Any luck getting Aquarium Lily to flower?

[JoshStover]

Have any of y’all been able to get your aquarium lily to flower? I’d love to get this one to flower since it’s very visible in our living room. 

[Daniel]

@The Goatee recently had his dwarf lily flower:

 

[Kara C]

Flowering plants need red light to do their flower thing. I don't know about lilies but some terrestrial plants can take a year or two to mature enough to flower. I do know that if the plant has to spend all it's time making new leaves, then it won't put energy towards flowers as it's already putting all it has into new leaves and/or roots. Plants also like to take ya by surprise. Hope for the best and with proper nutrients and light one day like an anubias, poof there will be a flower 🙂

[The Goatee]

It actually produced a second flower this past week.

The plant is almost a year old. I added root tabs a few months ago and it grew like crazy, no flowers. I started dosing easy iron a couple of months ago. I don’t know if time or added nutrients or both made it go crazy.

[JoshStover]

Thanks for sharing! How long did the first flower last?

[The Goatee]

On 7/19/2021 at 4:43 PM, JoshStover said:

Thanks for sharing! How long did the first flower last?

The flower kept opening and closing itself for around a week, week and a half. It then closed permanently and started wilting.

The speed at which the lily produces new leaves, pads, and flowers is quite fascinating. When I added the new root tabs, it had previously slowed in producing lily pads and then produced ones larger than my hand almost every few days. Submerged leaves were at every level gravel to lid. I only have a 20 gallon tall, so I have to trim them because they block out light.

I don’t know if this is feeding primarily from substrate or water columns, but seems like once it truly establishes away from the original bulb you can super charge it. I wonder if the iron played any role and was the missing ingredient.