In my experience the main trouble with Rotala macrandra "Green" is that it needs good light and can't deal with overshading. The lower stems never stay healthy if they're planted as densely as other rotalas. I've grown it in very rich and very lean conditions and it has been alright, overall it doesn't seem too picky. My working theory is that when it gets too long and lays across the surface it shades itself out pretty quickly, leading to those pinholes which are the beginnings of melt.

That said, I also have fairly low (2-3) GH in this tank so I can't rule out a magnesium deficiency.

I'm pretty sure I have a misidentified plant in here. I had bought something labeled as Rotala nanjenshan in a bunch plant form just a couple weeks before the AGA deadline since one of my groups was struggling and I needed to fill out the tank. It didn't look like what I remembered, but I attributed that to different growing conditions in the LFS tank. After going through old photos of Rotala nanjenshan from an ADA tissue culture it's pretty apparent that the plant I recently bought is not Rotala nanjenshan.

This is the Rotala nanjenshan from the iwagumi rotala tank from 2019:


This is from the current setup:


I'm guessing it's Mayaca sellowiana, not Rotala nanjenshan. From a little googling it looks like Mayaca sellowiana is often confused for and mislabeled as Rotala nanjenshan. The funny thing is that I bought both the ADA tissue culture and the bunch plants from the same store (Aquarium Zen), and I'm pretty sure he's grown TC Rotala najenshan in his display tanks before so he should know what it looks like.

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FWIW APC's plant finder entry for R. Nanjenshan looks like the 2nd pic

https://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...ils.php?id=169

The first pic looks like a R. Rotundifolia variant, or perhaps it's a cross of the 2?....hmmmm

Ya know I think you're right. The TC I got must have been mislabeled, because it looked more like regular rotala rotundifolia than any nanjenshan pictures I can find online.

Problem is I can't find any good botanical description of the difference between rotala nanjenshan and mayaca sellowiana, so I don't know how to tell what it is!

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No big update today. Things are going pretty smoothly, the only algae is a little BBA on the driftwood.

The Nesaea pedicellata "Golden" appears to be making an unexpected comeback. Still growing very slowly, but it looks healthy.



I also got a tiny ludwigia sphaerocarpa "mini" which is a very charming little plant. I'm interested in seeing how it grows in this tank. I'll probably hold on to this for the next Dutch project if it does well, it's got such an interesting form and color.



Last water change I did a big thinning out, and removed over 50% of the stems. It was probably a bit aggressive. I'm hoping to break out the fancy camera to take photos for the GSAS home show and I'm not sure if it will recover in time!

I haven't dosed micros in about a month. I'm not doing any fancy experiments, I just don't have a dosing bottle at the moment. I should probably get on that...

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