i am trying to grow some lotus plants for my koi pond and the sprouting process was simple enough , i planted them in a little pot in a kid pool in my garden. i used soil from my garden, added some chicken poop as fertilizer and toped it off with a thin layer of gravel to stop the soil from leaving the pot. my lotus started to grow really fast but after two weeks the leaves started to turn yellow and die. so... any tips on how to save them.

Did you start from seed or tuber? This looks really young. For the me the keys to starting young lotus have been full sun, early planting in good soil, and space for the new plant to run and root. I tend to count the number of live leaves per growth node. As long as it's not decreasing, I don't mind if some of them die (which is how I keep track on water lilies--I don't know if I'm misapplying it to lotus). Increasing leaf size is always nice, too. There seems to be a point at which it "catches" and leaves stand up out of the water, bigger and bigger.

But I've killed more seedlings than I've kept alive, so I may not have the best advice.