Dan the Moose
01-06-2005, 9:24 PM
ok, here is the thing, i have just put in a Red Lotus plant, last night, the leaves were floating, this morning, it looked like it wilted a bit, and now it looks like it is bent over, is this a bad thing, or should i expect this from a new plant of this sort?? its planted in 1 inch of black sand, with 1 inc of medium gravel underneath, its in a tank thats been rinning for 3 weeks, and has 3 neon tetras, 4 jellybean tetras, and a female guppy, aside from that i have a Red ambulua and some fake plants alond with a dead rock. any help, and suggestions as to what would look good in this, or compliment the fish.
I'm not the most experience with lotus, but a temparature or pH shock could cause it to stammer for a while. It should recover if...IF you have plenty of light and you do something about your substrate.
Lotuses (loti?) need a good bit of gravel to work with. Two total inches, in the long run, won't cut it for a lotus (provided we're talking about what's usually called a lotus--- a big round leafed plant and NOT a lil banana "lotus")
I'd recommend 3-4 inches, and I'd use something like Flourite or Onyx sand. Both have good iron quantities, and lotus uses tons of iron.
Your other choice is to plant the lotus in a pot filled with a 50/50 mix of sand and laterite, but you'll need at big pot (a 6 inch diameter pot is a good start!)
HTH!