# Lego's 20g Crypt setup



## legomaniac89

I figured it's about time to share my addiction with APC. A while back, Crypt Fever hit me hard and I've never looked back.










The lighting is 3 60W 6700K compact flourescent bulbs (the twirly ones from Lowe's). For substrate, the common species are potted in a mix of spaghnum peat moss and Fertilome potting soil, and the blackwater species in Aquasoil.

C. wendtii x "Hybrid" - the one Lowcoaster used to sell









C. longicauda "Brown" - this melted down to nothing but came back strong









C. affinis (maybe?)









C. hudoroi - just look at that bullation!









I haven't got any spathes yet, but most of these have only been in here for a month or so, or just converted over from submersed growth.

The only non-Cryptocoryne plant in here is Limnophila sp. "Guinea Broadleaf", specifically because the Plantfinder says emersed growth hasn't succeeded yet. It's a weed for me! No flowers yet, but it grows like crazy.

So what do you think? Questions? Comments? Rude remarks?


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Looking hot! 4 months from now, you'll be lucky to be able to see the pots!


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## FarCanal

Beautiful, you've got some great looking growth happening there. Got some interesting looking mosses too. Affinis seems to be a plant that is lost here in Australia, it's on the list of plants we are supposed to have but no one seems to have any. Looking forward to watching this one progress ....


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## legomaniac89

Ghazanfar Ghori said:


> Looking hot! 4 months from now, you'll be lucky to be able to see the pots!


Haha that's exactly what I'm hoping for!



FarCanal said:


> Beautiful, you've got some great looking growth happening there. Got some interesting looking mosses too. Affinis seems to be a plant that is lost here in Australia, it's on the list of plants we are supposed to have but no one seems to have any. Looking forward to watching this one progress ....


Thanks! Those random mosses all sprouted out of the spaghnum peat I used. I had been using the Fertilome stuff, and not even spaghnum grew out of that. I tried a different brand and and least 4 kinds of mosses have popped up out of it.

True C. affinis is pretty uncommon around here too (it usually ends up being a C. wendtii var.). I got one of these with a bunch of C. wendtii's a while back and it's stayed quite small. Hopefully it'll throw a spathe up soon and we can get a positive ID.


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## ferchu22

Congrats! Good looking setup and healthy plants!


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## cah925

Very nice setup and fantastic looking plants. Do you keep a lid on for humidity control?


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## legomaniac89

ferchu22 said:


> Congrats! Good looking setup and healthy plants!


Thanks!



cah925 said:


> Very nice setup and fantastic looking plants. Do you keep a lid on for humidity control?


Thanks! I have a glass top on this thing with a notch cut out of the back for air circulation. The humidity stays around 70-80% all the time.


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## 954baby

niiiiice plants!


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## rs79

Inspirational! Thank you. There very very few photos of hudoroi existing - hint hint... keei, too.


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## legomaniac89

954baby said:


> niiiiice plants!


Thanks!



rs79 said:


> Inspirational! Thank you. There very very few photos of hudoroi existing - hint hint... keei, too.


Thanks rs! You're right, there isn't much info on C. hudoroi on the web. So far it seems to grow just fine in aquasoil like all the other species.


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## Tex Gal

Really pretty plants you have there!  I can see how you could get hooked on this!


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## legomaniac89

Thanks Tex Gal! Everyone told me that emersed setups were just as addictive as regular planted tanks, but I never believed that...until I set one up myself. I'm here to tell you, they are. Crypts are the coolest!


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## Yoong

Nice growth. I missed my crypt tank back home after seeing yours.


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## jARDINI

is that LIMNOPHILA SP. 'GUINEA BROAD-LEAF' growing on the left in the 3rd pic? very nice crypt collection! makes me want to try my hand at emersed growth


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## legomaniac89

Yoong said:


> Nice growth. I missed my crypt tank back home after seeing yours.


Thanks Yoong!



jARDINI said:


> is that LIMNOPHILA SP. 'GUINEA BROAD-LEAF' growing on the left in the 3rd pic? very nice crypt collection! makes me want to try my hand at emersed growth


Thanks! Yup, that's the Limno. It really doesn't look much different emersed than submersed, but it definitely grows faster.


