Water Primrose

Wulfyn said:

Do you mean ludwigia?

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Apparently I do. The Petco tag says water primrose - North America. On their website it's needle leaf ludwigia.

Complexity said:

What do you hate about it? Is it not growing well or is there something about the way it grows you don't like?

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All of those things. It's just not doing well in my tank.

and since a picture is worth 1000 words:



The background shows the longer stems, all leggy looking because the leaves fall off whenever I try to clean the diatoms/staghorn off. For whatever reason, the otos will not touch this plant.

I had minimal 'new-start' algae problems but a medical emergency pulled me away for 10 days directly after a week long vacation. So, yeah, came home to a mess of a tank and most of it is looking good now except for this.

So, before I take steps to save it, I want to make sure I'll even like it grown out. Otherwise I shall just pull it and put something less gross in.

~Kelli

Needle-leaf Ludwigia is properly known as Ludwigia arcuata. It is an easy to grow beautiful red colored plant; however, it requires bright lighting in order to grow well.

For an aquarium to have bright lighting, a person would need to also add some form of carbon (either dose Excel every day or install a CO2 system). A daily fertilization regimen would also need to be followed which includes a weekly 50% water change.

The plant you currently have may be the emersed form which means it was grown out of the water. This is commonly done with aquatic plants. Once it is put in the water, it will shed its old leaves and begin growing the new submersed leaves. For those who truly want the plant, it's worth it.

Since you do not appear very eager to put forth a whole lot of effort for this one plant, I highly doubt you're going to be interested in purchasing new lighting, setting up a CO2 system, and dosing fertilizers every day. Therefore, my suggestion would be to yank it and find something that better fits your tank's environment.

A similar plant that will grow well in a lower light environment without CO2 or fertilization is Ludwigia repens x L. arcuata. It is actually a hybrid of the plant you have now and another form of Ludwigia. I have this plant growing in my high tech and low tech tanks and absolutely love it. So if you would like to have a plant similar to the one you picked out, this one would be an excellent choice.