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Managing my nymphaea?

wijnands

Member
Joined
28 Oct 2013
Messages
65
Late last year I bought a Nymphaea which was sold as "red tiger lotus". Initially it did nothing except lose the 2 leafs it had probably because I planted it too deep or in a part that was too dark. I sort of forget about it until in April I found the rhyzome and moved it to another part of the tank.

After that it exploded into growth! Problem I have now is that it's got a lot of very big leafs in the middle of the water. This picture taken on the 13th gives an impression and since then it has gotten even bigger.

10252542163_0e78f4b79c_z.jpg
DSC_0741 by j_wijnands, on Flickr

If I prune the leafs can I expect the new ones to stay smaller? Is there a way to encourage it to grow all the way to the surface?
 
I remove the leaves on ours regular. I have found sharp scissors and cut as near to the gravel as you can get without ruining the scissors is ok. I don't remove more that half of the leaves at a time:)
 
Hard to say but mine has been in two tanks now and in both has reached the surface. Neither tank had the floating cover and lighting wasn't mega watts. How much light do you have?
 
It's a Juwel Rio 125 with stock lights so Twin T5 28 watts (yeah, those weird sizes Juwel uses)
 
Cool:) just looked back through my photos and it appears to have taken on different hights shapes over mths too . Taking a few leaves off won't hurt. :)
 
Hmmmm........ not to argue, but your "tiger lotus" looks exactly like it's supposed to: Nice, well-developed, red leaves in mid-water. why do you want it smaller, if I may ask ??
And why would you want it to go to the surface, now that it stays nice and relatively low?? When it gets to do surface-leaves it'll overshade anything else in your tank, blocking the light.
..........but to answer your question: The best and fastest way to make your "tiger lotus" go to the surface, doing surface leaves, would be NOT to trim leaves off. They'll grow bigger and taller for each leaf, soon doing surfaceleaves.
Mick.
 
Hmmmmmmm.:DYou are supposed to remove the OLDER surface leaves at the base of the bulb (taken from from dennerle aquarium plant book.) once it's blocking light snip snip
 
Exactly :) ........... this is when you DON'T want the plant to grow bigger and bigger.
Mick.
 
Indeedally doodely:)
 
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