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## legomaniac89

Well, due to a couple new shipment of crypts, I had no choice but to set up another tank for these things. It was painful, but I rose above it and powered through. Here's the result :biggrin:










From left to right: C. minima "Sumatra Besitang", C. bangkaensis "Bangka Giant", C. affinis "Tuebinsen BG Green", C. minima "Gasseri", C. x timahensis, C. cordata var. cordata.

All the other random plants are just in here till Halcyon (my 20 long scape) is resurrected.

Man, when I got into this hobby, I really had no idea that plants would take up so much of my life. Especially not one specific genus of plants, but man, I love these things


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## xximanoobxx

Where did you get the crypts??? I'm so jealous >.<


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## legomaniac89

Most of them came from Ghazanfar, but the C. minima "Sumatra Besitang" and C. cordata came from other members around the forums. I can't wait for these to grow up :biggrin:


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## rs79

I touched up the picture a bit. I can has hudoroi pics now?


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## legomaniac89

Just for you, rs 




























I've been having a gnat problem in the tank recently and I've been spraying the plants with a dilute insecticidal soap over the past few days, and some of them haven't really appreciated it. Several of them have developed yellow spots on the leaves because of it, so they aren't looking their greatest right now.


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## legomaniac89

*Re: Lego's 20g Crypt setup - C. minima spathe!*

My C. minima "Bukit Merah" has a spathe! It should open tomorrow hopefully.










This really surprised me because, A). the plant is still pretty small, as you can see. B). because I've only had it for a month and a half, and C). because no leaves have melted away on this one. With it being so small, I would expect the leaves to start dying off as it puts its effort into flowering.

Of course, I'll have lots of pics when it does open [smilie=b:


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Nice! That was quick!


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## JeffyFunk

legomaniac89 said:


> I've been having a gnat problem in the tank recently ...


Since you have an emersed setup w/ high humidity, why not try growing some carnivorous plants? I'm sure some Pinguicula (Butterworts), Drosera (Sundews) or Nepenthes (Tropical Pitcher Plants) would do well in those growing conditions and clear that gnat problem up right away. An excellent source for carnivorous plants is californiacarnivores.com (I've ordered pinguicula and cephalotus from them). Perhaps not the cheapest of places online, but certainly very helpful if you call them (Peter D'Amato, the owner of California Carnivores, wrote a nice book called "The Savage Garden" on cultivating carnivorous plants) and they have a *very* large selection of plants.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

JeffyFunk said:


> Since you have an emersed setup w/ high humidity, why not try growing some carnivorous plants? I'm sure some Pinguicula (Butterworts), Drosera (Sundews) or Nepenthes (Tropical Pitcher Plants) would do well in those growing conditions and clear that gnat problem up right away. An excellent source for carnivorous plants is californiacarnivores.com (I've ordered pinguicula and cephalotus from them). Perhaps not the cheapest of places online, but certainly very helpful if you call them (Peter D'Amato, the owner of California Carnivores, wrote a nice book called "The Savage Garden" on cultivating carnivorous plants) and they have a *very* large selection of plants.


D. capensis works well and fairly inexpensive. Its also very easy to propagate out. I've had some in my crypt setup and they do help a bit but don't eliminate the gnat problem, which I strongly suspect is due to the leaf compost. Next time I'm going to soak the leaf compost in water to kill off any eggs / larvae before using it.


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## legomaniac89

JeffyFunk said:


> Since you have an emersed setup w/ high humidity, why not try growing some carnivorous plants? I'm sure some Pinguicula (Butterworts), Drosera (Sundews) or Nepenthes (Tropical Pitcher Plants) would do well in those growing conditions and clear that gnat problem up right away. An excellent source for carnivorous plants is californiacarnivores.com (I've ordered pinguicula and cephalotus from them). Perhaps not the cheapest of places online, but certainly very helpful if you call them (Peter D'Amato, the owner of California Carnivores, wrote a nice book called "The Savage Garden" on cultivating carnivorous plants) and they have a *very* large selection of plants.


