# South Florida outdoor crypt set ups



## 954baby

I started out about a year ago with a few plants as an experiment to see how viable growing outdoors was. Here is my first setup. I simply used a styro-foam container that I got from a plant shipment. I had cut up gallon sized zip lock bags and used some wooden skewers to construct a top. I don't think I ever took pictures of the top and sadly it is no longer in commission due to the amount of weathering it took over the 1 year period. It was really sweet though.










I used aquasoil amazonia 2 and some pots I had got from the local home depot. I would change the water weekly or so because I never had any water movement from a pump. I fertilized with tropica fertilizer every 10 or so days and would mist them every so often. Overall I think this is the best way to grow because the styro-foam is great at insulating the water. Days can be very hot and nights can get a little chilly. I think the styrofoam is great for growing in extremes.

Slowly but surely I started to grow quite a collection. Here are some pics of what my set ups are looknig like. I got all of the nursery flats and domes from a local hydroponic store. They run around 10-15$ for the setup. I use hose water to fill the nursery flats and then I have been using fox farms grow big. It is a (3-2-6) hydroponic fertilizer that has 3 parts nitrogen, 2 parts phosphate, and 6 parts potassium. So far I am overall satisfied with the results but I think that down the road I want to learn more about each plants individual needs and try to make my own fertilizers to optimize each plants potential. But I will say that I have been getting colors out of my plants that I have never seen before.














































and my anubias collection










The large plant in the middle is A. Minima (1 year old), A. Gasser (1 year old, very rare) in the top right corner and bottom left corner and a few rhizomes in the bottom right corner have started to sprout some new plantlets, and then A. batari 'narrow leaf' in the top right.


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## 954baby

here are some pics of my crypts....

C. Wendtii 'tropica' This one is in eco complete because I ran out of aquasoil, it's growing great so far. There are about 7-10 plants in here, started with 1 about a year ago.









C. parva Had this growing submersed for a few months and decided to put them all emersed. There are about 10 pots and they are all adapting well to being emersed. Took about a month and there was plenty of melt.









C. albida This is one of my favorites =) looks so cool when it grows out. 









the leaves have turned a shade of brown with the fertilizer I have been using, look at the pics before the fertilizer to see the difference.










baby C. elliptica









same plant weeks later









some leaves from a C. undulata, sometimes they are brownish red and sometimes they look like this. I found this one @ a petsmart










some A. nana on some lava rock










C. pontederiifolia with some nice color










C. purpurea










C. wendtii 'green'??????? i'm not sure what this is










some non aquatic moss I found in my backyard










C. spiralis 'dwarf' , turned a nice color with the new fertilizer










every time I clip off a large leaf from my C. ciliata I would cut it fairly high on the stem below the leaf, leaving a large portion of that leaf structure still on the plant. After about 2 weeks time that remaining part of the leaf will melt off leaving behind one of these propagates (not sure if this is the right word). this is such a cool way of propagation because when they break free they can float away to start a new life away from the mother plant. I have cut my plant 3 times so far and each time it has produced one.










C. pontederiifolia??? ok I think i got this from texgal a long while back. It came with C. pontederiifolia and it basically a long root with a bunch of plantlets coming up from the root. I had it submersed for a long time and it never did anything so I switched it to emersed and after a few months it is growing but it looks nothing like pontederiifolia. Any ideas?










C. becketti 'wild collected' , such a cool plant. I am really happy I was able to get one and hope it makes plenty of babies










some C. undulata that i got a little bit ago is finally growing. It was dormant for over a few weeks with just 1 leaf.










I've been getting some white mold on some of my pots, any ideas what it is and what causes it?


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## maknwar

Very nice collection you have there. I am getting the same webby stuff and spots on my plants, hopefully someone can chime in and explain it. 

Do you keep them outside all the time?


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## ferchu22

Wow, very nice looking plants and nice pictures and explanation.
The "Wendtii green" seems to be more like a c. lucens, and maybe the c. pontederifolia for me is more like a c. x willisii or c. nevilii

Again, great plants!! I'll try this outdoor setup soon..

Regards


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## 954baby

Thanks for the kind words. They are kept outside on my screened in patio year round. We had temperatures as low as 30 the past 2 weeks so they were inside before it dropped below 65. I keep a very close eye on my weather channel app on my phone. When they come inside I have a 4 x 65 watt coralife light I put them under. They were loving that compact fluorescent light a little too much, I almost didn't put them back outside. The sun is pretty weak this time a year I am learning. Maybe next year I will make sure to keep them in during the months of november - april. I did notice very slow gains leading up to the cold front. 

Yea, I'd like to find out what that mold is. I've noticed it hangs around when the setup is very moist. If I open the vents at the top for a few days the mold seems to subside, or if it is particularly sunny out for a few days it will go away. When the plants were inside under the CF lights the mold was gone. I spent a weekend away from home and the lights were off for 2 days and when I returned the mold had kicked into high gear. So I hypothesize that the mold is triggered from high moisture and low sunlight and low temperatures.


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## ddavila06

thats an awesome looking collection you have! wow!!


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## 954baby

It's been about a year in the making but I finally got my first spathe!!!! C. albida

















I also had an intruder. I need to make sure that I pay closer attention because I had slacked for like a week and nearly missed a spathe and almost lost a lot of leaves. 

















And here is what my baby C. elliptica is looking like maybe 1-2 months old now









I don't know why but I really like challenges, I guess that's why I like crypts so much. I find that I like the crypts that I have to put more TLC into rather then the ones that grow like weeds. Here is my latest challenge, a little piece of rhizome of a C. Undulata


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## legomaniac89

_C. albida_ spathes are so elegant. Congrats!


