Help ID this plant!?

[Justing17]

Can anyone tell me what type of plant this is?? It's about 6 inches in height and the petals are green on top and red on bottom.

 

[JasonC]

Alternanthera reineckii, I think. Pretty plant though! Been eyeballing it for some of my tanks, but think it needs more light than I tend to want to add to my tanks.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Alternanthera reineckii would be my guess as well. The easiest way to grow it is just to let the tops become emersed.

cheers Darrel

 

[JasonC]

The easiest way to grow it is just to let the tops become emersed.

Now there is a good idea... may have to give that a try!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Now there is a good idea... may have to give that a try!

Sorry it is such a poor photo, but this is an "escapee" Hygrophila corymbosa.

cheers Darrel

 

[animalmgc]

Alternanthera reineckii needs about 2wpg

 

[uberape]

my girlfriend has this plant in a small tank with a 20 watt energy saver bulb and it grows like crazy (with root tabs). I still don't understand the watt per gallon rule: surely it's how much water is between the light and the plant leaves; if there is any such gallon per watt rule. I think i could have a thousand gallon tank, at only 8 inches high and grow plants in the locale of a 20 watt bulb, which would make it 0.02 watts per gallon. I have a 29 gallon (that is 18 inches high) with 90 watts fluorescent and can't grow any plant leaves near the bottom (except anubias). I think the rule is really misleading.

 

[JasonC]

The Watts-per-gallon "rule" should be looked at as no more than a very rough guideline to get in the ballpark with. As far as I understand it, WPG tends to assume light spread evenly across the tank. Figuring out whether you are low, medium, or high light depends on so many variables like tank depth, type of light fixture used, coverage, etc. Even the definitions of low, medium, and high are rather loose and on a sliding scale. Not to advertise another forum, but check out plantedtank.net. In their lighting section they have a number of stickies devoted to demystifying some of this stuff... including how to calculate your lighting based on PAR, rather than WPG.