first time i ordered a nelumbo

[planthelper]

i'm not a big internet shopper, but i ordered myselfe a nelumbo (lotus) plant online.

i'm stoked about it, but i have never grown nelumbo before, so maybe we can discuss nelumbo and nymphaea cultivation a bit.
i've grown nymphaea in large containers before, but i had removed the plants in question, from a creek bed and the plants carried an enormous ammount of "soil and natural gunk" with them, which obviously kept them happy and well nurtured.

the website recommands containers at least 1.5m wide, and to use good garden soil as a medium.
i might go down the local creek and check out the local blue lilly population, and take some of that gunk from around there roots home with me, so i can start already a good lilly pond soup, whilst i wait for my beauty to arrive.

Edited February 15, 2013 by planthelper
added tags

[shortly]

Be careful of using straight garden soil as it can quickly become anoxic.

Mix it 1 part soil with 2 parts river sand & gravel with a coupla inches of sand on top to keep the soil out of the water column.

And the inclusion of either Limnodrilus sp or tubificid worms seem to make an enormous difference.

[tripsis]

And the inclusion of either Limnodrilus sp or tubificid worms seem to make an enormous difference.

Where do you find those? Reckon they'd be good for water chestnuts too?

MQU uses 200L polypropylene tubs for their lotuses.

[Amazonian]

Tubafex worms are usually associated with sewerage. You can find them in drains , dams and can sometimes get them from trout farms after they have drained one of their ponds.

[shortly]

You can get live Tubies etc from aquarium shops without having to traipse through mud & shite, although fossicking around drains & bogs your likely to turn up all manner of interesting goodies.

My theory is the worms make more nutrient available to the plants roots & possibly better gas exchange within the media, i have no definitive proof but when you dig around, the worms seem to congregate around the roots of the plants rather than just digging aimlessly though the media.

[Amazonian]

All i can get here in Melbourne are Black worms, which still can do the same job. I prefer the Tubafex as they tend to clump ,whereas the black worm scatter. Gone are the days where you could go to an aquarium and buy a liter of Tubafex worms for $20. Now , a teaspoon of black worms will set you back around $8. You can buy in bulk, but if they are not handled well in transit (get too hot) then most will die.

@ planthelper, that is a pretty spectacular looking flower. I wont even bother asking if the plant would grow in Melbourne.

[planthelper]

i have since childhood a deep faszination for small aquatic creatures, and different climats have different critters.

daphnia, brine shrimp, macrobrachiums,glass shrimps, and all the larvaes and worms are one of my most favorite things after plants...

i have a few buckets of water with an organic and life layer of mud at the bottom, and use them, to produce "green water". i prefer watering my plants with green water, but i don't know if it realy makes any difference. but i think, that green water, breeds less mozzies than clear (or any other) water.

and we all sometimes breed mozzies, by storing water, so i try to have that water always green.

once you have a bucket full of green water (which happens naturaly) you can use this water to turn new water green fast...

some people in europe make a good income by seeling off there tubifex worms, which naturaly occure on ther properties.

thanks for the tip, with not using too much garden soil, my feeling was to use natural lake and creek mud instead. i think once an good enviroment has been created, one than can add fertilizers, and the whole thing will not go septic or crash.

i'm sure lotus would grow in mel, your season would be shorter that's all, but i don't know yet there temperature hardieness, but i guess they are frost tender and would not like very cold water.

[Amazonian]

i have since childhood a deep faszination for small aquatic creatures, and different climats have different critters.

daphnia, brine shrimp, macrobrachiums,glass shrimps, and all the larvaes and worms are one of my most favorite things after plants...

. i think once an good enviroment has been created, one than can add fertilizers, and the whole thing will not go septic or crash.

 

You must be my long lost twin.

I added fertilizer tablets to my lilies and was finding dead frogs around the pond for a few days, so i emptied out 1/2 of the water and took out the fertilizer tabs. I was told that it does not harm fish.. hmm, what about frogs. I wont be doing that again.

[tripsis]

Might go up to the local aquarium shop and see what they have.