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## 954baby

Yea I am pretty impressed by how good it looks. Is there anything I can do with it? I have a second one on its way, would I be able to save the pollen from this one and then pollinate the next one?


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Nice! Congrats on the spathe! Growth looks pretty good!


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## 954baby

Today was my lucky day. I spotted a few spaeths when I was doing some maintenance. It's nice when your hard work rewards you with a non flower looking like flower, lol.

First up, My C. pontederiifolia are all starting to send up a spaeth. I have like 5 pots and every pot has at least 1 crypt sending up a spaeth.

here is the nursery flat they are in.


































C. usteriana x walkeri










C. albida, 3rd spaeth in a month










with all of the spaeths coming it sent up a few plantlets as well










C. beckettii 'wild collected', finally got some plantlets










C. ciliata, this thing is a beast, it's getting HUGE!



















I started a new emersed setup on my book shelf, here are some pics


















The pics were taken from a cell phone so they are bad but how crazy is this field of hydrocootyle!!! I <3 hydrocootyle


































I'll post some more updates next week


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## ferchu22

Wow!!! Nice plants and nice pictures too!!!
This trays are outdoor all year? What happen in winter? What temperatures do you have in winter?

Again, great plants!!! Congrats!! :clap2:


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## 954baby

Thanks, Yea they stay outside almost year round. I live in south Florida where the average temperature right now is in the mid 70's. I had moved my setups inside for a few weeks when it was in the 30's but other then that I kept them outside on my screened in patio. I would just bring them close to the house and huddle them all together and put towels and heavy wool blankets over them. I figured out that the sun could heat up the water in the trays during the day and then right before the sun was completely down I would move them in and put the blankets on them. The water would maintain throughout the night and stay above 70 degrees. I monitored them and when I found the temps below 65 I would take them all in. Talk about a pain in the ass... I had a few setups that I used a styrofoam cooler and those worked great. I never had to move them because the styrofoam insulated the warm water perfectly, Just put towels over them and they were great.


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## niko

Hey nice!

Usually I don't get excited about emersed crypts because if they are healthy they are beautiful and that's all there is to say about them.

Here's a solution for the white webbing you get:

First of all that fine white stuff looking like cobwebs wrapped on the plants is fungus. The part that you see above the substrate is actually good - it tells you you got fungus on the plants. The part that you don't see is under the substrate - on the roots of the plants. That's the bad part because it can kill the plants.

I used to grow HC hydroponically. HC is a super fast growing plant and whenever it got the white fungus I'd see decrease in growth the very next day. I learned that very much the only problem with my hydroponic setup was exactly that fungus. Sometimes the white stuff doesn't show above the surface but if you dig you can see it under the substrate. It would always lead to the HC dying very quickly unless I got rid of the fungus somehow.

I guess Crypts don't react as fast to the fungus because you don't report deaths on the plants you find infested with the white stuff.

In any case - I found a surefire way to get rid of the fungus. No, it's not spraying with anti-fungal chemicals that every hydroponic store has in abundance. It's very simple, no extra expense, and actually I started to incorporate it as a prevention measure - before any fungus even showed up.

Simply drown the fungus. In my case I'd flood my trays (you call them flats) for 1 hour every day. I could do it every 3 days, it still works. What's important is to cover everything in the tray with water for some time. That's it.

With your setup it maybe hard to flood the tanks/boxes every day. But you get the idea. It works perfectly and I don't understand why the thousands of guys that love to grow "strawberries/peppers..." etc. hydroponically and keep those hydroponic stores in business seem to prefer spraying with chemicals. Maybe a question of convenience and getting lazy when you make good money growing them tasty "vegetables".

--Nikolay


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## rs79

My backyard has a part that is a wetland, and Hydrocotyle grows wild there. It smells rather distinctively when I run over it with the lawn tractor.


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## 954baby

Thanks Niko, that sounds like a good idea. Too bad I can't try this in my setups because the nursery flats can't hold water high enough for the substrate to be completely submersed. I did find that if I put some ecocomplete ontop of my substrate to act as a casing layer the fungus cannot grow up through the ecocomplete. I think this has an effect similar to vermiculite. I want to get some vermiculite and try that and see how that works. I've been working on keeping the humidity level down and thats been a major help. 

rs79: haha thats great. We get a lot of it down here in south Fla. I love it, such a shame that everyone views it as a weed. I wish my grass was just hydrocootyle.


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## 954baby

Updates! I think the end of winter is going to bring a lot of spaeths. I found a few new ones today.

C. Beckettii 'wild collected'


















C. moehlmannii










C. pontederiifolia










I got a spaeth coming for an unidentified crypt fianlly!


















Here is some Hydrocootyle that I started about a 6 months ago. They maybe had 15-20 nodes










I never knew that Hydrocootyle flowered!










Just a cut solo cup with some aquasoil in the bottom. I add water every other day










This was a styrofoam container I used to have some crypts in but I moved them and it just kinda sat there and collected rain water, A few months later it is fulllll of moss


















I've had this one setup for a while now, just showing off the lid I made for it










Heres a little peek of what is inside










I always appreciate the random weed that pops up, This one seems to have nice color from all the fertilizer










This is my 20 gallon long










Enjoy


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Looking pretty good!


