[slavecorps]

I have some beautiful red rotala sp. butterfly . All of the plants are red and the new growth on all but one plant is red. There is one stem that has a nice red coloration on the main stem, but a side shoot is growing off of this same plant that is completely green. Why is this happening? The stem is not in a location where it is being deprived of light and seems to be growing at the same pace as the others.

 

[Abrium]

did you recently buy this plant red? If so what is your Fe levels, light, and other ferts. Rotala is known to get a nice red hue when hight light is present but this thread states that water hardness also plays a factor. As a matter of fact the entire thread addresses this sp. and another... check it out.

 

[bigstick120]

Its a morph, that tends to convert back to it original spec.

 

[Centromochlus]

Tank specs? Size, lighting, substrate, ferts, CO2?

 

[slavecorps]

7.5 gal ADA 30-C
46w 6500K spiral flourescent (2 x 23w)
substrate: black flourite sand
Pressurized CO2 running at about 2.5 bps
fauna: cherry shrimp, 1 otocinclus, 2 neon tetras (I didnt really want the tetras in there, but a friend was going to flush them if I didn't take them).
Dosing seachem iron and comprehensive weekly @ 1.5x recommended dose
API leaf zone (K20 + 0.1% Fe)
I lack nitrogen and possibly phosphate, I am waiting on a shipment of spectracide stump remover (KNO3).
I don't have a test kit to measure levels, I ran out of testing chemicals and I am a broke as hell college student so I wont be purchasing another test kit any time soon.
I use half Chicago city water and half spring water for top offs and water changes.
I want to clarify that the green is only happening on one stem. The rest of the stems have new growth that is red. The main portion of the stem that the green shoot is growing from is red as well.