Chironex

Ok, I will go there to grow them. Thanks!

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Scot

island cassie

Not sure I would go to those lengths! But they do seem to like black and stinky !!

john_ny

Just what I don't want in the house!

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John

bepah

John,

Thought I'd bump this thread.

I did my annual water garden cleaning yesterday. I do it every year as it is part of a filtration system for my Koi pond. Each year, the garde nis fresh and clean with replanted lotus and a few other water plants.

Each year I hope that the job will not be as bad as the first. Each year, I am disappointed, as the stench (not smell, stench) can be at time overpowering.

The lotus do not seem to mind the change, despite their affinity for the muck that seems to develop over the period of a year. I think you might be able to grow a dwarf variety inside, a normal sized lotus will be 6-7 feet tall

The flowers are worth the effort in my opinion.

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John Case
Rookie Gardener, Veteran Drinker

john_ny

John,

Thanks for the info. I don't know whether I have a dwarf or standard. I bought it at the end of the Tropical Plant Industry Exposition trade show, when a lot of the exhibitors sell stuff off cheap.
There is a tag on it that says, "Mrs. Perry D. Slocum". I Googled that, and got some pictures. It seems to be a pretty enough flower, but I didn't notice any information, as to size.
I was mainly concerned that the water would get stagnant, and smell. I do remember, however, something from years ago, when I had a tropical fish import business. I had a greenhouse, with concrete benches, that I had converted to fish pools. We also sold aquarium plants, many of which we got, weekly, from a grower in Florida. Some weeks, we would have a few left over, that we just threw out.
One time, I had about 300 Corkscrew Valisneria left, that I decided I'd try to keep. In a 5 X10 foot pool, I placed a 6 cu. foot bale of peat moss, a 40 lb. bag of dehydrated cow manure, and covered that with 300 lbs. of aquarium gravel. We had a little algae bloom at first but, once the plants got growing and depriving the algae of the nutrients, things cleared up pretty well. I threw in 3 pairs of Blue Gouramis to help keep things clean and, within months, I didn't have to buy any more Corkscrew plants and, after a few more months, I was able to pull out a couple of thousand 1 inch Blue Gouramis. Now that pool never got stinky. We had aeration on it. I don't remember if we had a filter or not.
I was thinking that maybe I could drop an air stone in the tub with the lotus, to help keep the water sweet. Of course, in about a month and a half, I could move it outside. (And if things got too bad, before then, I'd just dump the whole thing in the woods, and sacrifice the tuber.)

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John

bepah

It might work. I turn off the flow to the water garden once water temps get below 50 and it sits without aeration for abour 4 months, which adds to stagnation, I'll bet. In my case, there are no fish in the water garden, although I have frogs in it during the spring. My fish do quite well eating the eggs and small tadpoles that go over the edge.

In the situation you state, sacrifice of the tuber is not necessary, as you can wrap it in newspaper over the dormant season, keep it over 40, but not warm, and put it back in the water in the spring. It should survive well. This year I 'harvested' about 10 feet of tuber. Some of it was nearly an inch in diameter.

Good luck with your project.

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John Case
Rookie Gardener, Veteran Drinker

Tog Tan

Hey guys,

From my observation, the stinky, stenchy part of Lotus growing comes basically from the old leaves which drops into the water and rot and also the older roots which dies out. These two things seems to be the main natural fertilizer for the plant. Over here, there are wetland areas with tens of acres of lotus and they are mucky and stinky caused by what I have noted.

When John_ny did his Val and gouramy set up with a big area, it became a mini eco system which became self generating. The Cockscrew Vals are very vigorous growers here and have a string root system but the volume of dead materials cannot be compared to the size of a lotus colony.

I had a 30 x 10 x 3 ft elevated pond which I kept lotus and water lilies. At the beginning all was well, but after a year, the bottom became like a thick layer of silt from the rotting leaves and the old 'shedded' dead roots. Even though it was in full sun, the water was clear due to the shade provided by the plant's foliage. I guess it's the nature of the beast.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.