Actually, I already grow a few CP's. I have a mini-journal over on PTF: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/vivarium-terrarium/89699-legos-10g-carnivorous-plants-terrarium.html. And The Savage Garden is one of my favorite reads out there. I love that book!

And there it is [smilie=b:

[IMG]http://i691.photobucket.com/albums/vv275/legomaniac89/P1060984.jpg?t=1258155330[/IMG]










If I had the tools and a nice macro lens, I'd cut apart the spathe to show the male and female flowers, but I don't have either. I'll wait for a C. wendtii or something with a bigger spathe to try that.


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## plantluver

You've been holding out on me. If I drive when we go to the club meetings I'm gonna charge you in Crypts.


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## cam191919

wow that looks awesome


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Nice! It'll probably keep doing this for the next few of weeks. Don't forget to give it some ferts!


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## legomaniac89

Thanks guys! Now it looks like my _C. moehlmannii_ is putting up a spathe too. I had to use my flash to get a good pic so it looks kinda weird, but it's definitely darker than the rest of the plant.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

You're doing something right! They lov you!


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## legomaniac89

Thanks Ghazanfar!

The C. moehlmannii spathe is taking its sweet time to open, so here's a couple pics to tide me over till then.

In other C. moehlmannii news, the new leaf is HUGE! That's a dime for reference. This is bigger than my C. ciliata, even.










Guess what? I got my first C. hudoroi runner! I already have a wait list of 5 people for this plant


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Yeah, C. moehlmanni gets really large leaves. Keep doing what you're doing!


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## Chris Noto

Nice work. The fact that you're getting plenty of good, clean growth, runners, and spathes is the best possible feedback. Thanks for sharing the pics.


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## legomaniac89

Thanks guys! I'm not really doing anything special to these things, I just kinda let them do their own thing and they're going crazy for me.

Well as the spathe got taller and taller, I started to doubt more and more whether it was truly _C. moehlmannii_. Here's the spathe a day prior to opening:










When it opened, it definitely confirmed my suspicions. This is a _C. pontderiifolia_ for sure. Here it is :biggrin:



















This spathe is quite a bit bigger than the _C. minima _spathe I had a while back. Actually, it makes the minima spathe look like a munchkin. The spathe is about 2.5" from top to bottom, while the minima was barely 1" tall.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Dang it - did I send you the wrong plant?! Nice spathe tho!


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## legomaniac89

Ghazanfar Ghori said:


> Dang it - did I send you the wrong plant?! Nice spathe tho!


Haha no, this is one I got from FAN . I bought it as C. moehlmannii, but I know that FAN grows both species, so I'm not really surprised that it got mixed up. The ones you sent me are in the next pot over and growing like mad.


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## legomaniac89

That _C. pontederiifolia_ shot up another spathe almost overnight. As I was taking pics, I noticed what might be yet another spathe just starting to develop on the other side of the plant. This thing is prolific!


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## looking4roselines

what type of substrate is the moehlmannii and hudori grown in? it doesnt look like aquasoil.


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## legomaniac89

The hudoroi is in straight aquasoil, but this pontederiifolia is in about 50-50 spaghnum peat/potting soil. I have a couple more pontederiifolias that are in aquasoil, but they haven't flowered yet.


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## looking4roselines

I am really impressed with the growth and health of your crypts. Do you do foliar feeding or use root tabs?


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## legomaniac89

I do use Jobes root tabs about once a month and usually mist everything about once a week with a dilute Monty's fert solution. I'm not sure if the foliar misting helps at all, but I like to think it does


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## legomaniac89

Since that C. pontederiifolia has been flowering freely for the past couple months, I finally got brave and sliced open the most recent spathe.










Pardon the quality. It's the best my 18-55mm lens will give me


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## legomaniac89

One new spathe every 10 days. That's how much that C. pontederiifolia has been blooming lately. The poor thing is exhausting itself, so I sliced the new spathe off before it could open. Since my last pic of the inside of the spathe was so bad, I tried again with much better results.


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## Tuiflies

Very cool. I wish I had room for another tank!


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## legomaniac89

Lots of new spathes are popping up all over the place. I hadn't even noticed this one coming up. I opened up one of my tanks and the first thing I notice was the smell of death. That's the first sign of an open spathe.

