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Crypt nurii with distorted leaves

Myrtle

Myrtle

Member
Joined
21 Aug 2008
Messages
830
Location
Basingstoke
Hi, does anyone fancy hazarding a guess as to what's upset my Rose Maiden? It was absolutely fine in my algae filled windowsill jar, and it's fine in the paludarium, but it's distinctly unhappy in this tank, whilst the other Crypts are fine (affinis and balansae). Flow may be an issue as it's sponge filtered and it has an inert substrate which was kind of an experiment for me. It's not CO2 injected, low/medium light (Nicrew) and dosed around 6ml of TNC complete most weeks (I sometimes forget!).
The water is 50/50 rainwater and Hampshire tap, but moving more to 100% RW as I attempt to get the Macropodus to spawn. I appreciate this is a bit of a shot in the dark, but any ideas to help? Root tabs, maybe?
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Myrtle said:
It was absolutely fine in my algae filled windowsill jar, and it's fine in the paludarium, but it's distinctly unhappy in this tank
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Hi @Myrtle, Sounds like you recently moved it from a different tank? ... I do not know what the issue is, but I can say for sure that Crypt's can be really hyper-touchy about being replanted - as I am sure you know. I've had crypts curl up or melt even after being moved around in the same tank - what I would do in the past is just wait for new growth and remove the melting or curling leaves - I don't think any action will un-curl the leaves at this stage (?). I've seen some pretty amazing comebacks as well.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Myrtle said:
but moving more to 100% RW
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How long have you been water changing with 100% rainwater for? I assume you are not adding any remin salts as you are trying to breed the Paradise fish?

If not, and your tank is almost at pure RW from previous water changes, leaf curling is often associated with a calcium deficiency. It’s a rarely seen deficiency but seems too big a coincidence given your change in water regime.

Maybe add a few glasses of tap water and see if that changes things - the Paradise fish shouldn’t need completely pure rainwater to spawn as they are not a black water fish so you should be able to maintain some GH.
 
Thanks both :) I'll be moving back to tap anyway as spawning doesn't deem to be in their minds, at least not for the girl. They aren't a blackwater fish, but decreasing hardness in line with increasing temperature is meant to trigger spawning, Not happening though so maybe just too young.
Interestingly, the C nurii in the riparium is in total rainwater, but the substrate is totally different, which may be helping it.
 
Myrtle said:
the C nurii in the riparium is in total rainwater, but the substrate is totally different, which may be helping it.
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Calcium deficiency is definitely a long shot but not impossible if your water is pure rainwater- which may only contain trace levels of Ca if at all. Btw did you move the plant or not ?

Cheers,
Michael
 
I feel like crypt moving drama is usually more in the form of complete implosion rather than deformed leaves, but I'm not super experienced with crypt melt so maybe thats incorrect?
In my eyes it could perhaps be a micro issue as well. This popular form of Cryptocoryne nurii is the raubensis variety, which IIRC stems from lime rich waters. Thats why its easier in aquarium culture than some of the previously imported nurii's, which were nurii var. nurii, from quite soft water 🙂
If thats the case I would expect it to get upset if provided with insufficient minerals.
 
Just to add my experience with crypt nurii. I've not seen any leaf curling and I'm keeping them in pure rainwater. However, not all rainwater is created equal. Straight from the waterbutt gh is 5 and kh is 4 (according to NT labs test kit). It's softer than my tap water but still not what I'd consider soft.
I use a first flush system to try and avoid as much pollution as possible, which results in TDS of 30-40ppm. So I assume that most of the hardness is coming from the cement roof tiles or whatever makes up the condensation nuclei.
 
Hufsa said:
I feel like crypt moving drama is usually more in the form of complete implosion rather than deformed leaves, but I'm not super experienced with crypt melt so maybe thats incorrect?
In my eyes it could perhaps be a micro issue as well. This popular form of Cryptocoryne nurii is the raubensis variety, which IIRC stems from lime rich waters. Thats why its easier in aquarium culture than some of the previously imported nurii's, which were nurii var. nurii, from quite soft water 🙂
If thats the case I would expect it to get upset if provided with insufficient minerals.
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+1 to this, I was thinking the same last night, the Nurii Pink Line I have in my hardwater crypt tank has gone mental with the rate and range it throws out runners -to the point that it's become a bit of a weed - so it clearly thrives in harder water.

Myrtle said:
It was moved, but the was no melting which is what I normally see when moving crypts.
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My Nurii Pink Line plants didn't melt either when I moved them from my hard water tank to the new soft water tank.
 
Just my 2 cents, my tank is running at dGH 4 and dKH 0.3 and is predominantly crypts (including Rosen Maiden and Pink Line) all of which are growing and sending out runners like crazy..
Basically I'm just trying to stop any particular one species from taking over the tank (hopefully moving soonish and getting a larger tank and want to keep alive as many varieties as possible) and thus my weekly maintenance consists of cutting the leaves off the runners along with the water change etc.
My fertz regime is quite lean, 7.1.3. N.P.K. nitrate is 50/50 KNO3/Urea and I bury 2 - 3 Osmocote capsules deep in the substrate at various locations once a month or so.
I would imagine if the substrate was syphoned out I would be left with what looks like a plate of spaghetti.
Not sure what this has to do with anything, but there you go.
 
The thing that's throwing me is the plant in the paludarium; that's doing fine and the water is a mix of either rainwater or DI water. I say it's fine, but thinking about it, it's not actually grown any new leaves, just sat there, so maybe I'll move that one to a hard water tank and see what happens...
 
Myrtle said:
The thing that's throwing me is the plant in the paludarium; that's doing fine and the water is a mix of either rainwater or DI water. I say it's fine, but thinking about it, it's not actually grown any new leaves, just sat there, so maybe I'll move that one to a hard water tank and see what happens...
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Perhaps substrates make a difference in some cases? Like if the Crypts want a certain amount of minerals because thats what they are used to, maybe they are more tolerant in non-inert substrates because they could get a bit from the roots? Just a thought really.
Im not sure what substrates you have in the tanks in question @Myrtle
 
The tank with the crumpled leaves is sand and the tank with the non-growth is sand, gravel and a lot of mulm. Neither have any type of aquarium plant growth soil. I'm going to move the one in the paludarium to the pond tank as that is tap water with some plant specific substrate under the sand. I'll report back in 6 years when there's a new leaf 😂
 
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