# growing crypts in tanks where substrate is always displaced



## anubias6439 (Sep 7, 2010)

A month ago, i recieved a freebie cryptocoryne wendtii"green" pot from the lfs. I did not have any room in my two planted tanks so i put the plant, still in the little plastic pot, in the loach tank. This tank strictly has a fine sand bottom. I only have some floating hornwort and a couple of anubias tied to some wood in this tank. The loaches arent punching any holes into the leaves of the crypt and its actually putting out some nice bright lime green leaves with some nice brown veining. Aside from that, i moved the little pot today to clean under it and noticed that there were several new white roots growing out the bottom. they are close to 6 inches long. I dont really think it would be optimal to keep it in the little plastic pot long term. It would also not be optimal to plant it straight into the sand. The loaches are always digging in the sand and the powerhead tends to displace quite a bit of sand. What to do?
I was thinking of using a standard 4 in. clay pot with a mix of sand and flourite. This would still be quite shallow though. On the other hand, i believe the lip on a clay pot would keep the strong corrent from disturbing the substrate inside. I would still have to be concerned about the loaches digging it, but oh well. I know people use pots in emmersed setups. any ideas


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## Speaker73 (May 16, 2010)

Sounds good to me. I would put some root tabs in the substrate to help the crypts since they are heavy root feeders.


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## illustrator (Jul 18, 2010)

I have crypts in my aquarium in normal clay flower pots (9 cm diameter, about 10 cm high). Growing fine (with some differences between species/varieties). 

I had a similar problem with crypts in an aquarium with golfish and solved it by planting them in course gravel (0.5-2 cm, taken from a nearby stream). The goldfish deposited sand on top which of course sinks between the gravel. the roots are undesturbed. Growth is OK (again dependent on the variety: wendtii green seems to keep giving problems here). About 1/3 ofthe aquarium has gravel/Crypts and the rest has sand for the goldfish. Nice detail is that goldfish don't eat Crypts. 

I grow wendtii successfully in only 2 cm of gravel, so you could use a very small dish or so. 

Crypts from the lfs are usually grown in-vitro and what you get is a tight tangle of plants in several sizes. They do much better when you tear all apart (they are connected with a tangle or rhizome and roots) and plant each ones separately, 1-3 cam away from others so that you end with a small stand of crypts and not a tight bundle from a shop. Don't worry about damaging plants when tearing them apart: in this stage the rhizomes have a lot of spare nutrients and they quickly regrow, even if the circumstances are very poor. Long term growth is only going well in reasonable circumstances of course ... 

Once planted: leave them alone for at least 2 months to see how they adjust. You can replant crypts several times a year without too much damage, but they cannot stand frequent replanting because they need to grow a very extensive root-network to do well in the long term.


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