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Nymphaea Lotus not growing

Polly

Polly

Member
Joined
23 May 2009
Messages
183
I bought this plant last year along with Nessea and Rotala Rotundifolia, which are both growing fine, however, the Nymphaea leaves melted away and it really hasn't done anything since. I thought I had lost the plant for the longest time, but now there are tiny shoots on it. Still no roots though.

Other plants are cryptocorynes, hygrophila polysperma rosanervig, java fern.

How do I encourage this to grow? At the moment it's sitting on the top of the substrate as it got buried over time.

Low tech tank with AE liquid carbon and EI dosing with macros and micros (the tap water is practically RO).


TIA
 
Adding liquid carbon to a tank automatically makes it a high tech tank. Do all the things that are required of a high tech tank, not for a low tech tank. That means water changes and higher levels of nutrition.

Cheers,
 
OK I should have said low lighting, not super high tech. I don't do CO2.

I dose the tank daily with James' 'all in one' ferts liquid, in addition to the liquid carbon. First thing in the morning, it's easier to remember if I add the ferts daily. I chose this because our water report showed very low (negligible) levels of anything - calcium is non existent. Mountain moorland reservoir water - perfect for Discus apparently :)

Lighting is 36watts t8 one 18w grolux and one 18w phillips 965 both with reflectors

There seems to be plenty of water circulation, and all plants are waving gently in the water. Other plants doing fine, growth is steady, yet this plant is just unhappy. It's positioned just off centre in the middle ground to make the most of the light. The plants were all Tropica and in lovely condition when bought from MA.

If it was summer I'd try putting the plant in a jar of fresh water with ferts and leaving it in a bright place to see if it made a difference, but it's so cold right now...
 
Are you adding any magnesium sulphate aka Epsom salts mate? with low light and dosing ec and ei you should be ok fertiliser wise but you don't mention mag sulf in your daily regime. I am in a similar situation to you with very soft water, no measurable kh or the and TDS of low 30's. My plants looked flat and unhealthy until I added mag, it's recommend to add between 5-10 ppm at every water change.
 
There's Mag Sulph in the recipe for the ferts - it's the one on James' Planted Tank 'TPN' No 3 (All in One) Not sure if it needs more, but I have to be so careful with this tank, any slip-ups and I get BGA. Have kept Planted Aquariums since 1982 and never saw it before 2000 ! My own fault for following the testing route and keeping ferts low. I thought PFK knew what they were writing about, sadly not :(

Back in the 1980s I had undergravel filters run by an air pump, pea gravel, no CO addition, one growlux tube T10/T8 to a 3ft tank, monthly water changes - two whole buckets! sun streaming into the room (and the tank) and was growing Cabomba like a weed, amongst other things. I can't keep it more than a week or two now before it falls apart.

Sorry, ranting there (deep breath, deep breath)

Not sure how much I'd need to add of Mag Sulph to bring it up to 5-10 ppm ???
 
The technology status of a tank has nothing to do with lights and has everything to do with the fact that CO2 is being enriched. If you are adding AE liquid carbon then this is the same as enriching CO2.

Magnesium deficiency does not cause melting. Melting is attributable to poor CO2 -- unless that particular plant reacts poorly to liquid carbon, in which case the melting is a toxic reaction to liquid carbon.

Cabomba is not N. lotus and this tank is not that tank, so really, you ought not to compare because there are different dynamics occurring in each tank.

Assuming N. lotus does not have toxic reactions to increased liquid carbon concentration, the solution to the problem is simply to add more liquid carbon.

Cheers,
 
That's cleared that up then :) I'm not familiar with Jame's all in one. I would still check as some recipes for E.I often leave out the Magnesium and with water as soft as ours it won't do any harm to have some in. My plants greened up a lot better when I started adding mine but obviously check it's not already in your all in one. No point wasting money :)
Regarding the Nymph I can pretty much confirm that it doesn't have a toxic reaction to liquid carbon. I have had this species in my tank for a few years and dosed liquid carbon so I think you're are safe here. The only time I have had dissolving Nymph was when I moved it to another tank but it grew back great after a couple of month. It even appeared about 8" from the original plant. This plant will do a bit of manoeuvring about under the gravel and seems to take off where ever it feels right in the tank.

