Go Big or Go Home

**KevinVA** · 07-12-2013, 01:17 AM

Score! That's 3 for 3! lol

Awesome news all around, Judi. I'm very happy everything is going well for you! Very, very happy the RRFs are doing well. =]

Btw, Watersprite is technically a floating plant. The roots it sends out are actually anchors, not substrate feeders, like traditional roots. That's why the daughter roots are always thrown into the water column and not in the substrate. They'll survive either way. Not sure if they're already doing it, but oftentimes they'll pull away from the substrate (either because they're disturbed by fish or by current - I guess they probably won't in your refugium, since it should be pretty settle in there). If they do, you'll notice them shoot a ton of roots in every direction toward the substrate and they'll just float mid-tank. Pretty interesting plants, but they're a pain in the butt in a show tank.

**Triton** · 07-12-2013, 11:43 AM

me and water sprite don't get along, I can handle hornwort lol.

I eventually wanna get some RRF to go with my chili rasbora and RCS tank - have a red theme lol

**Sandz** · 07-12-2013, 01:44 PM

Maybe some red tiger lotus?

**KevinVA** · 07-12-2013, 02:04 PM

Agreed with that one. Or a Dwarf Lilly:

That's before it got crazy and started shooting lilly pads across the tank. The stems get wrapped up in a cord/rope-like fashion and actually looks really cool, but if you don't want the pads to surface, just keep them trimmed. They look great submerged.

Here's my baby Tiger Lotus:

It's quite a bit larger now, but not as red as I'd hoped it would be. It's possible all of the RRFs were blocking too much light for it to gain the deeper reds.

Both look nice in the tank and would definitely add some color. If you do keep the Lilly (which grows faster), and you want to keep RRFs, it'd be best to keep the Lilly submerged, since the RRFs and pads will run into each other and look like a cluster...

That's my experience, anyway. Things get bunched up, stuck in some places, etc. - especially if you have circulation going on in there.

**KevinVA** · 07-12-2013, 02:11 PM

Here's another one of the Dwarf Lilly, which shows how fast the stems can shoot up to the surface:

Same species of plant on the right, in a different tank, to show you what happens with the stems/pads, if you don't trim them and allow them to cover the surface:

Sorry for all the images, Judi!