# Zukalii



## deftones2015 (Dec 7, 2007)

It finally opened up for me


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## ferchu22 (Oct 27, 2007)

Great! Nice spathe color!!
Could you please share your culture info? Because mine is alive but has a poor (o slow) growth, I have it in common freshwater setup.

Thanks. Regards,


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## 954baby (Feb 8, 2008)

Niiiiice! you grow indoors or outdoors?


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## Chuukus (Sep 24, 2009)

Mine also, I have had one leaf a month. I dont know about his lighting but he uses a mixture of peatmoss, composted manure and pool filter sand as a substrate


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## deftones2015 (Dec 7, 2007)

ferchu22 said:


> Great! Nice spathe color!!
> Could you please share your culture info? Because mine is alive but has a poor (o slow) growth, I have it in common freshwater setup.


I have mine planted in a composted manure, sand and peat mixture. I use ro/di water because my tap water is extremely hard. I have a T5 strip light that goes across 3 tanks/humidity dome/trays. Lights are on 12 hrs a day. Near 100% humidity. I rarely fertilize or mess with the plants at all. I plant them and let them do their thing. I check once a week for health, and or spathes and sometimes it is less than that. I had the zukalii under a very low wattage spiral bulb for most of the time I have had it. It was I believe 15 watts. I just recently changed my set up, but it seems to like the light I have over it so far.


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## deftones2015 (Dec 7, 2007)

954baby said:


> Niiiiice! you grow indoors or outdoors?


I grow all my plants in doors. I did have them in my basement but with Ohio's winters, the basement gets rather cold, so I purchased a cheap rack to keep them in a warmer room.


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## deftones2015 (Dec 7, 2007)

Chuukus said:


> Mine also, I have had one leaf a month. I dont know about his lighting but he uses a mixture of peatmoss, composted manure and pool filter sand as a substrate


Yep  Hopefully the mixture works as well for you as it did for me. I put more sand and manure than peat though. I can't remember exact ratios because I just kind of threw it together  Something else to try that I did in the beginning is to put in half of a jobes root stick by the plant. I haven't done it since I first planted, but that may have helped them get a big boost in growing. Another thing to try is possibly fertilizer. Try going 1/4 of what they recommend but the manure should be sufficient source of nutrients. I also try to keep everything as stable as possible ex. heat, light, ferts or lack there of. The new black water crypts I received from G. Ghori seem to be very happy in a mix of the soil mixture and the beech tree you sent me  I already have new leaves on 1 of them.


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## Chuukus (Sep 24, 2009)

Do you test the ph of the water in your setups? Im using rodi also but lately the PPM has gone up to 10. Im catching rain water as we speak. I dont know if I should try to get the water down to 4 PH before I add it to my setup. I wonder if 10ppm is too much for blackwater crypts. Is your rodi water coming out at 0ppm?


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## deftones2015 (Dec 7, 2007)

My rodi is 0 ppm. G. Ghori uses, and I'm doing what he does,seachem acid buffer to get the ph down to 4 or 4.5 I forget what the strips read to that I bought. He also uses a mix of sand, aquasoil and leaf litter. The amounts vary from plant to plant. I can't say as of yet how my black water set up is doing. I have a new leaf on one of the plants, and the others seem fine, but it's too soon to tell.


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## Khamul1of9 (Oct 25, 2005)

Very nice spathe!!


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