Here's the second sign:










This is one of my _C. wendtii x "Hybrid"_ plants. It's been growing really well for the past few months. Notice the really long limb on the spathe. It's taller than most I've seen before










As a bonus, my _C. beckettii_ is sending up two spathes also. You can't see the second one in this pic. This one should open in a day or two










My second _C. wendtii x "Hybrid"_ in a separate tank also has two immature spathes on it. Those should open in a few days.


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## rjfurbank

Very cool--thanks for posting the pics. I've recently set up a tank for emersed crypts and am hoping to see some spathes in person some day. . .


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## looking4roselines

Do they really stink that bad? I took a sniff at the c. usterenia spath but I cant really smell anything.

I think this stench is used to attract beetles in the wild for pollination?


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## legomaniac89

Thanks rjvurbank! Crypts are quite addicting when you really get them growing.

Roselines - Every spathe has a different smell. IME _C. wendtii_ is one of the stronger smelling ones, but some don't have much smell at all. From what I understand, the smell attracts a fly into the spathe, and then it can't get back out due to the valve closing. It gets coated in pollen while trying to find a way out, then the valve opens back up again, and the fly visits other crypts, completing pollination.

Or something like that. I haven't read up on it for a while


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## Chris Noto

Nice stuff, Lego! Thanks for continuing to update this thread.


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## legomaniac89

Well my _C. beckettii_ bloomed today, and when I saw the spathe I was...well...a bit disappointed. This isn't a _C. beckettii_ at all. It's another _C. wendtii _morph.










It's weird though, this plant has really long petioles and relatively short leaves (for a wendtii). Most of my _C. wendtii_ morphs develop short petioles and very long broad leaves, but this one's different for some reason.










It's a cool plant regardless. I'll have lots of this one to share later on this year.

I also have at least 4 more _C. wendtii x "Hybrid"_ spathes on the way, from 3 different plants


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

On a roll I see!


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## grak70

Maybe it's a bit like admiring the picture frame of a great work of art, but can you post some details on the various beautiful mosses I see in your set up? Were these just tag alongs or did you culture them too? Have you identified them and do they require any special care?

I would love to start something like this if you've got any spares, crypts and mosses!


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## legomaniac89

Thanks guys!

grak - all the mosses in here are just tag-alongs that popped up by themselves. I ran out of spaghnum peat and while back and bought some off-brand stuff and it was chock-full of different mosses. I'm not sure of the species on any of them, but they grow without problem. I've had to thin a couple of them out because they were overgrowing the crypts


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## legomaniac89

The unknown _C. wendtii_ morph popped two more spathes up. This time I have my new macro lens to get some nice shots of the flowers inside the spathe.










The dark color stops abruptly in the throat of the spathe










The inside of the tube and the kettle have no color whatsoever.










Male Flower










Female flower


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## legomaniac89

I got a spathe from my _C. wendtii "Tropica"_ today. I didn't bother to take a shot of the spathe on the plant since it looks just like every other _C. wendtii_ spathe out there.

Male flower w/ valve










Female flower










I got more flowers from my _Lindernia parviflora "Variegated" _too










I have a spathe coming up on my _C. usteriana x walkeri_ too. It's still a few days away from opening though.


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## 954baby

I've had a bunch of varieties of C. wendtii for over a year and no spaeths =( luckyyy!!!


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## legomaniac89

*Re: Lego's 20g Crypt setup - C. usteriana x walkeri spathe*

The spathe on my C. usteriana x walkeri opened up today. This is a pretty impressive spathe. It's almost 5" long from top to bottom










The limb has a nice texture to it










The yellow color fades quickly to brown then to white in the tube










Male Flower (notice the awesome pattern on the outside of the kettle)










Female Flower


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Good stuf, and great pix!


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## Chris Noto

I've got to follow Ghazanfar on this one. You are doing a fabulous job, both in the growing and the photography. Many thanks for posting your work.


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## joshvito

legomaniac89, can you share photos and a descripton of your setup? Do you move the water or heat it in any way? What is the average temp, etc?


