Planting Crypts

bradlgt21

bradlgt21

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May 9, 2009
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Chicagoland, Illinois
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Brad
I have been having a problem with my crypts. I believe the species is Spiralis it can be seen in my album picture the tall crypt in the back right corner. It keeps loosing it's leaves and used to be so pretty as seen in the picture. It only has about 2 leaves now and they keep dying. I took it out and tried floating it in my shrimp tank giving it more light and a good cleaning. Now that the roots are exposed I can see what looks like a Rhizome on a anubius. Do cypts actually have rhizome's and am I killing it by burrying the rhizome. How do you plant crypts? Rhizome above substrate or is it not really a rhizome and can be burried?
 
Are you sure its a crypt? It almost looks like some sort of echinodorus or aponogetan. or val
if it is a crypt then leaving it in the substrate would have been the best option. A possible explanation for its leaves dying would be a change in the water, or a disturbance in its root systems. They don't like change in any form, and will melt back after a drastic change in its water or whenever you replant them. They spring back from these melt downs though.

If it is an aponogetan, an explanation would be its cycle. They go through cycles of growing and dying back, dormancy. It could have just been going into the dormant part of its cycle.

If it is a val or echinodorus of some kind, then it could be that it isn't getting enough nutrients as they are heavy root feeders and usually require medium to high lighting.

If it is an anubias, which i highly doubt, then pulling it out of the substrate was the right thing to do as anubias' rhizomes do not survive when buried

could you post a picture of the plant?
 
My water has changed some since a moved back in November. The hardness went up some and so did the ph only about .2 ph and 4 GH. Also my heater hasn't been able to keep up with the basement. Tank drops down to like 73-74 where it used to be 77-78. I added a second heater last night to stabilize it at 75. Another thing is I had flame moss in the tank and it spread everywhere could the flame moss be actually out competing the plants. Some plants had it wrapped around it's roots. Could flame moss act like a weed and kill off my plants?
 
It is indeed a crypt. So you dug the crypt out and left it floating? Crypts despise being moved. If the leaves melted, it probably would've bounced back had you left it alone. You want to plant the crypt like any other plant -- bury the roots and leave 1/4 of the upper rhizome/bulb exposed -- so don't bury it completely. Crypts are heavy feeders so if you can include a fert tab in the substrate when you replant it, it may help. Crypts are low light plants so there was no need for you to uproot it and expose it to more light. :) So you're saying the C. balansae is giving you these issues? May I ask if you do water changes? And if so, how big or how small of water changes do you do? C. balansae does not like to be disturbed; nor does it like for too much water to be changed at any given time. They do not like drastic changes in their environment. Unless you're fertilizing/dosing heavily, avoid heavy water changes. C.balansae is a slow grower so be patient and try not to move it around at all if possible. Good luck! :)
 
No I have balansae that is growing great (1 leaf is visible in the picture above, far left of the picture). It's these guys that aren't growing good at all. That's why I was confused why one crypt (balansae) is fine but the other species is doing horrible. I do 50% water changes weekly and it's because I dose ferts.

So your saying leave the top 1/4 of the rhizome exposed, I had it completely burried. I will pull them up a little when I get home.

I mostly put the crypt in my shrimp tank for the cleaning not really the light. It had lots of dead leaves and stuff on it, something the shrimp cleaned up quickly. Not to mention the rhizome was brown and slimely from algae, they also cleaned that.
 
bradlgt21 said:
No I have balansae that is growing great (1 leaf is visible in the picture above, far left of the picture). It's these guys that aren't growing good at all. That's why I was confused why one crypt (balansae) is fine but the other species is doing horrible. I do 50% water changes weekly and it's because I dose ferts.

So your saying leave the top 1/4 of the rhizome exposed, I had it completely burried. I will pull them up a little when I get home.

I mostly put the crypt in my shrimp tank for the cleaning not really the light. It had lots of dead leaves and stuff on it, something the shrimp cleaned up quickly. Not to mention the rhizome was brown and slimely from algae, they also cleaned that.
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As long as you did not bury the rhizome completely, you should be fine. Just make sure that the growing tip (where the leaves come out from) is exposed to the lights. Try to get the temperature at a steady place but as I said, Crypts hate change in their environment. Given that you did not bury the rhizome completely, I would let it be. Good luck! :)
 
fishorama said:
I have noticed a corm like structure on some crypts, not sure what it is. I just plant it. My spiralis likes root tabs
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I've always wondered which root type crypts have...I've never taken a close enough look though.
 
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