I followed your how to remove and repot the pup from the mother plant. I feel successful, although after repotting your instructions are to water the new plant and let it drain well. Is this first watering suppose to be watering the soil or in the tank? Or both? And should the tank watering go uninterupted while the soil settles and no more soil watering the soil afterward?

Thank you for taking my question !

to the forum! Do you the type of Bromeliad are you growing? If has a water holding tank, keep water in the tank. Best bet when adding water pour water in the tank to overfilling and let it run into the soil.

Assuming the pup was big enough to be removed from its mother, you could try a 4" pot. Since Bromeliads do not have much of a root system, if any, no need to use a large pot.
Set the pup fairly shallow in soil, keep the soil slightly damp, not moist, because there isn't likely much of a root system to absorb water. If the pup was old enough it should have formed a crown, the tube like center which you can keep water in. This is more important then watering the soil. Keep the pup in bright light, cooler if you can, and do not put it in sunlight that is too strong. Give it time to adjust to being independent. If it wobbles in the pot you can keep it upright by using planting stakes. Locate them at noon, four o'clock and eight o'clock to stabilize it.

When grown in pots with a porous potting mix, Bromeliads will develop a healthy root system. When that occurs, it is no longer necessary to keep water in the cups. Indeed, there is some concern that indoors where air circulation is limited, water kept in the cups can cause the cups to rot.

If you want to keep your Bromeliad as a potted plant, then I suggest that initially, you keep the potting soil slightly damp and also mist the leaves. In time, the roots will develop and then you can supply water only through the soil and roots.

When grown in pots with a porous potting mix, Bromeliads will develop a healthy root system. When that occurs, it is no longer necessary to keep water in the cups. Indeed, there is some concern that indoors where air circulation is limited, water kept in the cups can cause the cups to rot.

If you want to keep your Bromeliad as a potted plant, then I suggest that initially, you keep the potting soil slightly damp and also mist the leaves. In time, the roots will develop and then you can supply water just through the soil and roots.

Well Snake plants are bromeliads and I had one 12" overgrown pot of them last Fall.



So I brutally yanked them out of the pot onto my potting bench and ruthlessly hacked the roots into pieces with a serrated Ginsu knife.

I then put all the root and leaf chunks into basic potting soil in 6" pots and gave them some 1/2 diluted 3-2-2 fertilizer water (they don't want much).

5 months later, I have a dozen thriving snake plants in low light.

Snake plants are not Bromeliads. According to what I just saw when I googled it, they are in the asparagus family.

Hi & welcome!

Bromeliaceae is a huge family with about 50 genera and thousands of species within them. Just speaking from the very few kinds that I have, generalizations are difficult. Like Scott, I do keep water in all of the ones with a "tank," Billbergias and a Neoregelia, and I water the soil as I would for any other potted plant. Pineapples (Ananas) and earth stars (Cryptanthus,) for examples, don't have a reservoir.