Tiger Lotus Bulb - My Experience (Pictures!)

[ZoeyFish]

Hello!

You may have seen the Tiger Lotus bulb in the Aquarium Coop store and wondered what that could look like in your tank.  I wanted to take a minute to show some images of how my plant has done so you can see if this is something you'd like in your tank.  This post is solely for the purpose of showing what the plant can look like and is not going to get into how to properly grow it, ideal tank for it, nutrients, etc. as I'm sure you can find that elsewhere and I'm in no way an expert.  

Here is the link to purchase the item: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/tiger-lotus-bulb-only?variant=29485958627397

I bought my bulb back in January 2020 but the growth you will see isn't from that entire time. My tank was new, I battled some BBA (and you will see some still lingering in the photos, I'm renewing my effort to eradicate it!).  The lily always grew but it would stay small as the old growth always died and the new growth would replace it. Now it's grown like crazy. 

 

Photo 1
This photo shows the tiger lotus when it was small and just starting to grow.  It's very compact and adds some nice color and texture to the aquarium.

Photo 2
This photo is part of the tiger lotus today but this portion of it is a good example of what I'd consider the middle stages of the plant. Although it starts compact it grew to about half the height of my tank and created a nice dome look.  Again, this specific photo doesn't do the middle stage justice but this just shows the height.  

 

Photo 3
Once your tiger lotus really starts to get going it decides it wants to go to the surface of your tank.  The new lilies it creates go straight for the surface and keep their lily small and curled as they go up your water column until they reach the surface and then they start growing.  As you can see in this picture, it seems like almost all new lilies go for the surface.

Photo 4
Here is another photo showing the lilies up at the surface of my tank.

Photo 5
This is a close up look of Photo 2 showing that, once established, the lotus starts to spread and continuously sends out new lilies.

Photo 6
This picture shows the top of the tank. 

 

Closing Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed seeing how this plant grows and what it could look like in your aquarium.  It's been lots of fun watching this plant grow.  I just let my plant grow however it wanted to and never cut back or trimmed it until this month.  These photos show the raw version of the plant but keep in mind that once it gets to this stage those lilies will block out light for the bottom of the tank.  For some people that may be perfect but for me I needed to thin them out a bit but I still think it's very cool that and will continue to have lilies at the top.

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Beautiful plant!! How big across are those lily pads? I'm guessing these are best in larger tanks!

[Patrick_G]

It’s one of my favorites. I lucked into two very nice red specimens at Aquarium Coop earlier this spring and a red/green one more recently. 

[ZoeyFish]

On 10/11/2021 at 12:15 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

How big across are those lily pads?

One of the lilies on the surface is 5" long and 4" wide.  There are definitely bigger ones in the tank but those are submerged!

@Patrick_G those look very good!  I like how you have two different colors.