# What substrate do you grow your crypts in?



## MiamiAG

Cryptocorynes are one of the more difficult to grow aquatic plants. Many hardcore Crypt growers develop their substrate mix based on trial and error. For example, I have grown crypts successfully in a mixture of peat, pumice, oak leaf mold and sheep manure.

Share your crypt mix with us!


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## panaque

My cryptocoryne wendtii are going crazy in a substrate of eco complete and flourite mixed 1/2 and 1/2 then covered with gravel that I collected from a local river.Oh and never mind the algae!


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## Phil Edwards

Right now I only have accidental submersed crypts, mainly leftover bits which have grown into plants. 

My emersed plants are doing best in a regular pearlite, peat, and vermiculite Potting Mix with water just above the soil line. I've put others in mixtures of peat and granite chicken grit and also some in a peat and sand mix. 

Most of my stock right now are leftovers from meltings at the LFS or are transplants from tanks and are taking their sweet time to recover. It's getting addictive though, help, I can't stop!!!!


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## MiamiAG

John,

Thanks for posting the image. Nice, very nice. 

Crypts are deep rooted plants that really benefit from a nutritious substrate. The combination of Eco-complete and flourite will provide a lot of micronutrients that are needed (especially iron).


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## MiamiAG

Phil,

Thanks for coming on board.

You bring up a great point. There is a myth out there that Crypts are difficult to grow. They are not. You find many, many instances where a crypt will die today and a year later you find that it grows back. 

What crypts are is very sensitive to environmental changes and very quick to react. Crypt melt is nothing more than a changing of its leaves to adapt to the new environment. If the plant is healthy, there should be no long-term impact.

I love growing crypts emersed. It is VERY addictive. I was mass producing them for a while hydroponically in a home greenhouse. I used a hydroponic raft method similar to Tropica's. For the more difficult to grow ones or ones with submersed growth that I needed to change over to emersed growth, I would use a large aquarium with clay pots. The substrate mixture was peat, oak leaf mold, laterite and carbon. Depending on the species, I would modify the percentages to get more or less acidic.

What emersed set up are you using?


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## Phil Edwards

Right now I'm running three different setups in different places. 

1. The largest group right now are in the rainforest greenhouse at school growing in clay pots with the peat/chicken grit substrate, all sitting in a salad take-out container with an inch of water in it. The trays are sitting on wood planks on top of the heater so they stay nice and warm, and with an ambient humidity of 80%+ they're starting to settle down and get to business. 

I've got two setups at home:
1. Clay pots with the sand/peat mix in an uncovered 10g surrounded by an inch or so of waterlogged soil mix. Lighting is 2x T12 bulbs 12hrs/day. This setup has two tanks side by side under a 40w bulbs so they get about 40w of light per tank.

2. 10g with glass cover and 2" water logged soil (water line right at soil surface) with plants directly in the soil. Lighting is 1x13w PC bulb 12hrs/day. This is my oldest setup and the various pieces of rhizome have finally started putting off something worthwhile. Most of the plants are between .5-1.5" high at the moment. 

Both of these setups get sprayed with tap water 2x/day. 2x/week they'll get sprayed with old tank water and 1x/week they'll get a micronutrient spray. Right now I'm curious to see how well the plants do in the normal humidity and temperature of my fishroom/nursery. I may get a few new plants and try growing them both covered and uncovered to see what happens. 

Best,
Phil


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## MiamiAG

Phil,

Go slowly on the move from high humidity to less. I slowly "trained" mine by increasing the size of the opening until I got to where I wanted to be.


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## Phil Edwards

Most of my plants have started out as rhizome and roots only. If I took them out of a tank I've trimmed all but the newest leaves and if I got them from the LFS they're pretty much just rhizome with poor roots and no leaves. That's what's made them so good for my purposes. 

I'll be careful with any new/healthy plants I get, thanks for the tip.


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## MiamiAG

Phil,

Take some pictures and let us see how it goes.

Thanks,

Art


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## gnome

I've had smaller crypts growing for varying lengths of time in sand, then Flourite, and right now I'm growing a new, cute little species called C. pygmaea in Eco-Complete. 

I had a bunch of generic crypts (some sort of wendtii) that I started off in sand substrate with very little fertilization. The plants quickly recovered from melt just fine and looked okay. They were mostly green and had long petioles (is that what the leaf stemmy thingie is called?). I took a few of these and planted them in Flourite in a tank with a little more lighting. After a few weeks, you couldn't tell that these were the same plants. It tripled (at least) in size and turned a deep reddish-brown color. The petioles were very short, making the plant look "fuller." Very impressive. Every few months, though, I'd notice that the crypts would go through a major melt, which was not pretty to look at. 

