Wandering Jew - Pink Replacement for Pothos!

[Chris]

Hey guys,

I've been growing Wandering Jew (Tradescantia zebrina) as an emersed plant in some of my tanks for around a month now, and have had good success. It's a house plant that you can get at most department stores, but it'll do well in an emersed situation as well.

In lower light, it'll be Anubias Nana green, and in higher light, it becomes almost bright purple/pink. It'll grow well in any lighting, though, IME, and it seems that fertilizer plays a bigger role in growth rate than lighting does. It's grown bright pink in my dwarf puffer tank - it's situated right underneath the light. But, that tank runs low on ferts most of the time, so I've only gotten 8-10 new leaves over the past month. In my 20 gallon, it's gone from 3-4 leaves to nearly 20, despite being dark green and not receiving much light.

I've also found the plant to be relatively salt-tolerant, as it survived (and grew) during a salt treatment in the 20 gallon - I did 1 tbsp of salt per 2 gallons of water.

Just thought I'd share, since I'm not sure if I'd seen this in an aquarium setting before!

[patricia]

great idea just might try it