candymancan
Aquarium Advice FINatic
It isnt a red tiger lotus, i forgot the exact ype it is but it is some form of red lotus.
Anyway its HUGE in my 92g tank.. started off as a bulb that i had that struggled to grow anything bigger then 3-4 leaf's maybe 1/4 of an inch in size.. Now i have countless leaf's bigger then the palm of my hand submerged that have grown so high they block light for the lower leaves im guessing because they want more light.
And on top of that i have like 17 almost hand sized lilly pads above the water as well.. One its a good thing because they block light and helped me finally get rid of the green spot algae i had on my S.repens and telenthara cardinalis.
But there are so many of them now, it makes my tank feel dark.. Some spots directly below the submerged leafes and lillies are super dark and i wonder if thats affecting the S.repens and my other plants. Im afraid to cut it though. I used to have a gianormous red tiger lotus and i trimmed it per peoples recomendations and it never recovered it just started melting leaves... Then growing them back, then melting and eventually died..
So my experience is lotus plants are very sensative to being trimmed. I also think maybe with so many lilly pads itll help keep my water clean longer, because i know lotus's have a measurable effect on nitrates from experience.
Anyway, what do you guys think ? Leave it alone ? Maybe add more lights ? I have 4 65w Power compact lights available to this tank, but only use 2 "because i had green spot algae when using all 4" but now im thinking i should put the other 2 back on.. I dunno
sorry for the long post lol
Here are pics starting from its early stages to the last 2 pics of where its grown now. You can see the before an after picture, see how dark the tank is now on the bottom and specially on the right hand side of the tank and also on the stump driftwood with my water sprite.. In fact the watersprite isnt looking too good not sure if its because of the lack of light though. Granted the plant is beautiful in my opinion, but im afraid to cut away the large leaves i dont want to hurt it. I guess another reason im afraid to trim it, is i want to to flower and im hoping i can get more bulbs from it for my other tanks what do you think ?
Anyway its HUGE in my 92g tank.. started off as a bulb that i had that struggled to grow anything bigger then 3-4 leaf's maybe 1/4 of an inch in size.. Now i have countless leaf's bigger then the palm of my hand submerged that have grown so high they block light for the lower leaves im guessing because they want more light.
And on top of that i have like 17 almost hand sized lilly pads above the water as well.. One its a good thing because they block light and helped me finally get rid of the green spot algae i had on my S.repens and telenthara cardinalis.
But there are so many of them now, it makes my tank feel dark.. Some spots directly below the submerged leafes and lillies are super dark and i wonder if thats affecting the S.repens and my other plants. Im afraid to cut it though. I used to have a gianormous red tiger lotus and i trimmed it per peoples recomendations and it never recovered it just started melting leaves... Then growing them back, then melting and eventually died..
So my experience is lotus plants are very sensative to being trimmed. I also think maybe with so many lilly pads itll help keep my water clean longer, because i know lotus's have a measurable effect on nitrates from experience.
Anyway, what do you guys think ? Leave it alone ? Maybe add more lights ? I have 4 65w Power compact lights available to this tank, but only use 2 "because i had green spot algae when using all 4" but now im thinking i should put the other 2 back on.. I dunno
sorry for the long post lol
Here are pics starting from its early stages to the last 2 pics of where its grown now. You can see the before an after picture, see how dark the tank is now on the bottom and specially on the right hand side of the tank and also on the stump driftwood with my water sprite.. In fact the watersprite isnt looking too good not sure if its because of the lack of light though. Granted the plant is beautiful in my opinion, but im afraid to cut away the large leaves i dont want to hurt it. I guess another reason im afraid to trim it, is i want to to flower and im hoping i can get more bulbs from it for my other tanks what do you think ?
