Red lotus division

[Caryl]

Can someone tell me if it is OK to cut these in half? As you can see, the plant has grown quite a bit. The yellow strip is actually a tape measure showing you its 50cm length :roll:

I have found 2 small plants but the other two are just a big solid mass of roots, not separate runner plants.

Can I cut this? If so, into how many separate plants?

If I plant these, will they grow into plants?

and what about these ones?

[evilknieval69]

Thats a green lotus, not a red one. Im not sure if you can cut them, mine always just sent out runners... hundreds of them....

[Caryl]

That is the one I got from you evil and I thought it was a red one (cos of the red colour under the leaves).

Mine is obviously too busy getting bigger to produce hundreds of runners :roll:

[new2discus]

IMO wouldn't personally, you will destroy the growing point and kill the plant, only propergation is by runners

[Caryl]

I was suspecting that may be the case :-?

So why does evil's grow "hundreds of runners" yet mine, despite its size, has only produced 4? :roll:

[evilknieval69]

Co2 and high lighting 8)

[HummingBird]

Perhaps Evil has more light, fertilizer and co2/other carbon source than you?

[Caryl]

Quite likely since I do not use fertiliser or CO2 :lol:

Tank (4ft) has 4 flouros on it.

[evilknieval69]

Well i can tell you that when i had my big one that was throwing out heaps of fry :roll: it only had 2 four foot fluoros over it (4 ft tank) but i was running pressurised co2 and using PMDD...

Time for ferts me thinks Caryl :lol:

[dimebag]

they should grow hard out with 4 fluros caryl, i only have 3 fluros and get 3 or 4 runners every time i do a pruning. mind you they do stop growing every now and again, sometimes for a month or 2, before taking off again.

[jim r]

My gold nuggets pruned mine almost out of existence :evil: Now they are starting on my vallis and crypts

[new2discus]

So why does evil's grow "hundreds of runners" yet mine, despite its size, has only produced 4?

How do you remove your runners Caryl? If you (and this is only IMHO) break the runner off from the mother plant end, basically you will leave a 'wound' which may or may not encourage it to produce more runners from the same point? Following the same principal, you could try breaking off one or two of the big plants outer leaves, to wound it and perhaps encourage it to send out runners?? This is entirely untested from my end, just using my plant knowledge and experience working with Clivia which will also only propergate from runners. could be worth a go

[Caryl]

I hadn't removed any runners until I pulled all the plant out so I could see where each began and how many there were.