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## legomaniac89

Wow, it's been forever since I updated this thing. Josh - my setups are just like everyone else's. I don't move the water at all or heat it, but the room it's in is fairly warm so the water stays about 78-80 degrees.

I got a spathe out of my _C. minima "Sumatra Besitang"_ a couple weeks ago. This was a pretty cool one




























I have a spathe forming on my _C. x purpurea_ too. That'll probably open in a week or so

And while I'm on the subject of Aroids, I recently got a spathe from emersed my _Anubias barteri var. nana "Golden"_










That's all for now.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

nice job on the minima! Man, everyone seems to be getting that one to flower but me! Its one of my favorite crypts - look at that leaf! Beautiful spathe too!


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## WeedCali

love the spathes! cant wait til i start getting some from my plants.


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## rjfurbank

Awesome pics! Thanks for sharing.

All the recent activity on the crypt forum here has gotten me re-energized on my emersed crypt set up -- thanks everyone!

-Roy


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## ddavila06

looks great! the leaf patter is really pretty, do you have a pic of the whole plant-whole setup??


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## Chuukus

I cant wait to see the X purpurea spathe!


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## legomaniac89

Thanks guys! Here's a couple pics of the whole setup



















And here's the _C. minima_ that flowered, and it's pretty much exploding from the pot. Anyone want to do some trading?










You can see another spathe forming if you look closely


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## legomaniac89

So close


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## Chuukus

Awesome! Thats a healthy looking crypt.


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## Axelrodi202

Awesome setup man! I see you have that green cyanobacteria smelling slime too. What's the moss I see growing in some of the pots?


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## HeyPK

That's not cyanobacteria. Just regular green algae. Cyanobacteria would be blue-green and would hold together better.


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## Axelrodi202

Interesting. In my emersed setup, the stuff grows on the lower parts of the glass and the substrate and smells like a weaker version cyano. Good to here it's not. But I thought emersed tanks were supposed to be algae free!


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## HeyPK

Here's a picture of cyanobacteria getting started in one of my tanks. This is about its greatest extent. The ramshorn snails finally ate it down until it could no longer be seen. It forms films. The individual long, hair-like strands can move.


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## legomaniac89

Thanks guys! I'm not sure what kind of algae that is, but it has the consistency of jello. I usually try to wipe it down before I take pics, but I got lazy.

Axelrodi - that's just regular sphagnum moss. I bought an off-brand bag of sphagnum peat a while back and all kinds of random mosses popped out of it.


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## Axelrodi202

Mine has that icky jello consistency too. I hate how it's all in the substrate and difficult to get out. 

I have a question for you lego. Does the amount of space available to a Crypt's roots have a heavy effect on its size? I have a small 3 gallon emersed tank, and any crypts grown in it are never anymore than 4 inches wide.


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## legomaniac89

If the roots are confined to a very small space (say, a few square inches), then the overall size of the plant would definitely be affected. However, I use standard 3.5" pots for all my Crypts and I've never had any problems with them reaching full size.

How long have you had the tank up? Some Crypts can take months to put on any significant growth.


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## Axelrodi202

I've had the tank for over a year, but the crypts were put in almost a year ago. There are a lot of other plants in there too, so maybe it has to do with competition for space? I've sold off the crypts anyway, just the regular C. wendtii and C. willissii x lucens. I do hope to grow C. wendtii 'Florida Sunset'.


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## legomaniac89

Ladies and gentlemen..._Cryptocoryne x purpurea_



















Inside the kettle










Male flowers










Female flowers










This spathe took just over a month to fully develop, which is my longest to date.


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## Daniil

excellent collection


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## joshvito

Once you get the Spathe, do you plant the seeds?


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## Ghazanfar Ghori

Congrats! Nice pictures - the colors on the spathe are awesome arent they? A rich coppery rusty color.


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## legomaniac89

Thanks guys!

Josh - in order to get seeds, you need two flowers of the same species blooming simultaneously and they need to be successfully pollinated, yada yada yada. I've never actually gotten any seeds from my Crypts, but I don't think I'm that patient 

Ghazanfar - Thanks! This one was definitely worth the wait. I noticed the smell was different from the other species too, kind of a pungent sweet smell crossed with 2-day-old roadkill....or something gnarly like that.