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## phreeflow

Don't flame me for asking but...what's so great about spathes?? Just trying to learn is all. I see people raving over it all the time when someone is able to get their crypts to send one up but I just don't find them at all attractive. Looks kinda like a deformed leaf. Is it hard to do? Congrats by the way on all your crypts...one of the best posts I've seen yet on growing them emersed and I've learned quite a bit.

thanks!


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## 954baby

Thanks I appreciate it. I was inspired by others posting in the forum. I wouldn't exactly say crypts are hard to flower but I've gotten only a few in just over a year. You have to have patience and keep attentive to your plants. They require little attention for the most part. I find it rewarding to finally get to see the plant flower, a picture doesn't do it justice. From what I've been able to observe when your plant flowers it will keep sending up spaeths and the overall health of the plant is very good. A lot of runners pop up and there is good coloration. During this time you want to make sure you are fertilizing as well as leading up to that point. I usually add fertilizer to the water and I will mist maybe 2 times a week with a dilute mix of fets as well. As for the look of the spaeth, I find them pretty cool, they remind me of a snorkel. How they pop out of water and tilt a little sideways and have an opening at the top. I can't wait for my longicauada to spaeth.


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## 954baby

Updates

C. usteriana x walkeri










one month after the spaeth there are nine runners already










C. albida










C. albida gets a really nice color when the flower is mature










one month after the spaeth










C. moehlmannii










C. pontederiifolia










C. beckettii 'wild collected'










one month after the spaeth










C. wendtii 'tropica'



















roots gone wild










more updates coming this week


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## ferchu22

Wow!!! :shock:

Nice healthy plant and very nice pictures!!! What's your secret?


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Looking good!
That first plant tho, I think it's just C. usteriana, not C. usteriana x walkeri


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## 954baby

C. undulata spaeth










bought this as C. usteriana x walkeri, it may just be C. usteriana, any thoughts?










Finally got my Anubias minima to flower, first in over 2 years










I found this very random spaeth, this species is still unidentified, I always find melted spaeths, there are about 6 right now so hopefully I can get it identified










I've found all sorts of random things inside my humidity domes but this was a little odd considering the holes at the top are less then the diameter of a #2 pencil










C. beckettii side by side with C. wendtii 'tropica', which is which?? lol.










C. beckettii is on the left


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## deftones2015

Nice looking crypts. Do you leave them outside year round?


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## 954baby

Thanks!!! Yep all year round on my screened in patio unless it gets below 50 degrees F outside. I even was trying to keep them outside in temperatures near that. I got some very heavy blankets and Styrofoam and some other insulated coverings. Today it was 97 degrees F outside, I was a little worried that they would bake but they seemed to adapt to the high temp just fine. Today was the hottest it's been to date this year. I keep them in spots where they get direct sun for a few hours but spend most of the day in shade. Tomorrow I am going to monitor the water temperatures and I'll post the data.


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## rjfurbank

Wow! Awesome growth. Thanks for posting all the pictures of your plants and set up. That's really cool you can keep them outside on your patio.


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## deftones2015

That's amazing how wide of a temp. range they seem to be able to tolerate.


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## 954baby

C. Unknown, any ideas?


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## ferchu22

Hi: it's similar to one "cf. becketti" that I have and I've shown in this thread http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/cryptocorynes/65952-new-spathe-c-beckettii.html. I've got it from AquaticMagic as c. becketti, but apparently is a c. lucens (it's similar to a c.lucens that I have)or some wendtii or becketti hybrid.

Regards


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## 954baby

I've been really sick lately so I've been slacking on updates

C. usteriana , I am loving this color!










C. wendtii 'red'




























C. albida


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## Cvurb

Wow, I love the albida spathe! Looks awesome, I will have to get some from you some time!


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## MiamiAG

Hey,

Congratulations on growing such nice specimens!

For the most part, Cryptocoryne do grow very well emersed and in our South Florida weather. In my experience, controlling the sun was the biggest challenge. Certainly, the high humidity helps.

Be careful with pests. I had some crickets feast on a beautiful stand of C. wendtii.

For ID, I would highly recommend Jan Bastmeijer's the Crypts Pages. http://www.xs4all.nl/~crypts/Cryptocoryne/index.html


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## 954baby

Thanks! I've really been trying to learn as much as possible about crypts. I've been to Jan's site numerous times, it's such a great resource. I love looking through all the spaeths and seeing which ones I want next. I've been very luck to have a great backyard to grow in. My patio faces the west and is blocked from the east. I get direct sun from 10:30am-3-4pm, I have a lot of palm trees blocking the sun in certain areas so I place my humidity domes accordingly. It's so funny because I am constantly moving them around to the optimum spots it's like a bunch of gypsy camps.

I have so many types of bugs and all sorts of crazy looking things growing on my pots. I've had a lot of pests already, I've found a few frogs, caterpillars, and all sorts of microscopic bugs and random weeds. I want to try lady bugs.


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## Cvurb

Nice, I would love to find frogs in my things! Could you use tupperware for enclosures for the crypts?


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## 954baby

Haha yea the frogs were a surprise to find. I found a bunch of them right when they were all changing phases from tadpole to frog. I guess when they were small enough to fit through the holes in the top of the dome. Then they got stuck, good thing there was a lot of random bugs for them to eat. I found a bunch of spiders too. Spiders are cool to find because they are like the size of a needle point and they have these little webs up trying to catch some bugs, so funny. I'll see if I can get some pics one time.

