Wisteria, bent???

[Quake2player]

I have a few stalks of Wisteria in the back of my 29gal, 65W Coralife, no CO2, fluorite tank and I just noticed they've been literally bending almost at a 90 degree angle! Looks very odd... the leaves are nice and seem busy and I think this "bending" has been going on for a few weeks. I've had the wisteria for over a month. The bending is towards the front of the tank, where the sunlight shines on it in the middle of the day..... wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Is this normal behavior?

The rest of my plants seem ok... Amazon swords growing, banana plant shooting monster lillies.

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Growing towards the sun. Which coralife bulb do you have? Many are half actinic which does nothing for plants. Your options for the wisteria are a) do nothing, b) relocate the plant, c) relocate the aquarium, d) pot the wisteria so you can turn it. Go with d.

 

[Quake2player]

I am pretty sure it's not an actinic bulb. I guess the "growing towards sun" seems right as only the plants at the front of the tank have algae... just a few leaves on an anubias and maybe a couple on the sword. But odd thing is, I have Vals in the front and they don't seem to attract algae.

Does this behavior of my wisteria tell me that my 65W coralife is not doing it's job?

 

[AquaJoe]

Does this behavior of my wisteria tell me that my 65W coralife is not doing it's job?

Yes and no. Plants have a natural tendency to grow towards "hot spots"; areas which have higher light concentration then others. If I were you I'd either cover up the window as that will likely help keep the algae under control and the plant will then grow directly towards your canopy. Plan b is get a more intense light over the aquarium, it would have to be a hell of a light to compete with the sun though.

As Apocalypse_Gold pointed out, you could rotate the plant so that even though it IS growing towards the "hot spot" there will be no physically noticable difference. The problem is you would have to rotate the plant, if not everyday, many times a week.

HTH

Joe