I would check in the plants section of the board on the species as I'm not over familiar with it just bought it on a whim. I'm sure I have came across something in a book about resting nymphs (although I could be wrong) If it's the right plant I'm thinking of they have a die back period where the bulb loses it's leaves and uses the time to build up a store of nutrients ready for another growing period. The book showed the bulb being put in damp soil and kept in the dark for a while. Perhaps your plant is going through this period and your tank is fine.
I was told you need to rest bulb plants. What does this term actually mean?
The purists say to rest the plants because where these grow in the wild, water heights are seasonal. During the dry season the bulbs are out of the water, the leaves die and they await the rainy season to grow again.
This can rarely be achieved in an aquarium. With water always present your plants will grow all year round. However, this means you need to really feed the plants as they will soon run out and deplete the stores of nutrition in the bulb, dying off.
To rest the bulb, remove from the tank and trim off any leaves. Put it in a polythene bag of damp sand and leave somewhere dry and cool to rest for around six months of the year.
If we supply the plant to you it is in the growing season. This is why many bulb plants become unavailable through the year.
Click to expand...

Taken courtesy from This PFK Link maybe mine just haven't got to that stage yet.
 
By the way if you do need magnesium just use james calculator and aim for the 5-10ppm dosed when you change water. Mag doesn't deplete like the traces so dumping it in all in one go is fine.
 
I wasn't comparing tanks, they are completely different set ups separated by about 30 years ;) It was merely an observation that just about everything I did with that tank was 'wrong', and yet plants thrived as did the fish, they bred in the tank and there were so many plants that they didn't all get eaten, many survived to adults.

Al the info on wild/lake growing nymphaea lotus is that the water is either still or slow moving, yet those tanks reported as growing it well on this forum seem to have high flow..very confusing Does Nymphaea Lotus have a high requirement for CO2 to get it to grow?
 
I have found that sometimes they just dont grow. A good aquatic plant retailer will usually send you another one if your other plants are growing OK. I had a similar problem and they were happy to send me another bulb.
 
Not sure if this helps or is applicable, but my N.Lotus has always suffered when in direct current.It's done best when furthest away from the outflow pipe
 
Now that's interesting, not sure where I can put it out of the flow, all the plants are waving gently. But it's worth experimenting with the outflow perhaps, to create an area of less flow.
 
stu_ said:
Not sure if this helps or is applicable, but my N.Lotus has always suffered when in direct current.It's done best when furthest away from the outflow pipe
Click to expand...

Thats a good point, the other thing I was going to say is that I had one that seemed reluctant and I moved it to a brighter position and that seemed to make all the difference. Im not sure if that was coincidence or not though.
 
Here is my lotus my Juwel filter box is on the right back corner just where its growing, I used the lotus to hide the ugly Juwel filter box:

pict0025mv2.jpg


pict0577xr0.jpg


pict0249hk0.jpg


pict0195wb8.jpg


With CO2 and EI it grew like crazy, I used to cut 5-6 leaves from it every week.
 
LondonDragon said:
Here is my lotus my Juwel filter box is on the right back corner just where its growing, I used the lotus to hide the ugly Juwel filter box:



pict0577xr0.jpg


With CO2 and EI it grew like crazy, I used to cut 5-6 leaves from it every week.
Click to expand...

Hey Londondragon, that tank looks awesome. I cant make out if its a 125 or 180 ? Also in the second pic down, is that Blyxa or something else toward the back between the two rainbowfish (just to the left of centre) ?
 
LondonDragon said:
Its a Rio 125 check the journal in my signature "Never Ending", and yes it is Blyxa indeed.
Click to expand...

Im staggered how big its grown. That looks great though.. such a full tank. I will go check it out later when its time to snuggle into a warm bed in this chilly weather :)
 
I've been sick for a while and my trigon 350 all the plants died over the months but the only plant that survived was the lotus it's about 12" square floating constantly turning in the current and I couldn't count how many leaves it has, no ferts no added Co2 and there were weeks without lighting, how do you explain that? I have very hard water too
 
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