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## Chuukus

Lego, Do you keep C. hudori and C. affins in the same tank or do you have a sperate blackwater tank? 

Do you measure humidity inside your setups? What is your opinion, Do you think the plants are better kept in 100% humidity or do you think the plants would be better off in lower, say 85% humidity?


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## ferchu22

Nice spathe and pics, Lego!!


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## legomaniac89

Chuukus said:


> Lego, Do you keep C. hudori and C. affins in the same tank or do you have a sperate blackwater tank?
> 
> Do you measure humidity inside your setups? What is your opinion, Do you think the plants are better kept in 100% humidity or do you think the plants would be better off in lower, say 85% humidity?


For some reason, I lost the _C. affinis_ a while back. Not sure why, but it just up and died on me. The _C. hudoroi_ is in the same tank as the rest though and is doing pretty well, but it is a sloooooowwwwww grower. Seriously, my emersed _Anubias_ grow faster.

I keep the humidity pretty high because there is always lots of condensation on the glass, but I don't usually measure it. IME, if you keep the plants at 100% humidity all the time, they tend to develop submersed leaves that melt if they touch anything. It seems like anywhere from 70-90% works well.



ferchu22 said:


> Nice spathe and pics, Lego!!


Thanks Fernando!


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## legomaniac89

A couple quick shots...I got a spathe on my _C. ideii_ a while back, but the spathe shattered (literally) when I cut it off the plant, but I was able to get an in-the-kettle shot of the flowers.










I also have a spathe forming on my _C. sp. "JP0501"_. I'm pretty excited about this one


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## Franco

Are you going to try crossing if you have two plants open up at the same time? You could make some bucks if you came up with a new cross to sell in the swap n shop.


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## ferchu22

Great, congrats!
I also have my JP0501 coming back from death, I hope it will survive.


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## legomaniac89

There she is: _Cryptocoryne sp. "JP0501"_





































This plant looks so much like _Cryptocoryne scurillis_ that it hurts. The only difference I can see is that the styles are much shorter than the pics of _C. scurillis_ on Jan's website. I wouldn't be surprised if this plant is eventually discovered to be a different locality of _C. scurillis_.


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## WeedCali

wow really neat spathe! never heard of that species before


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## ferchu22

Nice spathe and pics!!


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## WeedCali

So any recent FTS?


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## legomaniac89

Sure thing


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## Crypto Russia

Nice set up, please advise the name of the blossoming big plant with wide leaves.


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## WeedCali

Is the wide-leaved one a Usteriana? Looks great!

Oh, and is this a 20long?


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## legomaniac89

Yep, the big one towards the back is _C. usteriana_. If you look closely, you can see a spathe forming on that one. The other bigger one in the middle is _C. cordata "Rosanervig"_.

WeedCali - Yes, this is a normal 20 long. I wish I had a 40 Breeder for these, but I have no more room for tanks


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## looking4roselines

That rosanervig looks hot!


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## legomaniac89

It is! It's slowly losing the pink veining though for some reason. I guess it doesn't like my setup as much as yours


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## WeedCali

lol try growing in a 20tall. im all out of room in mine. guess i gotta just play the wait-for-a-spathe game now 

Come to think of it, Petco's having the sale so i could get a 20long for 20 bucks...


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## Crypto Russia

legomaniac89 said:


> Yep, the big one towards the back is _C. usteriana_. If you look closely, you can see a spathe forming on that one.


Never tried to keep it emersed  Submersed it is much bigger:


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## legomaniac89

WeedCali said:


> lol try growing in a 20tall. im all out of room in mine. guess i gotta just play the wait-for-a-spathe game now
> 
> Come to think of it, Petco's having the sale so i could get a 20long for 20 bucks...


Or even better, a 40 Breeder for 40 bucks 



Crypto Russia said:


> Never tried to keep it emersed  Submersed it is much bigger:
> View attachment 13556


No kidding. I have a submersed mother plant that's over 3 feet from end to end. The one in my emersed tank came from that one.


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## Crypto Russia

legomaniac89 said:


> Yep, the big one towards the back is _C. usteriana_. If you look closely, you can see a spathe forming on that one.


