How to keep stem plants straight.

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calfishguy

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I have some ludwigia repens in a planted 29 and now that they are taller they are near my ac 30 outflow and they always get pushed around and grow crooked. How do I keep them straight. Lowering the flow does not help.
 
Some people use filter baffles to help redirect the flow of the filter - I do that on my 29's filters. I cut a plastic cup in half, and tape it in front of the filter output so the flow is redirected. It doesn't exactly look awesome, but it works.
 
Some people use filter baffles to help redirect the flow of the filter - I do that on my 29's filters. I cut a plastic cup in half, and tape it in front of the filter output so the flow is redirected. It doesn't exactly look awesome, but it works.

Okay I just tried that a minute ago and it's better. But even if I unplug my filter the plants are on an angle and aren't straight. IMO it looks bad.
 
They could have just grown that way, if the filter has been curving them for long. There's not TOO much you can do about that, however if you have several stems you could move the curved ones to the back and move some straighter ones forward, so you don't see the curved ones much.
 
I find that stem plants curve and bend depending on the light source. Usually lower intensity lighting will make stems grow long and straight because the plant is trying to reach for the light. High intensity light usually gets more bushy compact growth. Spectrum might play a role too. I noticed some major bending in my rotala when i switched spectrums in my lighting.
 
Brian is right that light intensity plays the biggest role in stem plant growth. Rotala Indica is one of the worst stem plants for growing horizontally when in high light. In my high light 220g it grew horizontally making it look like a carpeting plant. Some plants are a lot more prone to this type of light/growth behavior than others. If you feel flow is the problem try either moving the filter or the stems and see if it helps.
 
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