Echinodorus 'Ozelot Red Diamond' Care Guide
Echinodorus 'Ozelot Red Diamond' is a hybrid sword combining the spotted Ozelot trait with deep red Red Diamond colour, valued as a colourful specimen rosette.
Compiled by Aquairi from published sources · Published · Updated
Overview
Echinodorus 'Ozelot Red Diamond' is a cultivated hybrid sword plant in the family Alismataceae. It belongs to the spotted Ozelot group of swords, in which young narrowly elliptic leaves are brownish-red and marked with dark red spots, the spots being darkest on the youngest leaves. Like the parent forms it is grown as a colourful specimen rosette, with new growth showing the strongest red tone.
Taxonomy
- Family: Alismataceae
- Genus: Echinodorus
- Scientific name: Echinodorus 'Ozelot Red Diamond' (cultivar)
- Origin: hybrid cultivar (not a wild species)
Origin
The plant is a horticultural hybrid rather than a wild species, bred within the Echinodorus 'Ozelot' lineage of cultivated swords. The Ozelot group itself was raised by Hans Barth in Germany in the early 1990s; the Red Diamond line carries deep ruby-red colouration. As a cultivar it has no natural distribution.
Tank requirements
- Temperature: 22-28 °C (72-82 °F)
- pH: 6.0-7.5
- GH: 4-14 °dGH
- Lighting: medium; stronger light intensifies red colour
- CO2: not required, but enhances growth and colour
- Growth rate: medium
- Maximum height: about 45 cm
- Placement: midground to background specimen
Planting and care
Ozelot-type swords are undemanding regarding water parameters but need good, nutrient-rich substrate to thrive; root tabs help in inert gravel. Moderate light keeps the plant producing new leaves, and unusually for spotted swords the Ozelot retains its spotting even under low light. Stronger light and added nutrients deepen the red colour. CO2 is not required but encourages growth.
Propagation
Propagation is vegetative, through adventitious plantlets borne on flower stalks (proliferating inflorescences) and by rhizome division. Once the plantlets develop their own roots and a few leaves they are separated and replanted into the substrate.
Propagating Echinodorus 'Ozelot Red Diamond'
Overview
'Ozelot Red Diamond' is a colourful Echinodorus cultivar, a rosulate (rosette) sword whose red-brown leaves carry distinctive elliptical dark spots; the spots are darkest on the youngest leaves. Like the parent 'Ozelot' line, it is an undemanding rosette plant and is not propagated by cuttings.
Multiplication follows the Echinodorus genus habit: daughter plants form on the flowering stem, and an old crown can be split. New growth shows the strongest red colour, so propagation is also a way to keep vivid young leaves.
Propagation Method: Adventitious Plantlets and Division
Across Echinodorus, "propagation is by division or by adventitious new plants developing on submerged flowering stems," and a submersed inflorescence forms small plantlets instead of flowers. That gives two reliable routes for this cultivar.
- Adventitious plantlets on a submerged flower stalk — the main, easiest method.
- Crown / rhizome division of an old multi-crowned mother plant.
Step-by-Step
- Encourage a mature rosette to send up a flower stalk and keep the stalk submersed so it produces plantlets.
- Allow each plantlet to grow several leaves and short roots while still attached to the stalk.
- Detach the rooted plantlet and plant it in nutrient-rich substrate, covering only the roots and leaving the crown above the gravel.
- For division, lift the mother, locate separate crowns, and cut the rhizome so every piece keeps both roots and leaves.
- Replant divisions with a root tab and let them settle for a few weeks; expect deeper red on the fresh young leaves.
Conditions for Healthy Growth
Echinodorus grow best with good light in a deep, nutrient-rich substrate. 'Ozelot' tolerates low light and low CO2 and even retains its spots at low light intensity, but this is a high root-nutrient plant: feed the root zone with tabs. Target medium light, 22-28 degrees C and pH 6.0-7.5; brighter light deepens the red.
Maintenance
Trim faded outer leaves at the base, replenish root tabs to sustain colour and growth, and remove the spent flower stalk once plantlets are harvested. Keep the crown above the substrate.
Common Challenges
- Weak red colour — increase light a little and keep the root zone well fed with tabs.
- No plantlets — the inflorescence grew emersed; keep it submersed to trigger adventitious plants.
- Melting outer leaves — normal emersed-to-submersed transition; trim them and let new submersed leaves form.