Nelumbo nucifera - what do you feed to it?

[Giannhs]

Hi all,
as you know Nelumbo is planted by scatching (scarifying) its shell and then putting in water, adding water as it grows. My question is: will it live in water only? In nature, it spreads roots in the mud bottom of a pond; but as we grow it in a bucket, should we leave it with water only? Or should we add mud to the bucket, or sand, or some other substances that the Nelumbo plant can use to draw nutrients? What do you add to the water?

[Giannhs]

i have received an answer, still i m a little hesitant, because you talk about pots with wholes, the website you linked says pot without holes but still within a pond - on the other hand i have no pond! The plant is still in a topless plastic bottle and next to it is a basin about 35cm wide and less than 70cm long (sorry, i have no measuring tape in inches) planning to transfer it to the basin as an indoors plant.
I had two nelumbo plants outside in the backyard in long glass vases, they were growing alright, the water in the vases collected lots of dust flying from all around, also stray leaves and sometimes little immature fruit from the tree above, so there was apparently no lack of nutrients but the leaves, immature fruits and stuff that fell in their vase rotted, also sometimes the water level lowered (i did not think necessary to keep it high), then after a few months the nelumbo two plants rotted together with the foreign stuff that was collected in their vases.
So my worry is that if i put gardening soil (turf), that turf may rot; if i put soil from the garden, that is not clean, contains organic matter, weed seeds, insect eggs, germs and such. If i put sand from the beach, and some of that water-life fertilizer, it sounds like that has good chances to support the plant.
Has anyone experience of growing a nelumbo indoors?