Spectrum For White Plants?

[HockeyFan69]

Hello, first time posting. I am an amateur aquascaper and a few months ago, I acquired some glossostigma elatinoides platinum. Normally, glossostigma grows super quickly like a weed and I’ve never had an issue with it. I am growing the platinum (white variant) emersed from a tissue culture in organic potting soil fertilized with worm castings, high humidity, and am getting extremely slow growth.

I’ve heard that white plants require a different light spectrum to photosynthesize. Does anyone know what type of lights I should be using? I’ve been trying different lights around 6500-8000K and have gotten virtually no growth for a few months.

 

[Tim Harrison]

Hello and welcome. I'm guessing you've got little to no growth since white plants will probably have very little in the way of chlorophyll. Neither will they have much in the way of accessory pigments. Therefore, different coloured bulbs are unlikely to make any difference...not that it'd be particularly helpful to the growth of green plants either. Full spectrum bulbs usually deliver enough light of different wavelengths in the photosynthetically active spectrum to grow healthy plants.