L. Peruensis - Not Happy?

[dapellegrini]

When I first received this plant it looked very different than it does today. Here is a bad pic of the plant when it was new to my tank:

Over the course of about 6 weeks it slowly lost all of it's leaves while replacing them with new ones. The plant today is a dark purple color, and barely resembles the plant I purchased. Here are a few poor shots of it today:

Is it unhappy? What's up with the large change in leaf color and shape? I have pretty hard water, kH = >120ppm, gH = >200ppm. Injecting CO2, dosing EI w/ 324watts of HO T5 over 72 gallons. Tap pH is ~8.0, driven down to ~6.8 with CO2.

TIA,

Dan

 

[VaughnH]

You may have received emersed grown plants, which had to change over to submersed form. If you bought from another hobbyest that wouldn't be true, but if from a dealer, it probably is.

 

[dapellegrini]

I was wondering about that as well. I bought this guy from AquariumPlants.com. They claim that they grow ALL of their plants submersed, but the 4-leaf clover that I got from them with the same shipment was definitely grown emersed.

Hmmmmmm

 

[colonel]

It def. looked like it is emersed growth to me in the first pic.... also it looks like a pretty healthy plant to me in the last two pics Can't always believe everything everyone says ya know haha... I think thats what happened... pretty plant

 

[dapellegrini]

It would be interesting to see photos of emersed vs. submersed plants all gathered in one place. Seems like a pretty relevant topic for anyone in the FW planted hobby, considering the internet is one of the main sources of less common plants and there seems to be a good amount of emersed plant growth sold into the submerged marketplace.

Thanks for the comments VaughnH and colonel. I will mark this one down as another emersed conversion... Errrrr...