Teeny Tiny Water Lily

[Elizabeth Power]

 

Hello,

 

I am looking for input on a plant I purchased about a year ago. I was hoping you could help me. 

 

I purchased a water lily bulb from Petco. I think all that the package said was nymphaea sp.  I was expecting large leaves averaging  about 4 inches at least with long stems that would eventually grow to the surface of my 20 gallon tank.        

 

I planted the bulb. It grew immediately. But it has leaves no bigger that an inch long, with stems about the same length max. They are reddish green. The plant is covered with 25+ tiny heart shaped leaves and has produced at least three bulblets in the short time I've had it, all growing in the same manner as the parent plant. The plant has grown to be about 1.5 inches tall. It looks like a water lily, just a tiny version of one, much smaller than the dwarf water lilies I've seen. It's a great plant and I love it. It is my favorite plant in my aquarium. In general, it appears healthy other than the small growth.  At this point in time I'm expecting it to act more like a ground cover as it pops out more and more bulblets and eventually cover the ground of my tank. I have a degree in horticulture so I know that it's natural for plants to occasionally and unexpectedly pop out variants or mutants in general, but I am unfamiliar with aquarium plants, especially water lilies. 

 

Could you give me your opinion? Do I have a micro dwarf variant of a water lily or did they send me the wrong plant or have I done something wrong? 

 

Your input would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Elizabeth Power

 

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Elizabeth Power
Adding picture, editing grammar

[Elizabeth Power]

More pictures... Better pictures...

 

In the first you can see two of the bulblets in the very front.

The second is a close up of the original plant.

The third is a better top view of the original plant.

[Koi]

Looks like a dwarf lily to me.

From looking at some of your other plants it seems like you have a fairly strong light which might be why it’s not reaching for the top of your aquarium. No need to worry about that though, as the leaves begin to crowd each other, your lilies will begin to compete with each other reaching for the light.

I’m seeing some yellowing on some of the leaves which could mean there could be something missing/lacking in nutrients. Are you using any kind of fertilizers? If so which one are you using and how much are you dosing?

[lefty o]

it does appear to be a dwarf lily.

[Elizabeth Power]

 

1 hour ago, Koi said:

Looks like a dwarf lily to me.

From looking at some of your other plants it seems like you have a fairly strong light which might be why it’s not reaching for the top of your aquarium. No need to worry about that though, as the leaves begin to crowd each other, your lilies will begin to compete with each other reaching for the light.

I’m seeing some yellowing on some of the leaves which could mean there could be something missing/lacking in nutrients. Are you using any kind of fertilizers? If so which one are you using and how much are you dosing?

I just bought a dwarf water lily and planted it in the same  aquarium also. It towers over this little guy already and its only been in my aquarium a few weeks. This lily has been in here for at least 6 months. It is loaded with leaves and still has not grown taller than 1.5 inches. I'd guess it has arpund 35 plus leaves. 

Recently, I'm having nutrient issues that I have been working to resolve, but the dwarfing of this water lily began long before this problem and my other water lily has not been affected in the same way so I'm not sure that's the cause of the dwarfing.  Right now my nitrates are high (~40ppm). I'm also having inerveinal chlorosis on the new leaves and general chlorosis on new leaves (depending on which plant you are looking at). I am sick right now so the care I give to my tank is sporadic.

Since my nitrates are high I've been avoiding a general fertilizer since that will just add more nitrates and make the problem worse. I've been dosing once or twice a week with iron (whatever Flourish's bottle recommended), which has not helped much. I've researched nutrient deficiencies and am having difficulty finding one that matches (other than iron). So I started dosing with Flourish's micronutrients once a week. Also, I know a NPK imbalance can cause problems and without a general fertilizer there is no input of potassium or phosphorus to balance out the nitrates. I think this may be a partial cause for the nitrate build up since a deficiency in either potassium or phosphorus or both can affect the uptake of the nitrates.  So just this week I added some phosphorus and potassium to see if that helps. I also started adding Flourish's Excel (carbon) this week. 

I keep dwarf water lettuce which I am using also to take out some of the nitrates since I periodically remove large quantities. But these have the worst chlorosis which is worrying me. 

This week so far:

Iron - 2.5 ml of a 10,000 mg/L solution

Potassium - 3.3 ml of a 50,000g/ml solution

Phosphorus - 2.5 ml of 4500 mg/L solution

Sorry. I don't know the exact amounts. 

For the trace nutrients I attached a picture of the bottle if that is helpful. 

I also took added a photo of the whole aquarium. 

[gardenman]

The water lily family is pretty big with a wide range of plants in it. On the "Holy cow! That thing's huge!" side of the family you have the Victoria Amazonica that can have leaves up to ten feet in diameter and a 25 foot long stem. Kind of big for the average home aquarium. (Though the biggest I've ever seen had leaves about six feet in diameter. Still pretty big, but not ten feet.) On the other end of the spectrum is Nymphaea Thermarum which has leaves of under an inch. So when something is labeled "nymphaea sp." it could be just about anything. As long as it's reasonably healthy and growing, I'd just accept it for what it is. It's pretty no matter what. At some point it may decide to put out floating leaves, or it may choose not to. Plants tend to have minds of their own and do what they want. 

