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I got a bunch of sunset hygro about a year ago from a friend, after I'd spent months looking for it when I saw it in a display tank at an LFS. The stuff in the display had beautiful bright pink leaves with white veins, with the bottom leaves on the stems being more green, and the tops more pink.
The stuff I ended up getting is entirely lime green, the veins are only visible on the very top four leaves or so, and it rarely gets any pink at all, just a faint tinge on the uppermost leaves and not until those leaves reach the surface or start growing out of the tank. It grows like crazy; I am throwing it away by the handful every week.
Is something wrong with my hygro, or did I just get some that isn't very nice? I've heard the pink is caused by a virus. Is that actually true? Is there anything I can try to get mine to color better? I've got pressurized CO2 (not sure exactly how much is in the water right now, I'm running it on some improvised equipment until I can replace pieces that broke or went missing in the recent move...), 3 wpg light that runs 10 hours a day, and I'm dosing with some dry fertilizers that a local greenhouse made up for me. Without digging out the bag, I'm not sure what all is in it, but I know it's got iron and trace minerals and phosphate and nitrate. I'm not seeing any deficiencies in any plants that I can tell, and my red ludwigia is nice and red. Just not the hygro.
The stuff I ended up getting is entirely lime green, the veins are only visible on the very top four leaves or so, and it rarely gets any pink at all, just a faint tinge on the uppermost leaves and not until those leaves reach the surface or start growing out of the tank. It grows like crazy; I am throwing it away by the handful every week.
Is something wrong with my hygro, or did I just get some that isn't very nice? I've heard the pink is caused by a virus. Is that actually true? Is there anything I can try to get mine to color better? I've got pressurized CO2 (not sure exactly how much is in the water right now, I'm running it on some improvised equipment until I can replace pieces that broke or went missing in the recent move...), 3 wpg light that runs 10 hours a day, and I'm dosing with some dry fertilizers that a local greenhouse made up for me. Without digging out the bag, I'm not sure what all is in it, but I know it's got iron and trace minerals and phosphate and nitrate. I'm not seeing any deficiencies in any plants that I can tell, and my red ludwigia is nice and red. Just not the hygro.