Yea you can use just about anything as long as the sun can get in from the top. I use styrofoam, nursery flats, fish tanks, basically anything that will hold water that you want to use is fine. I'm working on putting some soda bottles in some windows and see how those work out. I'd love to put some tanks on my window sills, I want to see if they get enough sun to support plants first. When I get the first proto type up i'll post a pic.


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## 954baby

I did some water temperature analysis this week. The data is pretty shocking. I've seen a max of 100 in my high light areas while low light max at 86. I am going to see if placing styrofoam insulation under the setups reduces the temperatures. I logged good temperatures in my styrofoam setups and I think it's because they are insulated from the patios heat. I am really shocked that the temperatures can reach 100 and the plants do not show any negative affects from the heat. I haven't seen any melting or slow growth.

Here are some random pics.

I am pretty sure that the white discoloration on the leaves is caused by too much nitrogen, It was because I was neglecting that setup and failing to change the water.










This is my largest pot, It is mostly C. wendtii and C. unknown










I counted around a dozen spaeths right before the pic










C. wendtii 'Mi Oya' ..? I'll find out someday










Anubias Gasser










C. spiralis










C. lutea (new plant )










C. parva , I just got some new from the LFS (top) and the other pot is 8 months old and was started with just 1 plant.










C. pontederiifolia



















C. undulata










another C. unknown sending up a spaeth



















C. unknown spaeth, not sure if its the same plant as above, I think it is different










C. wendtii 'red'


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## ferchu22

What an insane growth!!! Your plants look realy healthy. Are you adding same fert that you mentioned before?
Regards


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## 954baby

Yep same ferts. Some fox farms 'grow big', a little mL of seachem trace, and a few mL of seachem excel. I don't know that the excel works in delivering CO2 but I find it cuts down on the algae that will grow. I don't treat the hose water I use to fill the containers.


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## Cvurb

Nice, my spathe opened on the C. unknown too lol, wish I had a name for it!


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## 954baby

Udates!










C. wendtii 'green gecko'



















HC is growing really fast this time of year, I put a 1" piece on this pot 3 weeks ago










C. undulata, C. longicauada, C. purpera, C. wendtii 'tropica' , HC










C. wendtii 'tropica'



















C. wendtii 'Mi Oya'










C. wendtii 'red'










C. unknown









I moved my C. spiralis and C. ciliata to a bigger tank


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## ferchu22

Hi! Great plants and pictures, as usual!!
Do you use anything to avoid fungus and mold? Are your setups entirely closed? Do you usually do some maintenance work with the plants/pots? 

Regards


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## 954baby

I haven't tried anything to avoid fungus besides manually removing it. I've been misting a lot lately and that seems to help. Soaking the pots that have it visible on the top layer really seems to make a difference. I've been meaning to try something else but lately i've had little time. Luckily the fungus seems to be under control. I did however try submerging some of the pots and this works great. 

In terms of maintenance I change the water in my setups weekly. Mostly I have nursery flats with humidity domes. I try to keep the humidity as low as possible in the domes because the outside humidity is so high anyways. In south Fla the humidity is like 70% all the time. I rinse them out with the hose and add a little over a gallon of hose water and add about 5mL of fertilizer and a few mL of Seachem excel. I find the excel keeps the green algae from forming. Every so often I will take each pot individually and remove debris/algae with the hose. I have one of those attachments that you turn and it can be either a beam of water or like mist, I put it in between and then blast each pot individually to remove all the excess. This works great because every so often the water gets green algae and without doing so it would just continue to grow. 

The daily average temperature is like 90 degrees here. I've had a lot of melt due to such high temperatures. I am learning a lot about the species I have and what they will tolerate. Next year I will be prepared because this year I was not. Luckily I think I only lost 2-3 species and everything else was fairly resilient. More updates to come in a few days. Thanks for looking.


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## 954baby

Updates!

New setup with a bunch of new crypts 










C. wendtii 'tropica' vs. C. wendtii 'bronze'


















C. albida










Some random crypts























































I think this is C. wendtii 'Mi Oya










C. wendtii 'tropica'



















I cut the bottom off and let it sit in water for a few weeks and plantlets form



















I consider this frog my new pet that I don't feed. He's been in this pot for over a month now.


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## WeedCali

WOW just amazing Crypt specimens! i really like you you just cut off some of the roots and plantlets form. i guess thats one advantage of using small pots.

sweet frog too!


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## 954baby

Some C. Wendtii leaves

C. wendtii 'green gecko'

















C. wendtii 'bronze'

















C. wendtii 'green'









C. wendtii 'tropica'









C. wendtii 'unknown'









C. wendtii 'unknown'

















C. wendtii 'red'









C. lucens vs. some C. unknown that is similar


















C. elliptica

























C. Spiralis









C. pontederiifolia is finally coming back from a bad summer melt









C. moehlmannii









C. ciliata

















C. undulata

















C. beckettii

















C. anubias 

































Experiment with soaking roots


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## ferchu22

Wow! I really like the good health of your plants!

Do you know how many temperature and humidity is inside the domes?
We're now starting the summer and I'm experimenting bad plants melt, I suppose becase of the high temperature (almost 30°C) and high humidity (near 99%), and some plants get boiled 

Regards


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## Cvurb

Nice plants. I especally love the "C. Anubias" haha  
Good healthy plants though!


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## 954baby

Been a long time, time for some updates. I had slacked a bit because my fertilizer ran out but I've been dosing a lot recently and the growth is steadily increasing. Enjoy =)


















































































I had a bad melt with my C. pontederiifolia but a few months of ferts and the right sun turned them around.

