Alternanthera reineckii

A beautiful red plant. I haven't seen anyone trading/selling, or talking about this plant. I am thinking about picking up both normal and the 'mini' ver of this plant.

Anyone currently growing either? I would like to find out proper growing conditions of both ver, perhaps share pictures of set ups. Also am interested in finding and purchasing the 'mini' ver. I have 5 8-10" stems of the standard version coming.

Any input appreciated from both experienced growers or others with interest.

What exactly are you trying to find out?

It does best with a lot of light, ferts, and co2 and definitely belongs in a large tank like you're planning to keep it in as it gets fairly wide and does best spaced out a bit to avoid too much shading of the lower leaves. I don't grow the regular kind anymore as it just takes up too much space in my smaller tanks.

I have the Ocipus version currently from the mystery plant of the month last month from the GSAS, it was in emersed form when I won it so I don't know how big it will end up but so far I like it much better than the regular variety.

The mini variety is on my list as well but I am not sure if my layout will support it with the current lighting I have on the tank but it would definitely look awesome in the scape I am wanting to place it in.

Even that little bit of info helps Jubs! I got a lot of light, just added another Ray2 to my 140. That's 2x 4', 1X 3' fixtures . + 1X 4' planted+ and 1X 3' planted+ fixtures. CO2 injected and fert loaded.

I appreciate the little tips. Even the whole spacing tip is very important, thanks. I have a tendency to plant stems close together.

No problem, the thing that drove me nuts about it is all the roots it shoots off so it might be a good idea to kind of plant something that stays lower (or you yourself trim it) to hide all the ugly root shoots.

I can't remember off the top of my head but I messed around with my dosing a bit and noticed it will change different hues of red with different amounts iron and nitrogen levels as well. I tend to dose a lot more iron than most people but then again I can pull some pretty crazy colors out of plants that normally don't color up with reds and what not.

An example is my Blyxa japonica, I some how pull almost a brick red out of my center new growth and I am not sure what I am doing that causes it (if I had to guess I would assume it was all the iron I use in my tank). No this isn't B. albertii either which tends to get red in high light and gets a lot taller. I thought this was just something I pulled off with my old farm tank and or it was the strain I had of it but I sold off all of my original stuff and hadn't had it for over a year and I picked some up from Cory's a couple months ago and am getting the same result in a completely different setup with totally different substrate (I'm using ADA Aquasoil this time vs the inert Safe-T-Sorb in my previous setup).


I'll have to get a better picture but you can see in this picture there is a color filter built into my camera and excludes any other color than the ones it is filtering, it looks a bit greener than the rest of the plants high lighted in the picture but I think it is because the red in it comes out somewhat like Tiger Val and still has some green in it still. It's in the bottom far left corner in the picture.

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The point I am trying to make with all this is to play around a little with your fertilizers and see what works best for you and your tank. If you keep a note of what you have changed you learn what element is affecting different growth patterns and what works and doesn't work. This may not apply if you're using something straight out of a bottle such as Seachem products (which I do use for my micros/trace elements currently) unless you're using the individual bottles of macros then you can really test out and see what each element is doing for your plants.

Nice Jubs. For ferts I use many of the Aquavitro liquids including nitrogen and iron supplements. Micros, pot ash, and clay (iron) in a fine powder form I mix with hot water and inject straight into the substrate with a big O syringe near the roots of many of the plants.

That color filter is pretty cool.


I did order up some Alternanthera reineckii. Both the large form and mini ver. The large ver came in today. Look at that RED! I did notice all the roots you where talking about. In both tanks this plant will have a medium sized plant in front of it. So this fits in like you suggested with something in front.


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Looking good! If you get it extra happy you can get even more red out of them. Good luck with them and let me know when you have some of the mini available I may still be needing some.

Jubs wrote:Looking good! If you get it extra happy you can get even more red out of them. Good luck with them and let me know when you have some of the mini available I may still be needing some.

You got it.

Me too. Cant wait for those to be at plant it forward.

SiRWesDragon wrote:Me too. Cant wait for those to be at plant it forward.

  


I can't wait to do a before and after photo on my 140. Ive changed it quite a bit. Reluctantly I pulled the large Tiger Lotus but it went to a good home in Hanks tank @ Aquarium Coop

Like Jubs mentioned above the A.R. developes massive roots along the lower stem area. Also the lower leaves want to darken up, turn black some algaes develop on the lower leaves. This maybe because the way I am growing it but also seems to be common.  This plant is very easy to pull up, clip the bottom of the plant and re-roots quickly so it's easy to manage and keep nice.