[Koi]

33 minutes ago, Elizabeth Power said:

Also, I know a NPK imbalance can cause problems and without a general fertilizer

Your degree in horticulture just saved me from writing a whole paragraph about that haha.

Jokes aside, I am having a little trouble in confidently pinpointing what I think the main issue is. I think foregoing the general fertilizer is a good move since your nitrates are high and I think you are right about the potassium and phosphorus being part of the issue. 

Firstly, sorry to hear you are sick hope you get better. Whenever you feel better, doing a decent size water change to reset your levels would be a good start to reduce your nitrates unless your tap already has high nitrates. But you can get to that whenever is best for you and at least for now I have some ideas to tweak your dosing just a little if you are interested.

But before I get into that, could you tell me your ph/gh/kh?

And if possible could I see pictures of any of your plants that are showing the deficiencies? I can sort of see some of the yellowing you are talking about on some of your plants (like the rightish middle behind the crypt) but I don't have a clear look. But don't worry too much if you can't get the pictures, it might not me useful but sometimes having the full picture will give us a better idea whats going on.

Your Dosing

I broke down the dosing into milliliters so don't worry about the values too much, it is more so for me to keep track of the numbers.

Phosphorus - 2.5 ml = .13 ppm

Potassium - 3.3 ml = 2 ppm

Iron - 2.5 ml = .3ppm

I would definitely want to raise both P and K. The amounts will vary if you prefer dosing everyday/every other day or if you would rather dose one day in the week but I'll try to keep it simple. I think the easiest way to start is to set a standard of what 1 dose is for phosphorous and potassium. Since I'm very lazy, I think 5ml (1 capful) would be an easy metric to use.

Phosphorus - 5 ml = .26 ppm

Potassium - 5 ml = 3 ppm

Usually I would suggest introducing fertilizers really slowly but in your case I think adding 10ml of both potassium and phosphorous to start off would be good. That dose will bring your tank to around .5 ppm P and 6ppm K. 

After the first initial dosing you can just do one dose of P and K every week. I think this is a decent routine that you can stick with for a while until you see some progress.

For iron, I think that amount is fine but it might be more iron than your tank will be able to use in one day. I think 1ml every 2-3 days serves the same purpose just do not dose this the same time you dose phosphorus.

For your traces I wouldn't worry about it too much at this point. You could definitely use a little more but at least for now stick to the recommended until you begin to see progress.

Try aim for around 1 ppm phosphorus and 10 ppm potassium and maintain it there through water changes. Don't worry about testing water or trying to figure out how much nutrients your plants use. A simpler way to to think of it is measure the amount of P and K you put in and replace what you take out it water changes and assume your plants didn't  use any of your nutrients.

If all this doesn't make any sense, basically add a capful of and P and K a week and ignore everything else I said. If you can't do as much water changes you can do half a cap of phosphorus instead. I would keep the potassium dose the same just cause extra potassium doesn't hurt and and it would be extremely hard to reach a point of buildup where it is detrimental to your tank.

These are links for potassium and phosphorus and under the directions will tell you how much a dose treats. It also has a calculator you can use to start targeting certain ppms.

https://www.seachem.com/flourish-potassium.php

https://www.seachem.com/flourish-phosphorus.php

 

My math isn't the strongest and I like using this nutrient calculator just because it is all on one page. I can help you navigate through the calculator if its confusing.

https://rotalabutterfly.com/nutrient-calculator.php

That sums up pretty much how I would go about dosing your tank. Those are rough estimates of what each dose consists of and you can choose wether what increments you want to dose at. At this point focus on the new growth of your plants and ignore all the old leaves. Once you begin to see new growth appearing and the leaves look healthy, I would start trimming away at some of your older dying leaves. One last thing I'll mention is if you don't like water column dosing, using root tabs especially under your lily and crypts would be a good way to offer nutrients to those plants so it will not have to compete for nutrients with your water lettuce.

I hope this wasn't too long or too confusing. If there is anything that doesn't make sense feel free to ask and let me know if I am rambling too much! Please update us on your progress wether things are working or not and good luck!

[Koi]

3 hours ago, gardenman said:

As long as it's reasonably healthy and growing, I'd just accept it for what it is. It's pretty no matter what. At some point it may decide to put out floating leaves, or it may choose not to. Plants tend to have minds of their own and do what they want. 

I agree with this, I have multiple bulbs created from the same lily and they all grow and variable speeds. One constantly races to the surface of the tank and another never reaches the top.

[Elizabeth Power]

3 hours ago, gardenman said:

The water lily family is pretty big with a wide range of plants in it. On the "Holy cow! That thing's huge!" side of the family you have the Victoria Amazonica that can have leaves up to ten feet in diameter and a 25 foot long stem. Kind of big for the average home aquarium. (Though the biggest I've ever seen had leaves about six feet in diameter. Still pretty big, but not ten feet.) On the other end of the spectrum is Nymphaea Thermarum which has leaves of under an inch. So when something is labeled "nymphaea sp." it could be just about anything. As long as it's reasonably healthy and growing, I'd just accept it for what it is. It's pretty no matter what. At some point it may decide to put out floating leaves, or it may choose not to. Plants tend to have minds of their own and do what they want. 

Thank you for the input. I looked up Nymphaea Thermarum out of curiosity. My lily's largest leaves are significantly smaller than Nymphaea Thermarum's average sized leaves.