Please advise what substrate do use to have it blossoming emersed? As far as I know they like limestone substrate? Do you use distilled water? pH?


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## legomaniac89

I have it in Fertilome potting soil. It's a sphagnum peat derived soil with a bit of limestone, perlite and vermiculite mixed in. That stuff grows plants bigger, faster than any other commercial soil I've tried (and I've tried em all ). I use pure R/O water with a bit of Seachem's Acid Buffer added to get the pH down to around 5.


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## WeedCali

Where do you get that Fertilome soil?


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## Crypto Russia

legomaniac89 said:


> I have it in Fertilome potting soil...


Thank you very much! It is very useful! I will try (we do not have that exact soil but I will try with same mix)!


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## legomaniac89

WeedCali - I can get the soil at my work (I work at a pet and garden supply store). I actually haven't seen it anywhere else other than online. Too bad, cause it's really the best stuff I've ever used.

My _Cryptocoryne usteriana_ bloomed today! This is another that's bloomed for the first time for me.










My _C. xpurpurea nothovar. purpurea_ also rebloomed for me at the same time.










_C. usteriana_ in the back, _C. xpurpurea_ in the front (ignore the nasty slimy algae )










Inside the _C. usteriana_ kettle










If you look closely at the male flowers, you can see the drops of pollen seeping out of them.










And since I had my camera out, here's a shot of the _C. xpurpurea_ kettle as well.


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## legomaniac89

Next on the list: _Cryptocoryne bangkaensis "Bast 852"_










In the kettle










The speckled pattern extends down from the collar through the tube and into the kettle.


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## legomaniac89

I was hoping this would bloom at the same time as the "Bast 852", but it ended up a couple days late to the party. This is _Cryptocoryne bangkaensis "Bangka Giant"_.










I didn't bother cutting this one open because I'm sure it looks identical to the last _C. bangkaensis_ spathe.


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## ferchu22

Nice Spathes lego! What kind of soil are you using for them?
I hope my bangkaensis will recover soon... 

Regards


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## chad320

Adam, we need to do some trading  I hadnt looked at your page for awhile and am amazed at every page! Great job with this setup.


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## legomaniac89

ferchu22 said:


> Nice Spathes lego! What kind of soil are you using for them?
> I hope my bangkaensis will recover soon...
> 
> Regards


Thanks! The majority are in a custom mix I make up. 60% Canadium Black Spaghnum Peat, 25% Ultimate Potting Mix, 10% perlite, 5% vermiculite and a pinch of Kelp Meal for some starting fertilizers. It's cheap and it grows Crypts better than any commercial soil I've tried.



chad320 said:


> Adam, we need to do some trading  I hadnt looked at your page for awhile and am amazed at every page! Great job with this setup.


Thanks Chad! Hope you enjoy the new plants!

I've noticed a few of my Crypts have been growing very strangely lately. The new leaves grow up normally, but as they open up, the petioles twist and the leaf cups slightly and end up upside-down, and the roots are very short. After doing some research, it looks like a calcium deficiency, which I thought was a little odd for Crypts since most of them come from obnoxiously soft water naturally. But regardless, I've been adding some of my liquid rock tap water to the tank and it seems to be working so far. I'll keep the progress updated.


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## 954baby

Plants are looking amazing! How long have you been into crypts?


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## chad320

Adam, I have been testing a clay to supplement crypts for this reason. It seems to work great for the ones that like limestone. If we trade again ill get you some to test for free


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## legomaniac89

954baby said:


> Plants are looking amazing! How long have you been into crypts?


Thanks! I've been addicted for 3-4 years now. I only got into the blackwater species about a year ago.



chad320 said:


> Adam, I have been testing a clay to supplement crypts for this reason. It seems to work great for the ones that like limestone. If we trade again ill get you some to test for free


Awesome, sounds like a plan. I've only been adding calcium for a couple weeks now, but it seems to have helped a little bit. Apparently the fertilizer I normally use has every nutrient needed by plants except for calcium. Figure that one out.


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## legomaniac89

_Cryptocoryne cordata "Rosanervig"_


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