[shortly]

The best way of adding fertilizer for lotus & Nymphea etc for that matter that i have found is to make a golf or tennis ball sized lump of the stickiest clay you can find & hollow it out with a thumb or other suitable implement.

Fill your hollow ball with what ever your favorite fertilizer happens to be and then work the clay over the opening making sure its worked together & not just a lid if you know what i mean.

Once made sit in the sun for several days until baked hard, this can then be pushed into the substrate under the plants without disturbing everything & with minimal risk of polluting the water column with excess nutrient.

They are extremely hungry so you will want 6 or so tennis ball sized fertilizer balls per M2 of lotus pond bottom as they kick into action in spring.

[tripsis]

That's a pretty genious idea. How long does it take for the ball to break down and release all the nutrients, or do the roots have to make their way into the ball itself?

[planthelper]

I added fertilizer tablets to my lilies and was finding dead frogs around the pond for a few days, so i emptied out 1/2 of the water and took out the fertilizer tabs. I was told that it does not harm fish.. hmm, what about frogs. I wont be doing that again.

 

i don't know what fertilizer tablets you mean, are they normal ones for plant use, or designed for water gardens?

small fish, collected from your local waterway, and placed into your water storage will avoid any mozzie problems, and the bottom sediment of any aquatic setup is top fertilizer.

inow i have to try to source, an apropiately sized container (second hand feed troth?? any ideas?).

[Amazonian]

I was sold inch size tablets designed for lilies. Might have just been a coincidence= adding fertilizer=dead frogs. Or maybe, there were too many for the volume of water.

Bathtubs are useful but some aquatic plants need depth. An old spa bath would be great .

[planthelper]

update!

i recieved the lotus yesterday, and was a bit dissapointed, as she has only one small green leaf, another yellow leaf, and a dead leaf, the rhizome looks ok though. i guess the plant was undernourished, or went ito dormacy.

i dug a hole in the ground at my sunniest spot amd inserted a 20l bucket.

at the bottom of the bucket i did put sediment from my local creek.

the sediment i collected from the creek, did not go septic in my trial out periodes, but when i tried the same with garden soil, the water did start fouling after a short while.

anyway, as you told me, i will try to keep the nutes up to this plant!

a friend told me about a guy selling lotus (and seeds) at a carboot sale, maybe i can get some more, for less money than what i did spend, hehehe.

nice link to a site explaining how to germ lotus seeds!

http://www.victoria-adventure.org/lotus/growing_from_seed.html

now, i have to catch some small fishy to combat the mozzie larvae....

[Marcel]

That's a great link, planthelper. Keep us up to date on your plant's development.

Any of you lotus growers know how one of these would fare in a half wine barrel (approx. 70cm wide, 50cm deep)? Too small and shallow?

[shortly]

Given the time of year your lotus will be going into dormancy. I wouldn't expect to see any new growth till sept/oct if your north of rockvegas or a month later in SEQ.

Cant comment on any further south.

Oh and the fert balls don't so much break down, more like soften up so plant roots can find their way in but the clay tends to hold the nutrient in place as long as it remains undisturbed by gardeners, yabbies or catfish.

[planthelper]

marcel, i would give any container size a go, as one could always repot into a bigger container in given time, or you could divide the rhizomes, and make the plant smaller again.

ther are some miniture forms around, maybe they would be a better choice for smaller set up's.

they used to grow in my local creek, but when the council placed a sewage container close to the creek bed, the ground work must have killed all of them.

i have been told they grow in the fitzroy river, which is not to far from my base.

i like it, if suddenly a new thing or plant, excites me and the thirst for knowledge and experience with the same, overcomes me.

[random]

Planthelper, did you get local any fish yet for your container?

I've heard rainbow fish are suitable for ponds/containers and can also tolerate low temperatures

They are also carniverous so would eat any mosquito larvae.

You can often get them at aquarium shops.

I'd love to see a thread where people with water plants such as these post pics of their set up!

