Bulbs from Wal Mart?

[blakeoe]

Walmart sells some bulbs that you just "drop in and they grow" one is called Hardy Aponogeton Bulbs Long skinny leave and the other is called Lilly Bulbs.

Does anyone know if these are good to use of have an opinion on them?

[shev]

I like them. usually one or two, maybe three will grow from each box. I dont like the lily ones, but they still grow pretty well. I like the aponogeton bulbs, mine grew like mad and I got some seeds. I tried to politnate them but I guess it didnt work.

[Jason_S]

here's what they look like I've had the lily for a while now but I don't know how long for sure...6 months up to maybe even a year. the other one I've only had for about a month now, and so far this is the only bulb that's grown.

[Ownager2004]

I got some of the aponogeton bulbs and considering the price i think it was a good deal. So far 3 of the 5 i put in my main tank are well on their way and i just added one to my betta tank and we'll see where that goes. i got mine for $2.50 and for the price im willing oto experiment with them and see if they'll work out.

[shev]

I bought in bulk, like 5 pakcs for 5$ off ebay, 2$ shipping.

[fish_doc]

I bought them once and put them in a tank that was not real well lit. They did grow but not real full. One did reach the top of the 29 gallon tall that I have but it was rather scrawney. Im sure with the right lighting they would have been much better. But I only had 3 of the 5 actually grow.

[Lydia]

i have an aponegaton or however you spell it in my tank and it is doing very well.....it took a long time for it to get growing well, but, once it did, it started looking really nice....i got a pack of 2 bulbs but only one sprouted

[Damon]

The experiences I'm reading are sound on par. Not all the bulbs are any good. If they are squishy when you unpack them, they are dead. They like lighting up to 3wpg but grow just fine in 1.5wpg. They are cheaper to buy at Wal-marts" than in an aquarium shop but you will have more fatalities with dead bulbs. Pretty and undemanding, these plants make a nice mid to backround plant in most tanks.

[lain sorcer]

I got my Aponogeton Bulbs about 3 weeks ago. I only used 2 of the bulbs and 1 grew. The one that grew is doing great. It already bloomed one flower and is producing another. It really grows fast if you have the right lighting. Of course, this is my first aquarium plant so i'm not sure how fast they usually grow.

[Mr Aquarium]

You have to be carefull with these around your fish, Some fish Will pick at the spouts and they will seem to never grow.
I grew mine out in a plastic floating breeder box with the lid and guts toaken out, then planted them, my fish kept picking it clean when they tried to grow.
But Give then more time then the package says to grow, sometimes they are slower then the 20 days.
I have two right now the leaves are floating, when the flower come out of the water and if pretty white color, reach in antrim it off low on the sten, your plants should to as mine did and shoot up like a rocket.
my water lilly isn't as big Jason_S's yet, but still pretty plants. ]As soon as I get time, i'll snap a pic of how tall mine are.

[Magdelaine]

Hmmm, I will have to agree with this. I put 4 bulbs in my tank now almost 30 days ago. I started cycling a new tank with goldfish and as soon as a new sprout would appear it would be gone; goldie was hungry. Unfortunately he died so I'm fishless cycling, and I've gone from one sprouting to two pretty large plants and now the other two are sprouting, so 4 in 4 (and I got them from Walmart).

They are evidently two different varieties, the shorter stemmed version is flowering now. Anyway, I think fish make a big difference in whether a bulb will be successful. I've read about people starting them in a warm place out of an aquarium. According to the packager you can send back unsprouted bulbs and they will send you new ones...if you are interested.

[TANKER]

I like the walmart plants myself. I have a 10 gallon greenwater tank set up in a window box that serves the dual role of providing infusoria for my fry as well as a starter tank for the bulbs. I leave the bulbs in the greenwater tank til they hit 4-5 inches then transplant them to their new homes. The fail rate of these bulbs seems to be about 1 in 5 which isn't bad at all considering 2.50 for 5 bulbs. where else can you get nice plants for less than 5.oo each much less in the 50-60 cent range.

[Mr Aquarium]

I have some here Mine and a few from someone else i'm giving a little more time to see if they come around, Long story short, I'm going to send them back and see just how good they are about sending replacments.
In all my days of buying them, I never had the lillys avalable before, But most times all but one would grow, so 5 out of 6 Aponogeton and two out of three lilly bulbs all grew, I'd say it;s pretty grow % from what you get, so i got 6 nice plants out of 9 bulbs for 5 bucks, can;t beat that.
They are 100% guaranteed to grow or you get new bulbs, so will see if it works.....

[duckdog2]

how did you plant the bulbs?? i just bought bulbs but i realized i have no clue how to plant them!!!

[Ownager2004]

I just dropped mine in and the rooted themselves and flourised. Once they sprout the first green just turn that to grow where you want and it'll root itself in right there. Mine are growing their flowers right now. cool stuff good luck

[TheOldSalt]

I love 'em. Plopping a dozen into your tank will turn it into an aquatic jungle in a month.
Once they die back in a few months, you can take the bulbs out and let them dry out and rest a few weeks, and then start all over again. You don't even really have to go to that much trouble; they'll restart on their own much of the time.

The Lily bulbs are VERY slow to sprout and grow compared to the others, so you might think that they're duds if you give up on them too early.

The bulbs are fully guaranteed, too. If you send the duds back to the grower, ( save the packing ) they'll send you free replacements.

The best part of course is the ease of propagation. It's easy to get lots of new baby plants from the adults by manually cross-fertilizing the flowers. I'm going to experiment with rooting hormone on the lily version, using leaf cuttings, to see if I can get new plants faster that way.

Bright light, low light..you can't go wrong with these guys.

[Maece]

I bought some of these from Wal-Mart. 1pkg of the taller ones (7-8 bulbs), and one of the lily kind (2 bulbs). I have a 10 gallon tank, and am using the light that is came with.

According to the instructions I planted the small bulbs in the gravel, and just let the bigger ones float until they sank. None of them seemed mushy. Anyway, it's been almost two weeks and I haven't seen anything green yet. The bigger bulbs grew some whitish mold-looking cover for a while, then I added a couple red-wag platies who devoured this. I don't know if that was aprt of the plant or not?

Is there a good way to test if the bulbs are still good? I don't want to pollute my tank anymore than necessary while cycling.

[Ichthius]

*notes the date on the thread*

The white stuff was fungus or mold of some sort. When that happens, the bulbs aren't viable (won't grow). My experience with these bulbs, they usually sprout within a month, but some surprised me if I left them in there a bit longer (as long as they weren't rotting/molding). The time it takes depends on your lighting. I had best success with them when using 1.5-2wpg. The lighting you have is probably more in the range of 1wpg (I think the hood you're talking about has two bulbs, 5 watts each, and they're incandescent).

The light could be a problem. They would grow better with fluorescent lighting at a higher wattage. You can get GE, fluorescent bulbs in the lighting section of Wal-Mart that will fit your hood. I'm not saying they won't grow with your current lighting, but an upgrade will help.

[TheOldSalt]

In the pet section of Walmart you'll find some funny-looking compact flourescent aquarium bulbs which screw into normal incandescent hoods. These are much brighter than the bulbs which come with the hoods, and they grow plants very nicely.

[BV77]

I agree with TOS....the screw in flourescents are nice. They are ten times better than the incandescants they replace