I have two pieces of C. pygmaea in Eco-Complete and one in a sand-bottomed tank. The two in the Eco-Complete went through *complete* melt and are growing back leaves relatively quickly. The one in the sand-bottomed tank retained maybe two leaves but only one new leaf has sprouted and it's very slow to unfurl. OTOH, it may be a lighting issue. I definitely think that a rich substrate is key in growing out beautiful crypts. Root tabs would probably be a good alternative, though, if the plants are already in sand or gravel. I've never tried it, though. I know they like Jobe's spikes, but they would probably like iron-containing stuff even more. 

-Naomi


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## HeyPK

Ooh! pygmaea! Where did you get it? You aquarists in the SF bay area seem to be plugged in to some kind of plant source that the rest of us can only dream of! :shock:


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## gnome

It's the magical place called Albany Aquarium  . The owner imports these rare gems from the Far East, many from Oriental Aquarium. He gets plant shipments every two weeks. And every two weeks I go in there, feeling like a little kid on Christmas Day :wink: . 

Well, the new leaf that's growing on the C. pygmaea in the sand tank looks terrible. I'm moving it into a Flourite-bottomed tank when I get off my lazy behind. The two in Eco-complete look like something chewed on the leaves before unfurling. They probably need some time to establish themselves where they are. I did trim the roots before planting them. 

-Naomi


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## ekim

Hey guys,
my crypts grow like weeds in normal gravel, 
no substrate ferts at all!
Lots of mulm is the key for me! :lol:


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## Phil Edwards

Show off. 

BTW, that tank makes a great windows desktop.


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## Sir_BlackhOle

Beautiful tank ekim! Just gorgeous!


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## HeyPK

Ekim says "no substrate ferts". What about water column ferts?


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## ekim

Thanks guys,

Phil, 
i'm not sure it's worthy of your desktop though!  

HeyPK, 
Yeah the tank gets full blown water column ferts!


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## HeyPK

> Yeah the tank gets full blown water column ferts!


Ah Hah! I suspected that. Crypts are pretty good at getting what they need out of the water, including iron.

Now, How much light? Let me guess that this is a medium light or low light tank, probably two watts of fluorescent per gallon or less.


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## ekim

> Let me guess that this is a medium light or low light tank, probably two watts of fluorescent per gallon or less.


Nope,

3WPG (200 watts) of NO fluorescents!


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## Phil Edwards

Mike,

You're kidding, right?! I've had your tanks on my desktop for as long as you've been posting them. I had one good discus tank. Every one of yours has been good....


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## ekim

I guess we always want what we don't have!


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## Justin Fournier

Just using 8 bags of Flourite mixed with 3 bags of onyx... pretty much a 75G full of Crypts, and a couple Nymphea... featureing Raspora vaterifloris, pics soon, I won't be home while the lights are on till the weekend...


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## MiamiAG

Justin,

You are working TOO hard.


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## SCMurphy

I use a mix of mineralized topsoil and red clay under a gravel cap.


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## Raul-7

Is bat gauno a good additive?


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## gpodio

I've always had rich substrates so I can't compare crypt growth without, but I can definetly speak for crypts growing in a rich substrate without any water fertilization at all. They do just fine. I've grown crypts in both soil and flourite/laterite without any problems, but again, all my substrates are rich in nutrients and organic waste. Growth in my high light tank where both water and substrate is fertilized and CO2 levels are rather high crypts have exploded, but that's expected. My guess is that they benefit from a good rich substrate.

I've never had problems growing crypts for some reason, besides the initial slow growth/recovery after having been moved they do very well in my tanks.

Giancarlo Podio


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## depthc

I grow mine in mostly Shultz or 'Profile'. They seem to grow well once they establish themselves in the substrate.

.dc


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## Xema

This is my cripts tank for Chocolate gouramis










I use a nutritive mix of peat, vermiculite, humus, sand, etc. I cover this mix with regular gravel, and separete with a plastic mesh.










You can see more info about this tankhere

Greetings from Spain


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## Steve Pituch

Xema,

Beautiful tank. I checked out your web site. Very nice. Makes me wish I could read Spnish.

Regards,
Steve


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## MiamiAG

Xema,

Muy lindo. Gracias por registrar con nosotros. Saludos de Miami.

Steve,

If you click on the "English" icon in Xema's page, there is a very nice article on a stream in Spain. You may want to check it out.


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## Xema

Thank for the coments...

spituch... i feel the same when i read interesting coments in english about cripst in a board like this. I can understand all mean about it´s said.

Art_Giacosa, es un placer intercambiar informacion con los amigos del otro lado del charco. 
In english, it´s a pleasure to share info with friends from the other side of the atlantic ocean.

and sorry for my bad english expression.


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## dennis

Xema, nice to have you here Welcome.


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## hubbahubbahehe

...


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## dawntwister

Raul-7 said:


> Is bat gauno a good additive?


rs puts cow manure under his soil so it might be okay. But what about the stench?