[Amazonian]

Rainbow fish are a good native choice and being omnivorous ( sorry meeka ) eat algae as well as the mozzie larvae. Galaxias are a fav' of mine, but there are many to choose from. planthelper, with your gardening skills, i am sure that your new plant will thrive. I agree with meeka, pictures tell a thousand words.

[planthelper]

lotus arrived, hurray!

lotus has grown a bit in my bucket.

[random]

How lovely

Thanks 4 sharing pics Planthelper, how are the fish going too?

[planthelper]

How lovely

Thanks 4 sharing pics Planthelper, how are the fish going too?

 

it's been raining too much to catch small fish, as the creeks are in flood, i did put a spangled perch into a newer setup (no pic's yet) which is much larger, but the fish did not survive.

my local magpie love's the water feature though and uses it as a bird bath, so the feature even attracts birds!

[dworx]

Great work PH, I just got some seed from sola but they dont look like the seed shown in that link but hopefully my dam will be full of lotus in the future.I wonder??

Edited April 30, 2011 by dworx

[WoodDragon]

I hope that folk here don't think that I'm being a wowser, but I'd discourage any harvesting of fish or even of aquatic insects from streams or creeks.

The chytrid fungus that is decimating many frog species has a free stage in the water column, and it is easily caught up in water and soil samples, and even in wet boots, buckets and nets. Once it gets into a flowing water catchment it ends up spreading up and down the length of the stream/creek, and it sits there waiting for a suitable host, or for somthing to transport it to where there is a suitable host.

Isolated dams and ponds can just as easily harbour the fungus, but because they are isolated they are not quite as great a link in the chain for the spread of chytrid. Over time though even a lot of these water bodies end up infected, and the number of clean ones diminishes.

People might argue that if the fungus spreads so much, why bother trying to contain it? Well, slowing the spread gives vulnerable species more time to adapt to the fungus, and it potentially keeps the fungus out of certain unique habitats that might otherwise have a naturally low risk of contamination.

As a boy I lived in swamps and streams, blissfully unaware that the fungus had been introduced to Australia (personally, I suspect either through contaminated aquarium fish released to the wild, or through released axlotls). Sadly, these days even a kid probably needs to be taught the same sort of decontamination procedures that bushwalkers and 4WDers need to observe in order to minimise the spread of the phytothphora that is causing the loss of so many plant species in the bush.

As others have pointed out, the worms and fish that people are interested in are easily found in shops, and they're clean. They're also convenient, and they have the added benefit of not having the risk of spreading weed seeds and other nasties that might infect humans.

And most of the soil ecology that might be of interest to folk here can be found in any garden pond that has matured - nature works itself out in pretty quick time. Just take a walk and knock on a door to see if a local resident is happy to share a sample. The more local the better, because the risk of transport of novel organisms decreases with distance. If you're prepared to wait a few weeks it's not difficult to set it all up yourself - the algae, bacteria, and protozoans are free from the sky, and the adult forms of the larvae that live in aquatic soil will fly in soon enough. As long as gross parameters such as temperature, light, and water quality are taken care of, the lotus will tick along well enough without the extras, and certainly for the small amount of time that it takes for them to find their own ways to a new pond.

If anyone has their heart set on doing a David Attenborough, at least learn the disinfection procedures for equipment, for water samples, and for any fish caught. Decontaminating insects and mulm is very difficult, and probably not feasible for anyone who is not professionally set up.

On the matter of lotus, there are many US sites that detail how to care for nelumbo over winter - google will find some quickly enough. One thing that is probably useful to point out is that the bigger (and especially - deeper) the water container, the less temperature fluctuation there is around the roots. Nelumbo nucifera will even grow in deep dams where I live, and I'm further south than most in Australia!

[Amazonian]

As i am into frogs, i have had experience with chytrid' fungus( Chytridiomycosis) ( i pronounce as KitRid fungus). The fungus attacks the parts of a frog's skin that have keratin in them. Since frogs use their skin in respiration, this makes it difficult for the frog to breathe. The fungus also damages the nervous system, affecting the frog's behaviour .The end result is death.

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/FrogChytridFungus.htm

^ ^ Not trying to derail the thread but it is worth mentioning.