Red Tiger Lotus

[moldyform]

Hi,
I have had this tiger lotus growing for about 3 months now and its growing super fast. It seems to send some of its leaves to the surface and beyond while others stay growing lower. is this normal? The tall leaves seem to keep growing also once they have reached the surface.

Also, some of the older leaves seem to get rotten stems and brake of as you can see in the photo below.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff38/moldyform/P1010021-1.jpg

Another problem it seems to have is on the leaves after a while little rings form and the centre rots out leaving a hole which slowly gets bigger. What would be causing this?
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff38/moldyform/P1010029.jpg

Cheers

[ILLUSN]

the clear rings that rot are caused by an iron defficiency or loaches doing damage to the leaves.

remove any leaves that get 4/5ths of the way to the surface, once the plant knows it can reach the surface it will keep sending surface leaves up, and consume the old leaves for extra food (hence your rotting stems).

give your plant a good cut back and drop in some fertalizer tablets to the roots it will keep growing fine.

[moldyform]

Ok thanks, It seems to send a leaf up to the top and once it reaches the surface it starts to send another up.

It seems to be growing fine, these leaves take approximatly 3 days on average to reach the surface (2 ft high)!! It amazing!!.
Is dino dung ok?

Cheers

[ILLUSN]

dino dung will be fine, just keep gutting them off when they get near the surface, this will "train" your plant to only produce underwater leaves.

[moldyform]

ok thanks Illusn

My supply of kno3 came this morning. so i will have to rework my fert scheme again:)

Cheers