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## rs79

Boil it or let it soak first to calcify it and get rid of the ammonia. But either way there's no stench.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Aquasoil + leaf compost in a 50/50 ratio seems to work for most plants


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## Xema

It´s a nice feeling find old posts...

About the soil,... be careful with organic fertilizers, they can provide fungus problem in humid environments as our crypts set up.

I agree with Ghazanfar, ADA soil + leaf litter is a good wildcard for black-water plants. But another ADA substitute that runs fine is AZOO Grower bed -I am allways testing new commercial soils due to the difficulty to find ADA in Spain-.


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## orlando

Hi Xema, Ive been using volcanic ash and crushed lava rocks mixed with peat moss. They seem to be doing fine, but are slow to grow. They do produce new leaves, but very slow. What do you think?


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## Xema

Lava rock is quite inert, that means can not retain or store nutrient. So plants are totally depending of the water ferts supply, then if it occurring some problem in the water -low concentration or so- the plants will not have a protection. Due to it´s quite important adding any sort of clay within the mix. Luckily, there are many kind of commercial soil clay-based as ADA soil, Azoo grower bed, akadama, kanuma, sepiolite, and so on. Every of them have different properties for each kind of soil reaction.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

I think you're nutrient starving your plants. Volcanic ash, lavarocks are not providing any nutrients. Peat moss - not sure about the nutrients it provides - I cannot imagine its a lot.


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## orlando

I do add dry ferts in my water changes, NPK. My domes stay nice a humid, I have another shipment of 200 crypts coming in and plan on starting over with a new soil compost. I have started a compost from bat guano and Georgia clay. Do you think I should start with something else?


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

If you're experimenting I guess you couldtry that. I can tell you that Aquasoil + leaf compost works just fine.


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## orlando

Bat poop is free, so yes just an experiment.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Try it out and let us know of your results.


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## Kai Witte

Just to state the obvious: Don't overdo any fertilizer with crypts! Start with minimal amounts and go from there...


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## Woo

Hi Folks,

My Wendtii are growing in good old SMS from Lesco. It is a pain in the armpit (literally) to clean it under a running faucet and keep stirring it with a wooden ladle ... but it did the trick.

A question on the iron content in the SMS is it likely to affect moss in a moss wall?

Yes I am an older fish keeper that did not know about paint strainers that would work just fine. Oh and by the way I don't even know if they sell paint strainers in the UK. I know the only way I used to do it was as above.

As per Lord Clitheroe of the town of the same name, to the traffic cop who was trying to write him a ticket for illegal parking in his very best Eton accent. "Actually yes I do own the road now do be a good chap and bugger off and find something else to do."

Steve / Woo


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## bencozzy

my wendtii green geckos seem to be doing best in my powersand, flourite or laterite, and amazonia 2 substrate tanks they are layered bottom to top as listed.


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## xximanoobxx

Does it matter what kind of ADA soil to use??? I read that malaya lowers the pH the most but it doesnt contain much nutrients.

So if I'm going to use malaya, do I have to use amazonia as well?

Also, I'm going to use Ghazanfar's leaf compost with the soil, so would that make a difference?

Thanks
John


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## 954baby

anyone ever try ocean forest potting soil? made by fox farm, says its a natural and organic potting soil composed of earthworm castings and bat guano. I got it at the local hydroponic store today, the guy that owns it says everyone always has good things to say about it but I doubt they are using it for growing crypts. anyone ever try this stuff? I was recommended to use it with perlite. I think I am going to try this out on some c. wendtii, probably a mix of this soil with some aquasoil and laterite. I'll see how it goes.


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## flashbang009

I have stock petsmart black gravel, and my crypts are growing great. They got devoured by the fish when i first put them in there, but they grew back within a week or two, and i can see the roots under the tank, and they're about 6 inches long!!


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## ddavila06

flashbang009 said:


> I have stock petsmart black gravel, and my crypts are growing great. They got devoured by the fish when i first put them in there, but they grew back within a week or two, and i can see the roots under the tank, and they're about 6 inches long!!


if you had the tank set up for a long time before you added the crypts and always keeping the same soil then it "could" be because the substrate is loaded with the fish (how can i put it) crap? hahha, basicly...

if it is newer set up and brand new gravel, i do notknow...

mine are growing well with flora max bottom and eco top. the usteriana walkerii leaves get a lot of damage...am i missing something?


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## rs79

There's a fungus that grows on bat guano that's deadly to humans. I wouldn't mess with that stuff.

I use "Ma" Reimer/Charlie Drew's "secret". Manure under beach sand. I add nails, washers and steel wool for iron. Flourish excel or CO2 in some tanks. I add Barr's fert formula which makes them grow more qiuckly; they grow fine without, just not as fast.


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## mosasaur

Has anyone used earthworm castings to fertilize thei crypts? I was thinking of addng a pinch. I have tried adding some to a jar of water and noticed that the water did not get cloudy, even after several weeks.


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