on the nutrients you add or do not add to the tank.

If you want very red plants, increase the lighting to very high levels.

Try lowering your lights or adding more of them to do this.

I've got 200 watts of T5 HO above a 40 gallon tank and all the plants are blood red, even the hygo difformis is turning red and that is pretty much a green plant only.


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## Tanan (Mar 11, 2009)

With just 36 xtes at 900mA that's around 100W for a 55G tank. That's almost double the recommended wattage of LEDs for a planted tank. Everytime I try to drive them at 1Amp, my tank's water turn cloudy green. I tried increasing micro dosing, it did turn my plants a bit more red but the leaves seems to shrink in size.


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

I have also found that going to a cooler light( higher k rating) seems to help


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## Tanan (Mar 11, 2009)

I have 30 x 6500K XTEs and 6 x 4500K XTEs, to bump the blues and red. I have already used 4 x 450nm XTEs and 4 x 660nm epileds. I am pretty sure that would put my red/blue spectrum and K rating pretty close to 8000K.


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

I personally like the 12k halides which is what I use, I found them better at bringing out the reds then the 6500 and 10k

then again mh are a lot stronger then t5

I will never go back to t5s the reefer in me won't let me lol


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## essabee (Oct 11, 2006)

It is my personal hypothesis that you must drive the plants over peak photosynthesis to cause them to reduce their more efficient photosynthesis pigment - chlorophyll - and rely more on the carotid pigments.

By "peak photosynthesis" I mean the level of photosynthesis where the plant can handle the nascent oxygen produced during photosynthesis. As nascent oxygen is destructive to living tissue - the plants have no other way than reducing their green pigments for self-preservation. It is this that turns plant red.

To drive plants over peak photosynthesis there should be no deficiencies of either nutrients, CO2, or light. Give special attention to iron availability.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

essabee said:


> It is my personal hypothesis that you must drive the plants over peak photosynthesis to cause them to reduce their more efficient photosynthesis pigment - chlorophyll - and rely more on the carotid pigments.
> 
> By "peak photosynthesis" I mean the level of photosynthesis where the plant can handle the nascent oxygen produced during photosynthesis. As nascent oxygen is destructive to living tissue - the plants have no other way than reducing their green pigments for self-preservation. It is this that turns plant red.
> 
> To drive plants over peak photosynthesis there should be no deficiencies of either nutrients, CO2, or light. Give special attention to iron availability.


This is essentially what the following book (page 247) also says happens during photo inhibition (too high light for too long).

On pg 262 it also mentions how in algae grown at high light other pigments like Zeaxanthin (admittedly not a red pigment in this species) are made in high amounts to absorb the excess light and prevent damage to the main photo system in the cell. There are undoubtedly many other pigments in different plant species that do something similar.

On top of this, at high light levels the number of photo systems are reduced since the plant doesn't need as many to make the sugar it needs. By reducing the green pigments and increasing the colored protective pigments a plant's color changes from green to red/yellow.

Another way to get redder plants is to deprive them of nutrients, this causes damage to certain proteins that can't be replaced and causes the plant to lose its green pigments, making it look more red. This is not a sustainable long term method of maintaining red color because unresolved deficiencies will eventually kill the plant. So yes, you need to make sure that your plants do not become deficient, especially since higher light can drive the use of nutrients up a bit.

*Title*: Aquatic Photosynthesis
*Subtitle*: (Second Edition)
*Edition*: STU - Student edition
*Author(s)*: Paul G. Falkowski and John A. Raven
*Publisher(s)*: Princeton University Press (October 2013)
*Stable URL*: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt4cgbxs


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## Tanan (Mar 11, 2009)

Here is the tank itself. The video is when tank was 40 days old. 
I am running the right side leds now at 1.2A instead of 900mA to see if its a light issue. Increased co2 and micro dosing too. 



__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1619203771665327


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