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hexagonal lotus tank

S

Sorgan

Seedling
Joined
2 Aug 2011
Messages
12
ok guys this is my hexagon Nymphaea zenkeri tank, its a work that is very much in progress
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ATM it has an off shoot of a Nymphaea from my main tank (bulb, root and 3 leaves or so), this i hope to trim up to encourage bottom growth.
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as you can see its still very much a baby.
i also have some crypts and this thing that i havent the foggiest what it is
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its been underwater for about a month and isnt dead so i am thinking thats a good sign :)

i hope to plant the back up with some more crypts and have some Sagittaria subulata dotted around in the fore area.

fish stocking will be mossy rasaboras i think with someamano shrimp or maybe cherries later
 
hey Sorgan, that last plant is actually a semi/non aquatic plant and would be best if removed. They don't tend to last to long submerged. It looks like a species of Pilea cadierei.

good luck with the planting!
 
Lol just my luck! Will it be on in a pot as I like it :)
 
ianho (as i know you know your stuff, no offence other guys) what could i use as like a substrate covering plant? i can fert and CO2 if needed
 
you could use what you like as long as you're getting enough flow, down at substrate level, and i imagine that's quite hard in a hex tank??

maybe some riccia?
 
Ok I will do that! Hopefully I will get more plants this weekend
 
Hi all,
The non-aquatic is Syngonium. You don't need CO2 for the Water lilies, as soon as they form pads they have access to aerial CO2. If you want them to flower you need to keep as many floating pads as possible, which will shade the lower areas of the tank.

cheers Darrel
 
Ok a Lilly guru :) you do not understand the can of worms you have opened :)

I am under the impression that I should be pruning leaves to encourage growth, Is this right? Also you say that I need lots of pads to shade the bottom, if shading is done by other means (other plants perhaps) would this aid in flowering or is there like a leaf number that is optimum? Will the Lilly require ferts or will a normally stocked tank provide it with enough bits?

Cheers
 
Hi all,
I am under the impression that I should be pruning leaves to encourage growth, Is this right?
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No, if you prune the leaves off as they approach the water surface, you are encouraging the plant to produce new leaves all the time, there is a cost to this, which is the plant has to be able to assimilate enough nutrients (and particularly carbon) to replace the biomass it is continually losing. In my experience, in a low tech, nutrient poor tank it won't be able to do this continually and it will effectively be using the stored resources in the "bulb". When the bulb is exhausted the plant will die.

The situation is reversed when the leaves are allowed to spread across the surface, they now have access to atmospheric CO2 (about 350 ppm) and a large leaf expanse at right angles to the light source to receive as much PAR as possible (leaf orientation aims to maximise PAR interception in nearly all plants, where water is not a limiting factor for plant growth). Growth may be nutrient limited, but the plant can certainly sustain itself over several years if it is allowed to have some floating leaves. I choose 3 pads as that was about the amount of surface that I wanted covered, left to its own devices the Lily would eventually cover the entire water surface even under my nutrient poor conditions.

If I was to up both light and nutrients and use a much larger tank I could grow a much more impressive water lily that would flower more frequently and abundantly.

cheers Darrel
 
So if I just leave it alone and feed it then I will have to be trimming it back for want of space?
Do they flower often?
Sadly this is a small tank and was only really set up to see if I could have some surface flowering plants growing, we shall see lol.
Thanks fir your help.
 
Tbh this was an azoox tank before and flow wasn't really an issue (I had a pretty well covered 40x going) the shape kind of funnels the flow into a vortex (well it did at 40x anyway lol)
Getting some more plants later today hopefully.
 
i have just planted ALOT of cryptocoryne wendtii, some staurogyne and added half a dozen micro rasabora
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the tanks still cloudy as i churned the soil up a bit pulling up the non aquatic plant that was in there.
 
so the tank is still going well, it now has its full qouta of a dozen micro rasabora
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i really like the way its growing out and am looking foward to seeing how it changes.
 
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