Red Tiger Lotus not, err, red?

[motifone]

Last month, I received some Tiger Lotus bulbs (sold as red tiger lotus) from an online vendor. Both bulbs are starting to put forth leaves, supplied with Flourish tabs, but the leaves look green and not red.

Does it take a while for the red to pronounce itself or am I most likely the victim of the dreaded "swapped for another similar plant in stock" practice.


Plant is still nice, I'm not bitter (although red would be cool), just wondering what I might have.

[Anthony]

The same thing happened to me. I have seen pics of Red Tigers for sale that weren't red at all. They were dark green and brown looking. I just bought a lotus from a lfs that is completely pink!

[Urkevitz]

It is a little misleading to call the plant a red tiger lotus, but apparently this species come in another color which is a lime green.... So these lotuses are red compared to the green ones.

[shalu]

Does it look like mine here:

Not blood red, but still quite red.

The color depends on nutrient/light levels. Gets redder in good light. Pink color is due to nutrient deficiency, I have seen that in my tank.

[motifone]

My leaves are only a week old, but the are green for sure at the moment. Not nearly red like your pic!

I got mine from aquariumplants.com Again, not slamming them, but maybe they were out of stock on the "red tiger lotus" and sent me green ones -- after all, I only ordered 1 and they sent me 2 bulbs, probably to make up for it.

I ordered this:

http://www.aquariumplants.com/cgi-bin/cart/cw723.html

But mine is looking more like this at the moment:

http://www.aquariumplants.com/cgi-bin/cart/ww722.html

Still, a nice plant.

[TeeItUp]

Originally Posted by motifone

I got mine from aquariumplants.com Again, not slamming them, but maybe they were out of stock on the "red tiger lotus" and sent me green ones -- after all, I only ordered 1 and they sent me 2 bulbs, probably to make up for it.

I think that is their modus operandi because your story is exactly like mine including sending me “more” green bulbs.

[Buck]

If your leaves are coming out green then they will stay green, Red Lotus bulbs will start out red/maroon/brown at the very first sight of a leaf but get better color with age and good nutrients. You can help them color up.
At the defense of the seller they have no way of knowing unless the bulbs are started by them first but then they are very sensitive to ship. Thats why normally you get 8-10 bare bulbs and usually get a mix of greens/reds in the end and you decide which to keep.
Its a 50/50 shot on their part to send a bare bulb and call it a "red one" unless they are from a red mother plant of their own in a tank. The greens IMO are a great looking plant too.

[shalu]

btw, I also got the red one in pic from aquariumplants.com

[Robert H]

If you bought them as bulbs only, with no growth, its really impossible to know if they are red or green until they grow leaves. If they were red, they would be red from the first tiny little leaf, however there are green leaves with red spots and the spots may develop later.

[bastalker]

I got a lotus from Marcel a couple of months ago, an the leaves were all red. Although the plant is growing great, an has trippled the amount of leaves it once had, the leaves are looking more green than red. I have not had a stem reach the surfcace yet. It just stays low an multiplies rather quickly!!

There is a hint of red in the leaves, but they are looking more green than red right now. I dose the correct micros, an macros, maybe its the low light I have in the tank. I dunno.

[Anthony]

Hey, do you guys seperate your lotus' from the bulbs?

[Opiesilver]

I buy about 300,000 of these bulbs every 2 weeks. Our suppliers try their best to just harvest red ones but even they get them confused sometimes. We try to have about 100 sprouted for our own use all the time but it seems we ship them faster than we grow them. I would estimate that 80% of all the tiger lotus bulbs on the market pass through our warehouse at one point or another.

Sometime this fall we plan on building on to our warehouse and adding another 10 to 15 nymphaea species to sell to the general public. I've already got over 160 more species of true aquatic plants lined up to add to our offerings in the next couple months.

[Opiesilver]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Hey, do you guys separate your lotus' from the bulbs?

I just pop them off the bulb with my fingers right at the base where it comes out of the bulb.

[motifone]

Couple questions:

So, if I detach the plant from the bulb, does the plant still put forth new leaves?

Does the detached bulb, when placed elsewhere, produce another plant?

Lastly, is there anyway to train a Lotus plant to stop putting leaves to the surface. Both my Lotus plants have a few leaves that have stopped mid-tank height (since adding more light), but generally the new leaves are shooting to the surface as lilly pads.

thanks
steve