Gardner's Water Lily

Nymphaea gardneriana

A night-flowering water lily from tropical South America with relatively small round leaves. Rare in the hobby, and easily confused with its green-leaved relatives.

Light: medium–high
Difficulty: medium
Temperature: 18 – 30 °C (64 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: fast
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 10 °dKH
Placement: red accent, midground
Propagation: runners
Grows emersed: unknown

Appearance

Rounded leaves on long stalks from a tuber, smaller than those of the familiar lilies. Two plants circulate in the hobby under this name, one of them brought from Bolivia and one known by a Brazilian place name.

Keeping

It wants a nutritious substrate and medium to strong light; warm water suits it. As with all lilies in a tank, the leaves that reach the surface shade everything beneath them and are trimmed off if the plant is grown for its underwater leaves.

Placement

The middle or back of a large tank, alone.

Propagation

By daughter tubers formed beside the parent.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1016 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Red Zebra Cichlid Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Kenyi Cichlid Cuckoo Catfish Golden Swordtail Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo Zebra Mbuna

Will eat this plant

These species damage plants, especially when their diet is short of vegetable food.

Bengal Loach Zebra Loach Burmese Border Loach Emperor Botia Marbled Headstander Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Common Metynnis Mylossoma duriventre Red Whiptail Catfish Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly Moonlight Gourami Melanotaenia parva

Will uproot it

These species dig through the substrate and pull rooted plants out.

Marble Loach Peacock Eel Forktail Loach Guntea Loach Long-nosed Loach Horseface Loach Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Painted Pleco Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Aulonocara maylandi Aulonocara multicolor Aulonocara Orchid Geophagus altifrons Geophagus winemilleri Pearlscale Cichlid Pearl Cichlid Redbelly Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid Chuco godmanni Haplochromis philander Red Chromide Jack Dempsey cichlid

Matching water does not mean the fish will leave the plant alone.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Other varieties: Nymphaea gardneriana Santarem, Nymphaea gardneriana Santarem Einzelpflanze

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Nymphaea cf. glandulifera ''Rot'', Nymphaea fragrans Gardner ex Casp., Nymphaea passiflora Lehm., Nymphaea stenaspidota Casp., Nymphaea wittiana Ule, Leuconymphaea gardneriana, Nymphaea fragrans, Nymphaea passiflora, Nymphaea stenaspidota, Nymphaea wittiana
Nymphaea gardneriana: Planch.
Family: Nymphaeaceae

Gardner's Water Lily

Tank conditions

Care and keeping