# Vallisneria turning red?



## Soveroo (Jul 17, 2004)

Hi I posted this over at another forum but you guys seem way more active in postings so I hope to get a quicker answer from the experts here. 

I have Vallisneria sp. 'Contortionist' & Vallisneria americana v. 'Biwaensis' 
in a few of my tanks. I've noticed that the leaves on a couple of them are turning a deep red color and in fact one of the plants has turned almost completly red all the way down the leaves to the base. The centers are a deep deep red going to a lighter pinkish/green towards the outer edge of the leaves. On most of the other plants the reddening is not as pronounced and is more towards the upper half of the leaf. Is this normal for this plant? 

My tanks range from 10-30gal all have diy CO2 and power compact lighting that'd put them all at between 2-4wpg depending on which tank. All other water parameters are the same ph, gh, kh.. 

Also one of these two types of Vals is very tight and spirally, going straight up to the top where the other has very little spiral to it, more just a bare twisting and seems to fan out wide as it's going up to the top of the tank. Is this also normal for the other one to be so wide? Reminds me of how my sword plants grow, and I don't like how this Val looks. (I was going for a nice tall forest type look from them) I'm not sure which of the two it is since they were mixed up when I purchased them online, but I think it's the americana. Thanks!


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## Error (Apr 16, 2004)

I collected some Vallisneria americana var. americana out of a lake in northern Michigan that was quite red. The lake was surrounded by farms and probably received a lot of runoff, judging from the algal growth that was covering almost everything.

You don't lay out any fertilizer dosing parameters in your post. We need to know that, but my preliminary guess is that your nitrates are low.


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## Soveroo (Jul 17, 2004)

I don't add ferts, I get terrible algae outbreaks anytime I've done that and my plants grow like crazy with just the light, and CO2. There is a root tab stick under the area with the Vals in all the tanks and they're in eco-complete for a substrate.


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## pineapple (May 4, 2004)

I've seen similar intensely red plants in a lake in Southern Vermont. Very lovely actually. I brought some back and after a week they established in an aquarium and completely lost the red colour. I assumed that it was possibly to do with the NO3 dosing I was doing. I did not test the lakewater, but the runoff was limited, algae was not present to any degreee, it was not a eutrophic system and it was very well established with Eurasian milfoil, ***Potamogeton**** (corrected) sp. etc.

Andrew Cribb


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## Error (Apr 16, 2004)

pineapple said:


> I've seen similar intensely red plants in a lake in Southern Vermont. Very lovely actually. I brought some back and after a week they established in an aquarium and completely lost the red colour. I assumed that it was possibly to do with the NO3 dosing I was doing. I did not test the lakewater, but the runoff was limited, algae was not present to any degreee, it was not a eutrophic system and it was very well established with Eurasian milfoil, aponogeton sp. etc.
> 
> Andrew Cribb


Aponogeton in a Vermont lake? That's very interesting.

Soveroo,

If your plants are growing very well I can't think of anything. NO3 limitation is the usual culprit for red color in normally green plants.


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## Soveroo (Jul 17, 2004)

Thanks guys, as long as it's nothing to really worry about I'm glad. The plants are very healthy other than that, and the really red one is shooting out runners like mad. I just found it odd and was a bit concerned.


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