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Shameless brag...sorry.

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I am now accepting hate mail. LOL!

There were about 40 plants total that I removed. Pretty typical for this tank. I have to thin the herd every other week or so, otherwise I would have ONLY lotus growing in it. Most of the plants, as you can see, are of good size. I only had about 5 or 6 that I desided not to sell (besides my super producers that I always hang onto).

I won't mention my Rotala macrandra. Then I'd REALLY get hate mail!

Can't see anything

Love to see it, I've got a monster Tiger Lotus myself.

I take it the Macrandra is doing well. You doing anything special.Mine was only doing so-so. Growing ok but not as full as it could be.Blood red but puny looking.Strangely enough upping No3 a little seems to have helped a bit, seeing as Rotalas generally don't like high Nitrates, but it's definately perked up.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Wow,

That’s a lot of little baby plants you got there. And you sold them all (almost)? To the LFS?

Towards the Rotala Macrandra, Bensaf - I found this very interesting post regarding this plant, it seems to contradict your experience as it states:

My general impression is that macrandra benefits from relatively higher nutrient levels, excluding nitrates.

Did you up anything else besides NO3 at the same time?

Ingo

Last edited by LITTLE_FISH at 15-Aug-2005 11:07

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I'm not sure why the link isn't working for you. Bummer, maybe try it again later?

I should have put a ruler in for size reference. The plant in the upper left corner is about 10 inches tall. I did sell alot of them, but not all. I keep my most mature plants and the teeny tiny ones.

As far as the macrandra goes it's all about finding the balance it likes as far as nutrients and lighting goes. I have a ton of light (at 10k and 64k). My substrate is iron rich and I never gravel vac (gasp! ) so it is full of organic matter that the plants throughly enjoy. My nitrates are only 10 ppm (if I want to raise them more it's a royal pain in the patootie). I also have measurable phosphate. I also add carbon. I do 50% water changes once a week to makes sure the other plants are not using their allelochemicals to kill the macrandra (had this happen before, I couldn't figure out why the stuff stopped growing and started falling apart...*glares at lotus*). All the plants seem to benefit from the fresh water (and the fish love it too).

Each tank is unique and acts differently. I'm sorry I don't have a formula that would tell you exactly what you need to do. Macrandra is demanding in the best of times. All I can say is experiment until you find what it's lacking. Make sure it has enough light and trace nutrients. There's always the possiblity that you many be missing something like calcium or iron, something that's not as obvious as nitrate.

Well managed to see the photo on a different computer

That's a lot of Lotus (try saying that 3 times fast !)
Good job, you earned the bragging rights
They take a while to get going, but once they get going there's no stopping them. I've got one that's about 20 inches tall now, it's only thrown out 2 new plants though, no where near as prolific as yours. I've had to move it right to the back and keep it very shaded. Even that's just slowed it down a little.

With regard to the Rotala, well it seems we have an almost identical maintenance routine. Lot's of nutrients, Co2 ,big weekly water change and what's a gravel vac ?

How about a pic of the Macrarandra ? I'd love to see it.
Ingo,
Thanks for the link. Rotalas generally don't like high nitrates, which is why it surpised me when mine perked up. I don't think it's so much that I increased the NO3 as just got it back to normal.
I was on vacation in the 'oul sod for almost 3 weeks. During that time there was no ferts at all put in the tank. When I got back EVERYTHING was reading zero
PO4, K and Micro's were easy enough to get back up, NO3 was a bugger. I'd keep piling in the KNO3 (at least I thought I was piling it in) but it would be back down in a couple of days(very hungry plants). It's only in the last few days I seem to have got enough in as the plants have only returned to heavy normal pearling recently. The Mac re-started pearling for the first time yeterday

As I say it was growing, but small incredibly dark red leaves. With the red so deep I'm sure it was getting enough P and FE. I see yesterday theres a lot of new sideshoots forming so it may be back on track. At the moment it's TOO deep a red, I actually prefer it when it has a bit of Orange mixed in , very pretty

It's not really that difficult a plant to grow per se, but being a bit fussy it can be a challenge to grow well AND keep all the other plants happy.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Nice job !
I wanted to get one but I heard they grow huge !
How big do they get before they start throwing off plantlets ?

The Amazon Nut...

I've found that size has little to do with the lotus reproducing. I've noticed that with the right conditions (nutrients, light, etc) any of the mature lotus will start sending out runners with plantlets (or make a bulb that I can remove and plant elsewhere).

Many of these plants were unusually tall for my tank, simply because I waited a week or so longer than usual to thin them. They started competing with each other for light. There were so many that the leaves were just stacking on top of each other. Normally, when things are not so crowded, I have plants that are about 6-8 inches in height with about 10-15 leaves, short and compact. I normally have a lotus carpet. But having the face of the sun shining down on a tank will do that

So yes the lotus can get huge, but I've found with intense lighting I can keep it short and compact.