9/22/2010

















































Here is another drastic change, I started this around 9/22/2010


















I don't know what this is but I found it on a camping trip @ fish eating creek in Florida

















C. albida is flowering right now









C. usteriana flowered earlier in the month and is already sending up another one

















Some unknown C. wendtii 









Anubias minima









Some random Anubias
































Anubias 'Gasser'









HC is growing really well this time of year, this pot is about 2" above the rim 









Some moss I found growing on a palm tree


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Lookin hot!


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## 954baby

A few more spaeth's
C. usteriana









C. wendtii 









C. undulata (from florida aquatic)









C. wendtii 









C. wendtii


















C. wendtii 'bronze' (florida aquatic)









Echinodorus quadricostatus (broad leaf chain sword)









Anubias minima


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## Tex Gal

You are hopelessly hooked! Beautiful plants and flowers!


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## WeedCali

Got anymore pics of the Undulata? I have an unidentified Crypt that i think is an Undulata but im not quite sure.


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## 954baby

Unfortunately I took really bad pics of the spaeth but there is another one on the way. I'll post better pics with pics of the plants too. I have a lot of pots varying in sizes. Stay tuned.


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## WeedCali

Ill stay tuned


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## 954baby

Ok Weedcali, this is what the C. undulata looks like with a better pic. The plant has plenty of spaeth's so more to come, also I have about 10 pots so I'll be sure to take more pics of what the varying sizes look like.










































Random C. wendtii









































Thought this was C. wendtii 'tropica' but it resembles the C. wendtii 'bronze' from my last post.









C. zukalii

















C. spiralis Finally!!! had it since December 09'

















another C. usteriana this one plant has sent up an easy 15 spaeth's in the last 3 months









I believe this is regular Anubias 'nana' 

















Anubias 'gasser' 


















Random C. wendtii


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## XMX

Wow. Those are some very nice spaeth. Have you been able to get any seeds from the crypts? Do you know how to pollinate it?


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## 954baby

Never have gotten any yet, I'm hoping it will happen sometime. I have a lot of bugs flying around in my setups and usually multiple spaeths are open at the same time in the same setup. I want to try to always put any spaeths I ever get in the same setup to enhance my chances. Anyone know any good techniques to pollinate?


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## sketch804

those are some nice pix there! and i have to tell you Ive seen a lot of spaeth's and the c. spirals you have has the most amazing spaeth's I have ever seen! very nice great job!


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## chad320

Althought I have never treid with crypts, a small paintbrush works for pollenating alot of different plants for me.


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## 954baby

It's been a while, the summer months have been pretty harsh for my plants. Temps have been averaging in the mid 90's, finally starting to drop from the high 90's. I had measured water temps upwards of 100 degrees F. I've been keeping them 90% shade and direct sunlight is around 3-5 PM so the outside temp is in the mid 90's when they get direct sunlight. Most of my crypts tolerated the high temps, I had some bouts with melting and root death but with the worst of the heat over I they are starting to revive themselves.

Here are some of my setups: I change water ever 1-2 weeks and roughly add .5-1 gallons of water with ~5mL of hydroponic general purpose organic fertilizer 
29gallon tall with a lot of C. spirialis and Anubias, I have a 2 year old monster C. Ciliata mother plant also that has propagated roughly 50 plants and it's never sent up a spaeth

















The rest are nursery flats with humidity domes purchased from a hydroponic store usually cost is under 10$ and the pots are 3" net pots with coconut husk inserts that cost like 8-10$ for a pack of 20

To the right is C. wendtii 'bronze' a species from Florida Aquatic and to the left is C. wendtii 'tropica' I think they are the exact same species I have pics of spaeth's I can analyze to see if they are but I'm lazy  









This setup was accidently left open for a day or 2, It melted pretty good but it's making a come back. The humidity is so high here that the crypts survived pretty good, we run usually 80-90% on average here









I started out with about 5 C. pontederiifolia and now I have a forest

















C. ciliata and C. wendtii









C. wendtii 'green' or C. wendtii 'green gecko' I'm not really sure








Here is a spaeth









This is a big styrofoam cooler I got at K-Mart for like 15$, I find that styrofoam keeps the water temp down, I have a lot of my more fragile plants in here like my Anubias 'Gasser' (to the left) big C. ciliata and some other C. cordata and C. zukalii








C. ciliata finally sent up a spaeth, one of the plants from my mother plant.... this one is now a motherplant


















C. wendtii 'red' compared to a C. ciliata leaf, red's are starting to show pretty good this time of year

















Anubias 'Gasser' I think this is my favorite non Cryptocoryne I love the way it spreads out and provides that cover. One day I hope to make a really cool terrarium and utilize Anubias 'Gasser' in the midground 

































The remaining C. parva I have left, the heat wasn't nice to this species









This is all of my C. unknown, I really don't know what it is but I think its some sort of lucens x willisi









here is a spaeth









I'm not sure if there are 2 different species in here or just 2 different genes are expressed in the same sepcies, here is a leaf comparission










A 10 gallon with some C. wendtii and C. undulata









C. wendtii









A variety, C. ciliata, Anubias 'nana', C. wendtii

















C. wendtii...? 

























Anubias 'nana'









































Monster Anubias 'minima' I've had for almost 2 years, and other random crypts: lucens, undulata...









