It's actually a Dracaena, not a Bamboo. For marketing purposes someone must have decided "Lucky Bamboo" sounded more appealing than "Lucky Dracaena".

I'm surprised it lasted that long. But seeing it did I'd say your water must be reasonably okay. Some local authorities load up water supplies with all sorts of chemicals and some plants don't take to kindly to them. Rain water is usually better if you're not in a heavily polluted environment.

But the water in that bottle should have been changed more frequently as Lily said. It's literally become an anaerobic cesspool. You'll need to remove the plant and trim off all the rotten bits then try again with fresh water. Before you add more water to the bottle let it stand for a while to aerate. That narrow opening on the bottle won't allow much exchange of gases between the water inside and the air.

Your older plant is starving. Change the water weekly and add fertilizer; enough to color the water.

Thanks for the info, tropicbreezent, I had no idea! A friend of mine has one of these in her office. She changes the water regularly, and the roots look okay, but the leaves are starting to yellow. Do you think a few drops of FP in the water would help? I could bring her a little bottle to keep in her desk.

Kovacs (sorry, I don't have a keyboard with the right accent marks), only add fertilizer when you change the water to keep it from building up to toxic levels. Also, be sure to use the appropriate amount of fertilizer for the volume of water in the pot.

Good luck!

Yes, Fertilizer will get it green again. I have one that is 7 years old now. It is in a tiny water dish two inches high, and is almost three feet tall.

She'll be happy to hear that, Laurie.

so, i got them out of the pot thing, poured the water out, shook all the jelly ball things out, which were still jellylike and mostly intact, and filled the pot thing a bit more than halfway up with tapwater that was left there for at least 10 minutes before. all their roots are underwater, but i dont know if its enough.

their roots mostly looked okay, most of them were either orangeish, whiteish, or slightly brownish. had to tear parts of some off that grew into the ball things. i also thought the balls were discolored because they absorbed the fertilizer for years, but i was told they were greenish and blueish originally.

the bottom of their stalk/stem, though, looks totally yellow:

and closeup of the older one:

so im guessing the yellow part would just have to be cut off? if im right, its not too hard for them to grow roots back. unless they are too weak, and would die from it. i also read that lucky "bamboos" need a special kind of fertilizer. and fertilizer would probably be needed for roots to grow.

anyways, i did this days ago, and cant really tell if the yellowing stopped or just got slower. or only seems slower because there are no almost-dead leaves that get yellow in days

Slower is better.

Were the bottoms of the stems in that murky water? If so and they aren't mushy, they're just pale because they haven't been exposed to light. In any case, don't cut off anything that isn't rotten or diseased.

Dracaenas don't need special fertilizer. In fact, very few plants need anything other than the nutrients all plants need, in the amounts that they use them. Many on the forums use Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro 9-3-6, which contains nitrogen, potassium, and...um... the third is phosphorus, right? Whatever, it also contains a bunch of trace minerals that plants need but are rarely included in other fertilizers. If you can't get Foliage Pro, Miracle Gro makes an all purpose 9-3-6 fertilizer that will help. You just dissolve the crystals in water before giving some to the plant.

The numbers are always in the order: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium (Kalium). There's sometimes a 4th number but it's usually indicated on the packet what it is. I've found that it's not always the same thing.

It appears that I unable to keep that straight, tropicbreezent, so I'm going to write it down somewhere I have a chance of finding it when I need it. Thanks!

I just remember it as the simple NPK, only need to remember that for the
alchemists of the middle ages Potassium was called Kalium, hence the
"K".

Oh, I know K is potassium, and I remember the 9-3-6 ratio because I see the numbers every time I fertilize, but for some reason I can never remember the sequence of elements, as silly as that may sound, probably because I don't know why they're listed in that order. I was the queen of acronyms in school, so maybe I should try that. Or a ditty...

First world problems!!

Never pet a kangaroo.

Nice party, Katey!

No pets in the kitchen.

NPK, darling, NPK (to the tune of Danke Schoen from Cabaret)