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I took a short break from work this afternoon to get some stuff for my hard working wife, and on my way back I passed a small petstore that I had been to only once before. As my fishfood was starting to run low I thought I'd just hop in and get some more. It turned out that since the last time I was there they had rebuilt the place a bit and now had about 15 tanks of tropical fish. They also had a very small selection of plants and to my surprise there were two species I did not yet have for my tank. One was a green lotus kind, I'm not quite sure of the species, but I had been looking for one for a while and so I took one along The other was something that I didn't recognize, but I thought it was rather pretty and seemed to do reasonably well in the terrible light of those tanks.

It had very clearly been grown under emersed conditions, which resulted in ugly green leaves, but after being grown submersed the leaf blades become much thinner and the color changes to a lovely shade of red (see photo). Does anyone have an idea what plant this is? I'm quite curious.


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It looks like a variety of Telanthera, or Alternanthera. I've seen it listed as Red Temple. It's a very pretty plant and doesn't seem to require super high lighting to get a lovely magenta color.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

At first thought it was Nessea or Ammannia but the underside of the leaf is the same as the top. Both these species have a silverish underside.

It does look like a Alternanthera. But if I remember correctly you already have some Red Temple (A.Lilacina) which has a olive upper leaf and a purple underside. This looks like rosaefolia.The upper and lower leaf are almost the same color. I've never seen this emmersed so not sure if it would be green.

Can you pull the camera back a bit and give me a better look at the emmersed growth ? I can tell if it's Ammania from that.

If it's rosaefolia it's quite easy to grow. Moderate light, it's naturally red doesn't need high light to produce the coloration. Needs a lot of NO3 and PO4. So keep adding them. It will stunt in low No3 set ups. Unlike most red plants high No3 will produce brighter more colorful growth rather then low no3.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Dr.,

Ok, I will take a shot as well, but I might be way off.

My first thought was in line with Bensaf, some form of Alternanthera.

But looking closer I think it also could be a form of Rotala. I doesn't quite look like my Macandra, but it doesn't look too far off either.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

seems like I have created a bit of a problem for all the experts

I'll take some new pictures tonight, it should be in better shape by then as well, the picture above was taken 5 minutes after I put it in, and it was still a bit disoriented.

Nope. Definately not a Rotala. The emmersed leaves are all wrong.

I was a bit confused. I thought you bought in it's emmersed form and it grew out. But you say it's only in 5 mins so I assume it was that red when you bought it. It's quite shaded , I was wondering why so red in such poor light.

My money is till on Roseafolia with an outside chance of being a Nessea species.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Alright, here are some new photos of the plant, one day after I put it in the tank. first an overall shot, to give you some idea of size:


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and then a close-up, it's all you can still see from the emersed growth, the rest is behind the Anubias.

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It's looking more like Nessea now

Two things will tell. What are the underside of the leaf like? Do they have a purple tinge or a silverish ? Purple = Rosaefolia , Silver = Nessea.

How is the new growth coming out ? Light green-yellowish-copper = Nessea. The matt reddish coloring = probably Rosaefolia.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.