Random again, Anubias nana narrow leaf C. wendtii









Anubias nana narrow leaf









C. wendtii









C. undulata I have 2 species of this exact plant, one from APC member and the Florida Aquatic species. Both spaeth's look very similiar but the leaves look opposite, here is the Florida Aquatic

























Here is the C. undulata from an APC member, the leaves turn read underneath during the cooler months when they can get more direct sunlight

























I had a setup in a cooler get flooded and didn't notice for a few days so this plant spent a few days under water and it melted because it thought it had to adapt to underwater growth









No idea what this is, had it for 2 years now someone sold it to me as C. parva. At first it looked like the other C. parva but clearly this is not C. parva. No spaeth yet so no idea









I think this is some sort of C. cordata









I had this styrofoam cooler I was keeping some plants in years ago and somehow it filled with rain water and I just converted it to a swamp of java fern and moss


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## ferchu22

Hey man, I can keep on watching your post for months!!!! Your plants and setup look great!! You must have like a ton of plants there!!!
Are you using just that hidroponic fert or something else?
Regards,


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## WeedCali

I LOVE your pics man!!! Such healthy plants!

lol I have some C. Unknown I got from you last year and its going great for me! Underwater, it has bold, dark red center veining in the leaves.

Can't wait for the next roundup


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## WeedCali

Hello, I purchased some of that Unkown Crypt you have probably a year or so ago and Its doing really well. I saw the update to your photo thread and I'm really impressed with the growth of your plants! 

I was wondering if you have any runners of some species I'm interested in?

If so, My current list of species I would like is:
C. Albida
C. Elliptica
C. Parva
C. Purpurea
C. Spiralis (and any varieties, if any)
C. Becketti (any varieties as well  )
C. Moehlmannii
C. Undulata
C. Zukalli
C. Cordata

Not quite sure I want to buy all these at once since I am on a budget. I would like to know how much I would have to pay for 1 runner of any of these species? Let me know what you can do.

Thanks!


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## 954baby

Been really busy lately but here are some pics of that C. ciliata that flowered

















































































I can't believe after all this time I have finally done it, somehow I managed to indirectly pollinate a spaeth and a seed pod is forming. Cool thing is that I actually tried for this to happen. Any spaeth I had during the season I would place in this humidity dome. I also left the vents open and left fruit and other sorts of organic matter to attract whatever insects I could. At times I had swarms of insects inside that setup it was ridiculous. I'm glad it actually worked. I had so many spaeth's in there I have no idea what to expect. It is some sort of C. wendtii that is fruiting. If anyone has any experience with this please PM me or leave a comment on what I should do. Thanks =)


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## ferchu22

Nice Plants as usual, and what a georgous Ciliata! And congrats for the fruit!

I've bought once a lagenandra that came with a fruit. I just opened it and left the seeds in a little hole in the soil each (maybe covered it with some moss, I don't remember very well), and after some time (weeks?), I got some little plantlets, but I'm not an expert at all, so pleae wait for other comments.

Regards


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## 954baby

As promised here are some of my Anubias I have growing right now:

I purchased this plant back in December of 2008. I can guess that I've sold a good 25 plants off of this plant. Every few months I clip a few rhizomes off and Always keep it around this size. It's growing in eco complete I believe.









This pic is from 10/26/2010








Roughly 1 year later









11/23/2010









Roughly 11 months later









This Anubias minima was bought back in December 2008 and here is a pic from 11/23/2010









Here it is today, I've probably clipped 30 plants off it already since I've owned it

















Some other pics


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## 954baby

I found another fruit this one is on a C. becketti and it was blooming at the same time as C. spirialis that would be crazy if this mixed. I only had one spaeth from the C. becketti so I am unsure how it got pollinated unless it was from C. spirialis or unless its from another crypt that was blooming in another setup. Cant wait for the seeds. I still don't know what to do with them so any input or guidance would be greatly appreciated thanks =)


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## 954baby

Update: the fruit is starting to open up and within the next few days I imagine I should attempt to germinate the seeds, any ideas?

This is a fruit from a C. wendtii 

















Fruit from a C. becketti









Any information or where to find some would be greatly appreciated, thanks =)


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## 954baby

With the changing of the season I am starting to get some really nice color out of my plants. Here are some of the leaves of my C. wendtii plants.

C. wendtii 'tropica' aka C. wendtii 'bronze'

















C. wendtii 'green'

















C. wendtii 'mi oya'

















C. wendtii 'red'

















C. wendtii 'green gecko'

















C. wendtii 'red'

















C. wendtii 'red'

















C. wendtii 'tropica'

















C. wendtii, unsure of this identity but I know it's C. wendtii

















C. wendtii 'red'

















C. undulata

























C. lucens


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## 954baby

Update on the seeds: It's been almost 30 days and the seeds germinated quick. I think I got exactly 10 seeds from the C. wendtii plant. I ended up going with the method of placing the seeds directly on top of ADA aquasoil Amazonia II, I couldn't find much information on how to proceed but I did find a thread on illumbomb's blog and it pretty much showed to just place them ontop of the substrate. I planted one and I'm not exactly sure if it did in fact germinate but every seed that I put ontop of the aquasoil did germinate. I have a total of 9 plants out of 10 seeds so 90% success rate, not so bad.

1 Week after "planting" 11/14/11









2 weeks in, 11/22/11









3 weeks in, 11/29/11









While I was trimming yesterday I stumbled upon another fruit, this one is from a C. wendtii 'tropica'

Luckily I found it in close proximity to it opening up. This one yielded around the same amount of seeds, roughly 10 I forgot to count. I used the exact same method, placed them ontop of ADA Aquasoil Amazonia II. I "planted" them yesterday around 2:00 PM and when I checked them this morning some had already started to send out a green shoot.