This is an older picture. Since this was taken the plant has reached water surface. I've pulled the plant, clipped it, and was able to get a few new starts and share some big stems with members. I've used mid ground plants to hide the lower stem and all the stem roots. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The mini ver. grows like the regular ver. Meaning; lower leaves want to turn dark, algae has a tendency to develop as well. As I was moving this plant and clipping off the lower portion of the plant I got many new stems. I am trying to figure out how my fellow A.R. mini growers are getting these plants bushy. But I may be at a disadvantage in lighting with tank depth to get a nice low bush out of this plant. It still looks pretty good.
This picture is taken right after I clipped and re-planted propagated stems. There is a couple stems of regular A.R. in the back.  These will be moved later.
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I think they look pretty darn good...plant envy   

I've got a small bunch of the mini variant that I picked up at...petsmart! Every so often they get the little gel packs of emersed plants and they had one A. Reineckii in stock. Picked it up and it's been doing wonderfully! The undersides of the leaves were a bright pink, and due to the low iron in my ferts the tops have faded to a brick red. I keep meaning to start dosing iron and such.

im really jealous of that tank, it looks AMAZING. esp your crinkle crypts . mine havent developed nearly that amount of crinkle but man is it neat looking. also bronze for some reason your witty signature never loads for me

Anthraxx wrote:im really jealous of that tank, it looks AMAZING. esp your crinkle crypts . mine havent developed nearly that amount of crinkle but man is it neat looking. also bronze for some reason your witty signature never loads for me

Thank you!

Crinkle crypts ,lol!

We may have different species. These where sold to me as Crypt 'flamingo'. If the conditions are right it's supposed to turn a pinkish hue. However, being 2' deep I have a hard time getting a bunch of light to the substrate.

bronzefighter wrote:I've got a small bunch of the mini variant that I picked up at...petsmart! Every so often they get the little gel packs of emersed plants and they had one A. Reineckii in stock. Picked it up and it's been doing wonderfully! The undersides of the leaves were a bright pink, and due to the low iron in my ferts the tops have faded to a brick red. I keep meaning to start dosing iron and such.

A.R. mini at Petsmart?!?!?! WOW!!!

cichlid-gal wrote:I think they look pretty darn good...plant envy   

  - thank you Donna.

I think many of these plants like the heat boost. Water jumped from an average of 78 deg F to 81 Deg and I swear growth rate has increased....

fishNAbowl wrote:

bronzefighter wrote:I've got a small bunch of the mini variant that I picked up at...petsmart! Every so often they get the little gel packs of emersed plants and they had one A. Reineckii in stock. Picked it up and it's been doing wonderfully! The undersides of the leaves were a bright pink, and due to the low iron in my ferts the tops have faded to a brick red. I keep meaning to start dosing iron and such.

A.R. mini at Petsmart?!?!?! WOW!!!

I know right!? I've seen harder to find, though not necessarily rare plants for sale there. Off the top of my head: S. Repens, Dwarf Baby Tears, P. Helferi, Dwarf Hairgrass, Pygmy Chain swords... though these ones tend to be few and far between.

fishNAbowl wrote:But I may be at a disadvantage in lighting with tank depth to get a nice low bush out of this plant. It still looks pretty good.

With as many lights as you're running, i wouldn't think it would be the lighting that's the issue, but what do i know? It just seems that you have a crazy amount of light in there already, I don't know that adding more would do anything but waste it. Of course I have never run CO2, so I guess with that going you can pretty much pull off as much light as you want... up to the point where you start to suffocate your critters

Both versions look really good, though. Extremely nice deep red, I like it

Thank you LuminousAphid.

With enough light and supplements you can get these plants a deep deep red. There is a bunch of light but this tank is 2 feet deep. Many planted enthusiasts tanks rarely exceed 18 inches deep. With that CO2 concentrations are hard to maintain due to the sump. So many ground plants start off real slow and pulling reds out of a forground plants is still challenging. However, the current system is much better than before. Running T5HO and small halides the only thing I could grow on the substrate was ferns and they grew super slow. Also, stem plants had to start in another tank and get them as tall as I could before transplanting into the 140. I don't have to do that anymore.