My hightly bullated wendtii...

[GaspingGurami]

Did you try inserting root tabs to the balansae? It might be depleted.

When I first grew the balansae, they were dwindling until I stuff some root monsters in. They became 3.5ft long in my 3ft tank in less then 4 months.

I use rosetta fortnightly. But I insert it a distance of 3 inches away from the plants. Last time I insert directly under the plant, it melted.

They are grown in a shaded spot in my tank, Excel supplemented. After the initial melt from planting, only the balansae managed to grow back its 1.5 ft long leaves very slowly (1 leaf a month). The retrospiralis and crispulata var crispulata are all dwarfs at 4 inches tall.

They have been like that since Sept last year, but at least they are surviving. My nurii and usterianas have all melted to the roots even though they are planted in a brighter spot than the other crypts.

I notice my crypt leaves melt when they're exposed to air. When changing water, I need to keep them in the water all the time. Once a leaf is left sticking to the glass when water is drained, that leaf promply melts after refilling with water.

Is this normal?

Thanks for your replies.

[kadios]

The way to grow crypts is to "ignore" it as much as possible, meaning they dislike changes to its environment. From the description provided by you, I noticed they are all potential sources of "changes" to the tank parameters or environment. Perhaps you can post a pic of your tank for us to understand the planting scape. My guess is there are probably leaves that grow too large and convered the lights to the crypts, and during the routine maintenance of trimming away such leaves, it crypts are exposed to a different lighting intensity again, thereby causing it to rot/melt. See if you can experiment for a couple of weeks by ensuring the crypts are not covered by any plants or leaves.

As for uncovered crypts to grow large quickly, do what Lorba says and they will grow large in no time under intense lighting.

Cheers!

[lorba]

Have you tested your tap water?

btw, are you adding calcium to the water? try not to disturb them in the soil. Why would you change water until the plants are exposed? 80% water change?

[barmby]

Excellent pictures there.

[GaspingGurami]

Have you tested your tap water?

btw, are you adding calcium to the water? try not to disturb them in the soil. Why would you change water until the plants are exposed? 80% water change?

No, not adding calcium, I have GH 5deg waterfrom the tap, and I top up a bottle a day. Figure it should be sufficient is it? And I don't move them after they're planted.

Kadios is partially right. My tank is 20L small. It is choked with plants and on top of that, a huge Echinodorus oriental took up 2-thirds of the volume. It puts out 2-3 leaves a week and I have to keep trimming or it gets too dim under the leaves. I realised trimming affects the lighting in the shade, but I'm not talking about crypts in the shade but in the open. Here, the nurii and usterianas are planted and they melted slowly over 2 months. I noticed that they survive better in my hardwater tank even in lower light, non CO2 etc. Perhaps next time if I get some more of them, I'll insert a calcium pill near their roots?

I change 50%water. but that is already too shallow for a C. balansae. I'd admit I'm cramping it into a 1.5ft x 1 x 0.5ft height tank, but I wanted the "jungle look", not a dutch garden nor a zenscape, hence the cramping everything.

Guess I cannot do EI in this case huh?