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(not yet) flowering lotus...
James wrote:
>Gitte is asking about how she can encourage her lotus to bloom. Is the tank
>situated where some sunlight can fall on it? I had a dwarf waterlily in a
>tank placed in a west facing window a few years ago and once it started to
>bloom it did so daily (a new flower every day) for months. Nothing quite
>like the sight of a fresh waterlilly blossom on a snowy February morning.
>The ONLY light that this tank received was sunlight.
Sounds nice (how did you keep the algae away?). My tank doesn't get any
direct sun, although (in addition to the fluorescents), it gets some
daylight from two sides, because it's situated in a wall, and open to both
sides. Perhaps this will be enough.
>I think that if you want blooms, you are going to have to allow at least
>some of the floating leaves to remain and I would also start inserting
>fertilizer spikes or tabs close to the rootstock on a regular basis - these
>sorts of plants are heavy feeders, especially when they are producing
>flowers. Putting so much emphasis on one plant might cause it to overwhelm
>the others in the tank (especially if too many floating leaves shade the
>others out.
Good idea. I have all 3 kinds of Jobes, and perhaps in this case, rather
than using the usually-recommended palm & fern spikes, should I try a piece
of the ones for flowering (house) plants? Maybe for this, the higher 3rd
number is justified?? I can push it far enough into the substrate, so that
the fertilizer doesn't get into the water column.
I am curious, though, as to why the floating leaves are necessary for
flowers? The sketch I have shows that the flower grows up from the roots.
Thanks.
Gitte