# Rescuing my C. Aponogetifolia



## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

One of my C. Aponogetifolia that I received from Roland at GreenChapter (great guy btw) is shrinking. The larger leaves dropped and now the entire plant is about 1". How should I best rescue this plant? Should I move it to a different location in the aquarium that gets more light (right now is slightly shaded)? Will the move kill it? Or should I just plant it in a totally different substrate? Right now I'm only using normal gravel in my aquarium.


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## Purrbox (Jun 1, 2006)

Sounds like Crypt melt which is pretty common when a Crypt gets moved or water parameters change, both of which happened in your situation by putting it in a new tank. Just leave it alone and give it some time to get used to its new surroundings and it should spring back.


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## Purrbox (Jun 1, 2006)

One other thing that you can do to help it out is to put a root tab under it. This can help prevent Crypt melt when moving them too.


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

I have no experience with submerged C. aponogetifolia, beacause I have a soft water in my city, so I only can keep them emersed, and without Ca and Mg leaves grow up quite little.



















Anyway, providing a good soil with clay and a water with Ca & Mg they should be ok.


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## ragn4rok (Jan 23, 2005)

Mine reaches 3+ft in length. 









It's a very rare event to see my C. aponogetifolia flowering in submersed condition.


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

Really huge plant!!!

What kind of water do you Keep them?? and soil??


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## ragn4rok (Jan 23, 2005)

water parameter : NO3 25; pH 7; gH 7; kH 4; natural sunlight
substrate : silica sand + JBL AquaBasis Plus
fert : bought some PMDD root tablet from LFS. I don't know the formula, but it works.  My C. aponogetifolia suddenly grow its inflorescence after 2 weeks.

Here's the picture of my PMDD root tablet


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## JJman (Jul 13, 2006)

Wow.. those pictures are awesome! Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I took the plant out and re-planted in a mixture of clay/sand/peat. Hope it will recover. Do I need to add any fertlizers to my substrate mixture?


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

_C. aponogetifolia _should be established in a low nitrogen environment with moderate, but not high light and plenty of room for the plant. Nitrogen should be added sparingly until the plant has one or more runners. Nitrogen levels should be below 1 ppm---basically not measurable with hobbyist test kits.


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## Axeru (Apr 11, 2006)

this is one of the giantplants, that my freind pulled out of his tank...


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## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

I've been looking for that crypt for years!


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## rodmarquezjr (Jul 16, 2006)

Cryptocoryne aponogetifolia is native here in the Philippines. Too much N makes the leaves melt. It seems to like hard water better than soft water. Plants fresh from growers have a red tinge to the leaves and petioles and new leaves are almost red but all leaves grown in the aquarium are just plain green. It doesn't take very kindly to being disturbed. Nowadays, I just grow it emerse as the leaves can get very long underwater.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

Paul, I grew APO with a steady 15-30 ppm nitrate for years. I dont think it cares what the nitrates are, just that they're stable at that level. Just one more data point. They do seem to prefer hard water.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

I had it growing very well once on a low nitrogen diet. All these plants came from one plant.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

Sure, I'm sure they do. They just get bigger if they have more to eat.


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