A pic of the fruit









1 Day in, 11/29/11









The C. becketti fruit is still going strong. It hasn't seemed to change much in the past month. I check it every day eagerly awaiting the day it's open. The mother plant it is growing from is getting so big. I've heard the fruiting process is so demanding on the mother plant that it can stunt it's growth but not in this case. I made sure to fertilize it weekly and give it a good dose.

11/29/11

















Oh, and I found another fruit in the same pot as the first C. wendtii fruit. It's almost mature. I was so excited to have just 1 fruit but now I've found 4!! Such a cool feeling. I never thought I'd get any of my plants to fruit. I guess that's the advantage of growing outdoors. I can honestly say the plan to keep the vents open and attract bugs did in fact work. I can't wait for this upcoming season.

11/22/11









11/29/11


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## 954baby

Here are some other random pics: This stuff grows like wild fire! I never introduced it but somehow it is in everyone of my setups. 

















Some nice coloring on a C. wendtii 'green'









Anubias 'Gasser' leaves can get HUUUUGE!









Nice pot of C. wendtii with HC









The pot to the right has been planted for 1 week and the one to the left was freshly planted today. I'll post a pic the day after Christmas and see where they are at. Usually it takes 1 month to fill up the pot.








Some hydrocootle









My dog passed out in the grass


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## travisk

Love the c. albida, very nice setup, did something very similar to that over this past summer. Wish I would have took pictures. Even had the same pest problem. What did you do to get rid of them? They really tore up my c. lutea.


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## 954baby

Update on my seeds, the C. becketti finally opened up right around christmas.

















and the C. becketti plantlets









One of the pots of seeds started out great and then all of the sudden they kinda went downhill, so out of 10+ I am left with like 3 plantlets.

Anyways I spent the past month repotting a ton of plants with Amazonia new aquasoil. A lot of the plants are really doing well in the new substrate. I'll post some pics in the upcoming weeks. I think I'm going to get a lot of spaeths this upcoming season.

My first spaeth of the season, C. albida









More to come next week


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## 954baby

Been trying to get some pics up, been really busy lately. I'm starting to get some early season spaeth's already.

C. albida









C. becketti









I've been doing a ton of repotting, I bought 4 9L bags of Amazonia New and I have used 3 so far. I decided rather then split up some of my overgrown pots and dismantle the root systems I just put the overgrown pot into a much bigger pot. I trimmed the roots a little and then just put the whole plant into the middle of a big pot. Home Depot has the big clay pots for a few $ each. Here is a pot of C. wendtii 'green' 

















I got a few new domes and was finally able to dedicate one just to my anubias, well a small portion of my anubias, lol. 









HC is really growing strong right now, these pots take me about a month to grow


















Had a lot of trouble getting this C. ideii to grow hopefully the oak leaves around the base will help









My pot of Hydrocootle is really taking off









emersed java fern









I purchased 2 Anubias 'Gasser' plants from the forum about 2-3 years ago and I still have the mother plants. I've probably clipped 25 plants from them and over the years it's stunted the growth pretty good but I just checked and all that clipping has really put this plant into over drive. I counted 18 new sprouts off of just the 1 rhizome. I'm used to getting a few every 6 months but this time the plant means business. So hopefully in the next few months I'll have a good amount of A. 'Gasser' to share with everyone.









C. nevelli or at least I think. Really hoping to get a spaeth this year.


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## chad320

They all look really nice. I want to ask you about your ideii. I planted mine in a peat and soil mix and it did great. For some unknown reason I moved it into AS Malaya and its been doing terrible. Is yours in regular AS? How long has it been there? Ever tried any other substrate? I am thinking of doing an AS and peat mix but now im not so sure seeing yours in AS not doing so great either.


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## 954baby

Yea it was recently moved to amazonia new, from amazonia 2, its so so i need to put it into something better. I think its a blackwater crypt I don't know how to really care for them yet.


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## chad320

The blackwaters have done good for me in 1/3 peat, 1/3 soil, 1/3 AS. Thanks for your confirmation, im going to move mine tonight back into this mix.


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## 954baby

Yea I really need to get a blackwater setup going.


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## snook123

Are you buying your plants local? I'm up in palm beach county and can not find any good stores.


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## snook123

one more question, how much sun do they get.


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## 954baby

I surprisingly can't really find any good plants locally which is pretty lame considering the best nursery in the country is located maybe 3 miles down the road from my house. Most pet stores carry the easiest of the easy to grow in aquariums and they are less then healthy. There is an all fish emporium on McNab and University drive. They have a pretty good selection but are a little pricey. I know they used to take special orders but you have to speak with the manager and put a deposit down. Then, you can order pretty much anything from the Florida Aquatic website. http://www.floridaaquatic.com/

As far as my collection I got most of it from people in the for sale forum and a few of my C. wendtii species in local stores. All of my anubias came from the fish stores as well. I grow them outside on my screened in patio. They get semi direct sunlight from about 10am-4pm. Hard to really say how much light they get because the screen cuts down the intensity of the light. I place the humidity domes in areas of shade just outside the overhang. They stay in the shade for most of the day but a few times they get some intense light. Often I switch the areas they are to limit them from getting too much light. Hope that helps, if not send me a PM and I'll try to answer any questions you have.


