Do you have a picture of the whole plant? Hard to tell which brom you have. Based on this picture I would just move the whole thing to the next size pot and make sure the soil is free draining potting soil.

ty for the reply, the plant is 14inches at the widest point of the leaves.

i dont have any 5 inch pots but i have a few 6 inche ones. i have shutlz potting soil, perlite and sphagnum peat moss on hand. i dont have fir bark/orchid bark but i'll look around for some. i dont like spagnum moss too much as it gets rather dense when dry but i'll use it if needed.

i also have a sand based cactus soil though i dont know if it meets the need of bromeliads.

This post was edited by x207 on Thu, Feb 7, 13 at 18:16

As long as the potting soil drains well...the bromeliad will do just fine. They don't do well with wet feet especially in winter.

thank you very much. i'll go with 1/2 potting soil, 1/4 perlite and 1/4 orchid bark. i have a cactus style 5 inch pot to put it in.

which bromeliad variety is this? id like to know what sort of flower comes from it.

Your plant is a Guzmania
They come in many colors. See FCBS.org for many pictures of the plants.
Cut and paste this link in your browser for a photo.
http://fcbs.org/images/Guzmania/guz_Chloe.jpg

FCBS.org has many photos of all bromeliad genera.

thank you very much for the plant ID. i did a quick google search for the flower for this particular bromeliad, is the one in the pic accurate? if im correct the form is similar to those of the large Zinnia flowers.