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Cryptocoryne choices

Crypt. parva is the smallest. Unfortunately it is also very slow growing. Some root tabs under it will speed up growth - but it will still not be a fast grower. If planted out as single plants and rather close, it will usually take the best part of a year, to create a reasonably carpet without added CO2 - a little faster with added CO2.
 
Cryptocoryne petchii pink is nice and stays small. Albida brown is nice and small too but seems to grow very slow compared to the petchii.

Cheers
 
It depends a bit on your setup, size especialy height and co2 or not. And substrate type a bit. I got a 90x35x35 cm low energy tank with several crypts on inert substrate with Tabs and water column feeding..

As is with all plants in there are almost 3 years growing, didn't do much trimming..

Sorry for the bad picture, i got a lot of light spill in the room during the day.. But it still might give you an idea.


DSCF9843-1.jpg


Front right is C. parva, as Mick describes, extremely slow growing and stays rather very small. More staying alive than realy growing. Funny is most of the root tabs are under the Lily, the parva close to and even shaded under the lily leaves grow the biggest and most dense. So a rich substrate is definitively a pre for parva in low energy.

Front mid left from the lily is C. Wendtii brown. I never did plant it there, actualy never bought it intentionaly. It came as a sneakin with a bunch of java ferns. It was a very tiny cutting when i found it. Because i didn't know what to expect i planted it midground behind the lily and it turned out to be the best growing crypt in this tank. It ran and spread like a champ and have about 9 seperate plants most of them all in the mid front.. In this condition it stays rather a very low plant but runs like hell.

Back right the light green bush i bought as C. willisii.. It grows into a 15 to 20 cm adult.. In this tank it would be to big for a front placement. Left from it stands a C. Indonesii, both grow very simular, indonesii a tad bigger and is darker green. But also not a front plant for this size tank.

Also contains a bit C. Albida brown.. But it seems it doesn't like it in this tank, all melted away and now and than i see some pop up again. But it's not happy. The C. lutea hobbit same story, it didn't realy like it in here. And it actualy is a Walkeri mutation, some hobbits i planted forgot the were hobbits and grew into ful size walkeri.

Luckily and completely unintentionaly the C. wendtii overtook the hobbits front position with it's own runners from the midground. :)
 
It depends a bit on your setup, size especialy height and co2 or not. And substrate type a bit. I got a 90x35x35 cm low energy tank with several crypts on inert substrate with Tabs and water column feeding..

As is with all plants in there are almost 3 years growing, didn't do much trimming..

Sorry for the bad picture, i got a lot of light spill in the room during the day.. But it still might give you an idea.


View attachment 113925

Front right is C. parva, as Mick describes, extremely slow growing and stays rather very small. More staying alive than realy growing. Funny is most of the root tabs are under the Lily, the parva close to and even shaded under the lily leaves grow the biggest and most dense. So a rich substrate is definitively a pre for parva in low energy.

Front mid left from the lily is C. Wendtii brown. I never did plant it there, actualy never bought it intentionaly. It came as a sneakin with a bunch of java ferns. It was a very tiny cutting when i found it. Because i didn't know what to expect i planted it midground behind the lily and it turned out to be the best growing crypt in this tank. It ran and spread like a champ and have about 9 seperate plants most of them all in the mid front.. In this condition it stays rather a very low plant but runs like hell.

Back right the light green bush i bought as C. willisii.. It grows into a 15 to 20 cm adult.. In this tank it would be to big for a front placement. Left from it stands a C. Indonesii, both grow very simular, indonesii a tad bigger and is darker green. But also not a front plant for this size tank.

Also contains a bit C. Albida brown.. But it seems it doesn't like it in this tank, all melted away and now and than i see some pop up again. But it's not happy. The C. lutea hobbit same story, it didn't realy like it in here. And it actualy is a Walkeri mutation, some hobbits i planted forgot the were hobbits and grew into ful size walkeri.

Luckily and completely unintentionaly the C. wendtii overtook the hobbits front position with it's own runners from the midground. :)

What's the crypt mid back left with the reddish underside?
 
What's the crypt mid back left with the reddish underside?