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## snook123

Ok, thanks, i put a couple in the window to see how it does, but might set up a ten gallon on the porch. its funny how we live in the sstate with the most nurseries but no stores sell any good plants but the occasional "assorted" crypts and unknown stems swords and anubas.
By the way, your plants look great.
thanks again, Jimmy


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## 954baby

Thanks, really appreciate it. I never put any in my windows but I should try that out. Yea it's really lame that I can't find good plants. If I do get them from any fish stores the quality is usually poor and the prices are high. I had a connection to make custom orders but the management at the store is no longer taking custom orders, they said that they get what they get. I used to pay 1.99 for an anubias nana petite, now they sell the same plant for 8.99. I can get anubias nana for 6.99 and they are smaller then what I'd sell for 4-5$ and less quality. I have a number for a distributor that sells Florida Aquatic plants. I am going to contact them when I am ready to invest a few thousand, I am thinking about opening up an emersed nursery. My goal is to get plants to people at better quality and cheaper prices then what these plant sites are gauging people for.


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## WeedCali

I love your plants dude! Nice spathes! I use the same method of repotting for my Crypts too. I trim the bottom of the pot and just put it in the new pot and fill with soil. I added some mycorrhizae the last time I repotted a handful of crypts. Since I didnt disturb their roots, they took off!


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## 954baby

First spaeth after 2+ years, any idea's on what this species this could be? I guess it's a wendtii just based upon the look of the plant but I really have no idea.


























































Anubias 'Gasser' flower









C. undulata (species from Florida Aquatic)









C. becketti in a pot of C. wendtii 'Red', somehow this got mixed up in the pot and I didn't realize until it flowered

















**Update on the seeds, here is a pot of the C. becketti seeds, I think it was pollinated by C. spirialis

















Some of the C. wendtii seeds


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## Klaus07

Take a look at the at the spathe I thread I have posted on here. Its one of the minimas I got from you last Fall. I read elsewhere that you need to have more than one flowering at a time to pollinate and obtain seeds. Have you tried pollinating Anubias?

Klaus


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## WeedCali

Nice progress on the seeds!


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## XMX

How did you pollinate the flower? I can't seem to get any of mine to seed


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## Klaus07

I think I read in Jacobsens book on crypts that many crypts are pollinated by Drosophila (fruitflies), but you need two plants flowering a couple of days apart as female and male parts mature at different stages of the flowering. The flies get down inside the kettle and have a hard time finding their way out until the kettle collapses.


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## 954baby

oops double post


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## 954baby

^ I think there is some truth to this. When I had a lot of spaeths going there were an abundance of small flies in the humidity domes. I just looked up some places online to get some fruit fly cultures. I sent out a few emails and hopefully I can try this theory out. I'll keep you guys posted if I do go through with this.


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## 954baby

Pretty sure this is C. wendtii 'green gecko' I've checked a few sources and it's pretty close looking, also the size of the spaeth is relative, most wendtii species I have grow larger spaeth's

















C. undulata is blooming frequently right now









C. willisi x lucens, I have a few varieties of the same plant, some are taller with larger spaeth's and some are smaller with the same identical spaeth just smaller in size

















C. moehlmannii, I thought this was long gone in my collection. It looks almost identical to C. pontederiifolia but now that it flowered I can see the subtle differences between the 2 species. C. moehlmannii grows taller and has a more yellowish green shade to it.

















I got another spaeth from that unknown wendtii plant, It hasn't flowered in over 2 years but now has sent up 2 in the last 2 weeks and it has another immature spaeth on it's way. The spaeth has such a deep red color, easily one of the nicest of all of my wendtii species.









This is an unidentified species of C. wendtii 'red' or some variety of wendtii that has reddish coloring but remains fairly green. No matter how many times it sends up a flower it will never open fully, always looks like this.









If I hold it open it looks like this









More to come in the upcoming weeks, I have a few unknown species that are flowering soon.


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## 954baby

Unknown C. wendtii species
















































C. wendtii 'green gecko'

















C. undulata 'Florida Aquatic species'









C. wendtii

























A melted spaeth, thought it looked cool









C. pontenderiifolia is going to flower this year!!!









A pot of C. albida with HC 









Hydrocootle is flowering in my swamp/wetland tub

















3 C. becketti spaeth's ready to bloom, should be a cool pic if they all go at once
















I found some frog eggs in the pot, there is a family of frogs living inside the tank

















Here is a pic of the tank

















Some species of liverwort I found growing in a pot, been finding some weird stuff in my setups lately. No idea how it all gets in there.


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## WeedCali

Lookin good! I bought some of the unknown species of crypt from you a long time ago and the patch I have growing in my paludarium is sending out its first spathe.


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## 954baby

^Awesome glad to hear!!! Post some pics of your tank or link me to it if you already have a thread.


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## Klaus07

here is a Cryptocoryne undulata I got from you last November blooming in my emersed setup. Do you know which of your two types it is? It is the second of the crypts I got from you to bloom.


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## 954baby

That's the species that I got from a fish store and it's the one that Florida Aquatic sells. In the future if you have some room I have another species of undulata that you can try out. It's a lot harder to grow but when it blooms it's beautiful. The one thing I like about the Florida Aquatic species is that it multiplies really fast. The other species I have takes forever to send runners. They don't grow very tall and the leaves are very quick to melt. It's a very needy species where as this one is very hearty and grows nice and tall. Congrats on the spaeth, hope you have a good season.


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## WeedCali

Got a pic of that C. Unknown spathe forming HERE

The spathe I originally told you about never grew and is sitting in one of the oldest leaves. I think you can see it in the background of the pic too.


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## Grubs

Just bumping this thread up to the top because the plants and spathes are a wonder to behold!


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## DutchMuch

Really cool setup and journal thing


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