Rotala rotundifolia - Pink Baby Tear

Rotala rotundifolia

Rotala rotundifolia is a popular aquarium plant of the rotala genus and loosestrife family, which it shares with other well known aquatic plants. Its Latin name ‘Rotundifolia’ literally means ’round leaves’. Rotundifolia is commonly mistaken for Rotala indica, another popular aquatic plant. It is also known as:


Rotala Rotundifolia is a stem plant that thrives in wet, marshy, and aquatic environments and is a staple of aquaculture projects. The wild variety is found semi-immersed as a vigorous growing weed of rice paddies across southern Asia including China and Taiwan and can even be found in southern Europe. Use in aquascaping has led to it being introduced in the US, wherein in some regions, it has an invasive character.

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The plant consists of long stems with round or narrow elongated leaves which may carry a characteristic and desirable red hue. Leaves are round if grown above the waterline, otherwise, rotundifolia produces long triangular leaves with a star-shaped top. Its colour ranges typically from green to a deep pink-red.

Key Features:

• Common Name: Rotála rotundifólia
• Other Names: The dwarf rotala, Round-leaf tooth cup, Pink sprites
• Scientific Name: Rotála rotundifólia
• Difficulty:  Easy to Medium
• Lighting: Medium to High
• Optimal pH: 6.0 – 8.0
• Optimal GH: 2 – 12 (1 – 30)
• Optimal Temperature: 20 – 28 C (68 – 82 F)
• Substrate: Needed
• Growth Form: Stem
• Growth Rate: Moderate to fast
• Placement: in Tank
• Height: up 5 – 30+ cm (2 – 12+ inches)
  
• Fertilizers: Not needed to low
• CO2: Not needed to low
• Propagation: Head Cuttings or Runners

Propagation: 

• Cut a couple of inches off the top of the plant and replant. New shoots will sprout from the inter-nodes on the stem left behind. If the initial plant was healthy, you can cut off the majority of the plant, leaving stems a couple of inches in height and new shoots will still sprout from there.
• Even if you want a dense bush, plant stems at least half an inch apart to leave room for side-shoots. There should be enough space in the bottom layers even if you want a dense canopy at the higher levels.

Trimming:

• Rotala rotundifolia takes trimming well and will form dense bushes. It can be repeatedly trimmed for many cycles before requiring the replanting of healthier/new tops. This makes it very useful for aquascaping where the ridgeline needs to be kept at a certain height for aquascaping purposes.
• Trimming should be done initially about 4 inches below the final height that you want your Rotala rotundifolia tops to be at. (unless you have planted your Rotala rotundifolia very sparsely to start with, then trimming further down allows more branching and density to build up) As the tops grow out, cut off the ones that grow faster than the rest - this allows the shoots below to branch and the canopy to gain density as it grows upwards.
• After the canopy has been formed at the desired height, you should continually thin it by cutting off the tallest shoots and allowing new growth to take its place. This needs to be done very regularly (every 3 days or so). If the canopy rises as a whole after a long period of lack of trimming, then you have to do a reset as above; cutting the bush down much lower and growing out the tops again. As with carpets - if you want to maintain it long term, it requires very frequent trimming. Growing the tank under lean conditions also slows down plant growth as a whole and reduces pruning.