Pruning Crypts

[Joecoral]

When removing leaves which are succumbing to crypt melt, how is the best wya to do so?
Just remove the leaf, or the whole stem?

 

[aaronnorth]

i used to remove the whole stem, seemed to work fine

 

[vauxhallmark]

You want to remove the whole stem, if you just cut the leaf off the stem will only rot.

I find it easier to remove them by hand if there's enough space in the tank - if you run your fingers down the stem (and probably under the substrate a bit) you'll feel where it joins the rhizome, and if you bend it away from that it should snap off - if you just cut it off at or above the substrate level the underneath part will still rot - not normally a big problem, but especially if it's a new tank you want to avoid that as much as possible.

New leaves can only grow from the rhizome, the old stem will just perish.

Mark

 

[Joecoral]

Thanks guys