# Potted plant sunstrate



## Dan Crawford (9 Jul 2007)

Hi guys, after some advice i have decided to pot one of my tiger lillies in a small clear plastic pot.

I was just wondering what you guys would suggest as a potting substrate?

Any thoughts would be great   

Cheers

Dan


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull (9 Jul 2007)

BigDanne said:
			
		

> Hi guys, after some advice i have decided to pot one of my tiger lillies in a small clear plastic pot.
> 
> I was just wondering what you guys would suggest as a potting substrate?
> 
> ...



I would use sand. The more you feed it the larger and more dinner plate like its leaves will grow. Its happy to get what it needs from the water column.


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## dwalstad (15 Jul 2007)

Plants, especially greedy root feeders like Tiger Lillies, will do much better if you use some type of soil in the pot.  It is true that aquatic plants can get many of their nutrients from the water.   However, the substrate can be a much more concentrated source of nutrients, especially iron and phosphates.

I use either garden soil or garden soil layered with a thin layer of potting soil.  I wouldn't mix the two.

I'd start out with a small pot.  A too heavy dose of soil can cause problems (anaerobic, metal toxicity, etc) if the plant is small and weak or the lighting is poor, etc, etc.  

Potting plants in soil doesn't always work, but if you get the right combination, you'll see what a Tiger Lilly can do when its "on steroids".


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull (15 Jul 2007)

dwalstad said:
			
		

> Plants, especially greedy root feeders like Tiger Lillies, will do much better if you use some type of soil in the pot.  It is true that aquatic plants can get many of their nutrients from the water.   However, the substrate can be a much more concentrated source of nutrients, especially iron and phosphates.



I agree.. but the idea here was to slow the plant down, and make the leaves smaller to fit a smaller tank, this is best accomplished by restricting root growth and leaving it in a lean substrate.


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## Ed Seeley (15 Jul 2007)

dwalstad said:
			
		

> Plants, especially greedy root feeders like Tiger Lillies, will do much better if you use some type of soil in the pot.  It is true that aquatic plants can get many of their nutrients from the water.   However, the substrate can be a much more concentrated source of nutrients, especially iron and phosphates.
> 
> I use either garden soil or garden soil layered with a thin layer of potting soil.  I wouldn't mix the two.
> 
> ...



Welcome along Diana.  It'll be really good to have someone with all your knowledge of natural planted tanks here as most of us are way more technical in our approaches!

I've always had rubbish results with little pots with soil in.  I've tried it for various Lilies and crypts and they have never done well.  Is there a particular soil mix that works or was I just unlucky?


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## Graeme Edwards (17 Jul 2007)

Yes greate to have you registerd Diana.

If its a case of having a lily to fit the aquascape, simply cut off the leavs as they grow, or when the get to big, sounds like hard work trying to restric a lily, almost saying you wany a Bosai lilly. Crazy, just prune so fit the scape, IMO.

 
Graeme.


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull (17 Jul 2007)

Graeme Edwards said:
			
		

> Yes greate to have you registerd Diana.
> 
> If its a case of having a lily to fit the aquascape, simply cut off the leavs as they grow, or when the get to big, sounds like hard work trying to restric a lily, almost saying you wany a Bosai lilly. Crazy, just prune so fit the scape, IMO.
> 
> ...



if you dont restrict the root system, the leaves will just appear massive, size of a dinner plate.. in my experience the only way to make the leaves smaller is to prune the roots and restrict their growth in the first place, this causes the plant to produce much more manageble leaves, which is what dans problems was in the first place.


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## Dan Crawford (17 Jul 2007)

sorry guys, never told you all that my issue was that my tiger lilly has had pups and i wanted to plant one in my nano but i never wanted the leaves to be as big as they are in my other tank. I new that pruning the roots would keep the leaf size down and i wanted an easy way to control this without uprooting everything else in the tank hence the pot idea. Thanks for all of your help.


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