Re: [AGA Member] Red Pigment-K spectrum experiment

["Dennis Sheridan" <dilvish@pacbell.net>]

I hate it when I can't find a reference, and with the comments here
now I doubt my memory of what I thought I read..

Anyway, the best way for me to explain my experience with the
lobelia is this:  When I got it, my plant looked exactly like the
plant pictured on p. 110 of the Aquarium Plant handbook from
Oriental Aquarium. (However this picture and my plant does not look
like the lobelia pictured at Tropica -
http://www.aqua-plants.com/plantspages/lobelia-cardinalis.html )

When I bought mine the lower leaves were a deeper, almost olive
colored green, with the top leaves almost the color of burgundy.
Definitely purpleish wine color.  The edges of the leaves at the
upper middle of the plant also had this winish color.  Within a week
of placing it in the tank under direct light (a 2x65 watt
powercompact with 10k bulbs) the entire plant was a bright green
with no traces of the original bugundy color. It now looks exactly
like the lobelia pictured on p. 346 of Kasselmann's Aquarium Plants.

Then I read somewhere that intense light can 'bleach', for lack of a
better term, the color from some plants leaving them with only their
green pigment. So I took a stem from the high light tank and put it
in a tank with only 45 watts of flors and within a week or so I did
get some of the original color back on the edges of the top leaves.
But after a couple weeks it didn't look like it was forming any new
leaves so I took it out and returned it to the high light tank.  Oh
yes, the plants are about 14" from the light source in each tank.

I have another stem plant which is also supposed to have reddish
pigment (as it did when I bought it) and it responded the same way
to the same test.  So that's why I was thinking of dropping down in
wattage.  As long as that won't the color of my other plants which
are nicely red.  I really liked the lobelia when it looked like
Oriental Aquarium's picture.  I don't care much for it looking like
it does in Kasselmans..

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