red wendtii

Ron,

Welcome to APC!

In my experience, all wendtii require more or less the same amount of light. They will change their leaf color and shape with changes in light. They can tolerate a wide variety of light conditions.

Red wendtii

Red wendtii is tolerant of low light like the other wendtiis, but its coloring gets rather pale. To see it in its best coloring, you should have around 3 watts per gallon. The leaves become heavily bullate (wrinkled) and dark as dark chocolate with deep red undersides.

I have one in a 20 gallon tank with 120 watts of light. Yeah, some of you guys may think I'm insane, but my plants thrive and I only has one minor algae attack. The leaves are turning green on me but they are growing really well. Hope that helps.

Got a question on this plant. Does anyone here have any personal experience with how big(small) they will be. They will be in a tank with a little over 2 wpg. In a 46 gallon bowfront, would they end up as background plants?

size of red wendtii

My experience has been that it does not get that large for a wendtii. Four or five inches, and in good light, the leaves tend to be shorter than that. I would say it is good for a dark colored midground plant that contrasts nicely with light green plants.

Cool, I was thinking of using it around my pieces of driftwood. Would it contrast enough there? Or would it be too dark for that?

Thanks!

In my experience, Cryptocoryne wendtii 'red' is perhaps the largest of the wendtii varieties. It can easily reach a height of 12 inches in a couple months. I have seen pictures of this plant reaching all the way to the top of a 21-24" deep aquarium.

Cryptocoryne wendtii v bronze ('Tropica') is a much smaller, more manageable crypt. Undulata and petchii also could work nicely.

Carlos

I have to second what Tsunami had stated. The wendtii 'Red' I know gets HUGE in a large tank. However, I'm told they will stay small in a smaller tank. Whether or not this is true, I'm still trying to test it out. But then again, I'm not really sure what a wendtii is anymore :? .

Okay, i'll have to test it out myself. What is C. wendtii green? Some websites also list a rose or brown wendtii. Are these different variants or a different tag for the same plant?