I;m not sure, i bought a bunch simular looking but supposedly in different sizes. But the plant supplier i bought it from is notorious for misidentification.
And as said i bought a few pots C. Lutea hobbit the first year it came on the market. And noticed it doesn't grow at all that's the hobbit version and than other cutting suddenly became rather large. So it seems it a Walkeri mutation that forgot it's a mutation. It looks very simular, hamered lancelote leaf with a redish underside.

Also have C. costata which actualy is a sunonym for C. albida in there also simular to C. Walkeri and than again it seems that the C. Costata is ofttenly misidentified with the C. usteriana seeing the size it grows mid right, the large leaf with the small hole in it, is also red underside, he likely is selling misidentified C. usteriana. But that's aso the side where the tank recieves the highest light intensity.

Also under different light and substrate conditions etc and or genetic strains. Crypts tend to show slight different grow characteristics in coloration..

So i'm at a loss here the size it is now it either is C. Walkeri or C. Albida or a yet not to full potential grown C. usteriana.

Anyway if you are intersted in a green hamered lancelote leaf with a redish underside all 3 can do. They are extremely simular but have a size difference depending on the condition it's grown. Easy plants to grow but a pain in the neck sometimes to properly identify without a flower.

Best crypt pages i found is..
https://crypts.home.xs4all.nl/Cryptocoryne/Gallery/wal/wal.html
also states
C. Walkeri
See also the pages for C. beckettii, C. undulata and C. wendtii for comparison, the differences can be rather small.
 
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This was my low energy Crypt tank. The Crypt plant list is:

Cryptocoryne willisii/nevillii -
in the foreground
Cryptocoryne becketti "petchii" - lurking behind the C. willisii bottom right
Cryptocoryne crispatula var. balansae - tall crypt with hammered leaves back right
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Green' green plant with wavy edges
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Tropica' red/brown plant with wavy edges

upload_2018-3-11_10-57-14.png
 
There you see the big differences.. Tims c.wendtii brown is a rather robust lush plant and mine growing for over 2 years stays rather lean, very close to the substrate and rather spreads horizontaly with runners than grow big. Mine is slowly carpeting the tanks fore ground on it's own.

Beats me if that is growing condition such as light, substrate, fert regime, water parameters or genetic strain. But the differences can be very puzzling varied.. :)
 
There you see the big differences.. Tims c.wendtii brown is a rather robust lush plant and mine growing for over 2 years stays rather lean, very close to the substrate and rather spreads horizontaly with runners than grow big. Mine is slowly carpeting the tanks fore ground on it's own.

Beats me if that is growing condition such as light, substrate, fert regime, water parameters or genetic strain. But the differences can be very puzzling varied.. :)

I would agree with this across the board, like any terrestrial plant, aquatics will change form, colour and size based on environmental factors, i have had the same sp. of crypts (wendtii) be HUGE and very brown in a CO2 high light tank, and the same crypts completely transformed to a small size, lighter leaf colour, more veins, and less bushy growth under no CO2 and just natural light.
 
I think in the case of this tank, the morphology is mainly due to competition. Plants that found their way to the open space out front stayed small.
 
Here is an example of spacing crypts to encourage different heights (excuse the crude phone pic).

You can see the in the middle of the background the bronze crypts going up in height to the left. They are all the same crypt just the spacing between plants that differs.

Dominating the rhs you have the same green crypt in foreground (short) and mid (tall).

20150605_220837.jpg
 
You can also snap a healthy established crypt off at the rhizome and new leaves will usually regrow, but smaller until it reestablishes itself.

Useful if you want to propagate without waiting for the plant to put out runners.

On the small crypts list I can add pontederiifolia var jambi. Never got past 2 inch leaves in my tank.
 
This was my low energy Crypt tank. The Crypt plant list is:

Cryptocoryne willisii/nevillii -
in the foreground
Cryptocoryne becketti "petchii" - lurking behind the C. willisii bottom right
Cryptocoryne crispatula var. balansae - tall crypt with hammered leaves back right
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Green' green plant with wavy edges
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Tropica' red/brown plant with wavy edges

View attachment 113926
Nice crypt tank I have just set my crypt tank up 2 weeks ago so just going through the melt stage at the min.
 
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