I recently put some Rotala rotundifolia ‘Blood Red’ into the Fireplace Aquarium and it came in more of a burnt ochre shade of dusky reddish orange than ‘blood red’ as such. I looked around for the (potentially mythic) ‘Singapore’ (SG) variant of the Rotala which is claimed to be more red under a broader set of conditions. The SG variant was pretty hard to source but RareAquaPlants on Ebay had some listed, so I picked it up. A big advantage of smaller Ebay vendors vs. most commercial sources is that aquatic plants from commercial houses tend to be brought in direct from big professional nursery growers like Tropica or Dennerle. These growers almost without exception supply plants grown emersed (“ebb and flow” hydroponics) rather than submersed, so these plants require a period of adaptation to transition to their new underwater environment. Ebay vendors are more likely to be selling extra trimmings grown submersed in an aquarium, so already fully adapted to the underwater environment. These stems arrived in great condition and there were even some bonus red stems thrown in for free – I thought these might be Ludwigia palustris ‘mini Super Red’ (which the vendor subsequently confirmed).
as received
Rotala ‘blood red SG’ and mystery bonus stems
individual stems