Red plants generally indicate its a plant with high demands and is difficult to grow, generally recommended for those with good experience of growing plants. Thats a good general rule of thumb with red plants, however the crypt is a good choice as an easier option.
The wonderful thing about stemplants, is that you can work with them. If you don't like their height, simply cut them to the height you want... Observe All the ways I've manipulated A. reineckii to suit my scaping needs. Some scapes had high light & CO2, others low-light & no CO2...
As a background. Eh, not the best, but it can grow tall.
Here it is in my 36g, an older scape that had CO2. Nestled in the wood. I started trimming it then so it would be more compact.
Then I setup my 2007-08 8g Dutch. I really started to manipulate A. reineckii. I would cut and select to keep the smaller stems only, so I actually got the leaves to stay smaller and the growth to be more compact.
It finally got to a size where I could use it as a foreground plant...
Finally, guess the size of this tank? It grew for some months that way, until I really just got tired of stemplants. Too much pruning...
I guess my point is that you don't have to be limited by what the literature says about how tall a plant gets, etc... With a good pair of shears, you can do what you want with one, especially stems. The plants in the above scape came from a bunch of A. reineckii that I brought from IL in 2006. It was in my first planted tank...
