# Rotala sp. 'butterfly' morphology change



## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

I've noticed an interesting change in my Rotala sp. 'butterfly'. This is what mine has looked like in my tank:










In aother tank I had majory stunting of the fast frowers, including my 'butterfly'. After two weeks of these condtions, the plant 'converted' into this:










anyone else have a similar experience? I know that people had have had conversions with Rotala spp. 'mini'.......


----------



## s0ulcommited (Sep 21, 2007)

What are you parameters? It looks like a combination of low light/lack of co2 to me. It looks healthy, just growing under different conditions than it would take to make it crazy red.


----------



## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

hey hooha in the second pic which stem are you indicating as 'butterfly' - 
the one in the center that looks like R.macrandra 'green' ?

the reason I ask is that I thought I had a stand of only R.'butterfly' and recently from it I noticed 2 stems of what looks like R.macrandra 'green'. I was pretty sure I didnt have that one in the tank at all, and definitely not in my R.butterfly.


----------



## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

yes, I thought it looked very much like Rotala macandra myself, but wanted to see if anyone else thought so as well  When I followed these stems down they were growing from the Rotala sp. 'butterfly' mass I had growing in the tank.


soulcommited, the stunting initially occured when I did not raise up my macro dosing in the tank. I have an automated system going, as the plant density greatly increased, I did not change my dosing amounts until recently. I also had my Pogostemon stellatus stunting in the tank, which recovered nicely when I increased the dosing amounts.

current parameters:
CO2 is continuous to bring it to over 30ppm (yellow-green on a dKH 4 standard in drop checker)
lighting is 192 watts of compact flourescent in a 55 galllon.


----------



## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

This plant changes quite abit from one tank/lighting situation to another. I wish I would have taken pics of it before I put the extra light on my mini-m. It was very green/yellow and was tiny, now with an extra 27w of spiral pc it is looking sort of maccandraish (wavy leafs) and getting alittle more red.


----------



## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

whew! then I'm not going crazy.
If I can snap a pic of it this evening, I'll try to confirm that the different growth appearance is in fact a branch off an R.butterfly stem.

I've got quite a few R.macrandra variants now (different combos of mini, narrow, pointed, variegated, green, super red, japan,etc) as the summer continues I'll see how stable they are or if they start to look more like each other. I have 4 variants of R.mexicana also and I'm eager to see what they do over time. The mexicanas seem to be more stable in growth pattern, at least for the two I've been keeping longest.

*edit*: I'd like to add that I've seen R.butterfly as R.macrandra mini 'butterfly' in places



hooha said:


> yes, I thought it looked very much like Rotala macandra myself, but wanted to see if anyone else thought so as well  When I followed these stems down they were growing from the Rotala sp. 'butterfly' mass I had growing in the tank.
> 
> soulcommited, the stunting initially occured when I did not raise up my macro dosing in the tank. I have an automated system going, as the plant density greatly increased, I did not change my dosing amounts until recently. I also had my Pogostemon stellatus stunting in the tank, which recovered nicely when I increased the dosing amounts.
> 
> ...


----------



## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

How do you like this for a rotala story. My Mini butterfly is now curling its leaves like my mini type 2.


----------



## HoustonFishFanatic (Feb 26, 2007)

I guess my Rotala sp 'Butterfly" is nicely maintaining its color and form.



But yes very interesting transformations.

Bhushan


----------



## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

yeah very nice. Good detail on the leaf margin. 
Being toothed like that means its a Rotala macrandra variant right?


----------



## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Not to muddy the water, I have Rotala macrandra narrow that is converting back to the regular Rotala marcrandra. This is just like my Rotala mini type 2 converting. Maybe the rotalas just do this?...

My butterfly is still narrow but not as dark red as when I received it.


----------



## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

we could really use some emersed setups with flowers for these Rotala species (I'm looking at ashappard/Bushan/Cavan/anyone else who can get emersed flowers - I suck at it  )


----------



## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Argh! I had a R. mac flower a few weeks ago, but I didn't have time to photograph it. No worries, I'm expecting some other R. mac (the red type) to flower soon. 

Interesting conversions though


----------



## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

hooha said:


> we could really use some emersed setups with flowers for these Rotala species (I'm looking at ashappard/Bushan/Cavan/anyone else who can get emersed flowers - I suck at it  )


We're working on a few. Never hurts to just throw a few stems outside.

It looks to me like all of these being discussed are probably macrandra cultivars.


----------



## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

For whatever reason, I've had little success with the getting emersed growth established in my outdoor tubs. I get emersed growth on stems, but once I try to further convert them to 'swampy soil' they start to dry out on me......

I agree that likely these are macandra varieties. It will interesting to see how many different varieties of macandra these will turn out to be.....


----------



## ingg (Apr 8, 2007)

My Butterfly remains dark red like when I got it, save one stem - I also got one branching off that looks like macrandra green.


----------



## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

ditto ingg's comment
I have 2 stems that have switched to green leaves
and the rest are magenta.

not a very good pic










as far as R.macrandra variants go, this one is kinda cool 
if you like the variegated plants.


----------



## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

ashappard - R.macrandra variegated -loving this one!

Here is my R. macrandra narrow - reverting back... There are at least 4 stems doing this.


----------



## SniperLk (May 25, 2008)

ashappard said:


> ditto ingg's comment


This picture makes me think of ludwigia inclinata 
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=ludwigia inclinata&sa=N&tab=wi&um=1


----------



## rich815 (Jun 27, 2007)

This is almost identical to how mine grew for me too. Maybe a tad darker. I finally moved on from it as I found it finicky. One month it would be gorgeous and thrive, then one week start to get crinkled at the gorwing tips, then recover and and other few weeks of thriving, then again. Pearled like a mutha' for me.....



ashappard said:


> as far as R.macrandra variants go, this one is kinda cool
> if you like the variegated plants.


----------



## HoustonFishFanatic (Feb 26, 2007)

ashappard said:


> yeah very nice. Good detail on the leaf margin.
> Being toothed like that means its a Rotala macrandra variant right?


Yes,looks a lot like a miniature R macrandra.



hooha said:


> we could really use some emersed setups with flowers for these Rotala species (I'm looking at ashappard/Bushan/Cavan/anyone else who can get emersed flowers - I suck at it  )


I have a couple of stems in the emersed set up but looks like they need a lot of light.


----------



## herns (Aug 28, 2007)

.

I have some rotala magenta that just stunted in my 20 but grows very well in my smaller tank with lots of light. 

What causes stunted plants?


----------

