# Planted Tanks > Plant Talk > Cryptocoryne Club >  My hightly bullated wendtii...

## Xema

I took some shoot of my bullated wendtii







What do you think about it?

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## GaspingGurami

I love bullated leaves but have been unsuccessful to grow them this way. Mine were either putting out brown narrow leaves or if they're green, they curl backwards.

I grow mine submersed. Will they ever become bullated underwater? If they do, what should I be doing to get them to grow bullated leaves?

Thanks.

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## hjbyeo

Mine is submersed and they are bullated.

I am not sure if water conditions and lighting conditions will help. Seriously, I thought it's in the genes?!  :Razz:

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## Fei Miao

Very nice!, Did you manage to get any of your crypts to flower?  :Smile:

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## Xema

> I love bullated leaves but have been unsuccessful to grow them this way. Mine were either putting out brown narrow leaves or if they're green, they curl backwards.
> 
> I grow mine submersed. Will they ever become bullated underwater? If they do, what should I be doing to get them to grow bullated leaves?
> 
> Thanks.



The same plant growing submerged 




The pictures above are from a regular C. wendtii 'Tropica' growing in my indoor emersed set up, where I feed them with foliar ferts.

Before growing in the indoor set up.



2 month and 18 days growing in the indoor ser up.






> Did you manage to get any of your crypts to flower?


The final objetive of my emersed set up is to enjoy and to learn culturing them... and of course get them flowered.

Greets from Spain

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## benny

Lovely specimens!! And the photography is very good!

Cheers,

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## Fei Miao

What's follar fert? :Confused:  wonder if we can get something similar here  :Smile:

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## nostalgia

Is Xema the king of cryptocoryne? Always having nice pics of them!

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## Xema

> What's follar fert? wonder if we can get something similar here


Foliar Ferts is a fert which is sprayed on the leaves... so the plant can get it fastly.




> What's follar fert? wonder if we can get something similar here


Hahahaha, I am only a man with some free time and interested in Cryptocoryne.... 

Greets from Spain

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## GaspingGurami

Xema,

My submersed wendtii has the same brown colour as your submersed pictures when I increased the lighting to 3watts per gal, but the petioles on mine are much longer and my leaves are not bullated.

Previously on lower light, (1.5 watts per gal) mine are green like your indoor setup. I guess mine is growing normally, now that I have seen a visual comparison to yours. Thanks for the effort in showing your photos.

I do not use CO2. But I daily add Seachem excel according to the dosing instructions on the bottle. I have a fertile substrate and I dose liquid ferts in the water column too. 

So could CO2 or light intensity be the cause of mine growing smooth leaves? Because I noticed your indoor grown plants looking much like mine when grown on 1.5 watts per gal.

Those bullated leaves look wicked. How come I can't grow them??  :Sad:

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## neon

Hi

I am also quite new to crypt, but notice interesting findings . 

By choice I left my newly bought crypt nearly touching water surface, and see the bullated effect after few weeks, also get very bushy !!

See my other post : http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...30&postcount=8

Any crypt expert can explain this ?


cheers

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## lorba

Most crypts (sri lankian, malayan etc) will grow waxy, shiny and bullated leaves when they are under intense light in water. If you have rich base fertilizer, the leaves will usually be beautiful, thick, tall, big and chunky.

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## neon

> Most crypts (sri lankian, malayan etc) will grow waxy, shiny and bullated leaves when they are under intense light in water. If you have rich base fertilizer, the leaves will usually be beautiful, thick, tall, big and chunky.


Hi Roland,

Yah, you are expert here ! Met you during the book collection at Clementi.

My other crypts which are planted in the substrate eventually melt even the leaves grows big and long. They are the most fragile plants I ever seen. Slight cut, the whole leaves will melt slowly. Most of my crypt planted in subtrate 90% leaves have cuts/melts. You mentioned water change can also affect the leaves also. Curious to ask you how do you do WC , frequency, amount , is the treated /direct from tap , direction of the WC water flow onto the crypt leaves ,etc. Once asked Bioplast Tan, he mentioned he used overnight water for he beloved crypt tank, and top up very slowly.

Appreciate your advice . Thanks !

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## lorba

Neon, i am no expert!

For my crypts, I do not use overnight water, too troublesome.

But when i pour the water in, I avoid pouring in the area with the crypts, or with the least crypts. Water is poured in very slowly with my palm blocking the downpour. This will prevent a sudden change of temperature and ph close to the crypts and induce melting. Seems to work so far.

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## neon

> Neon, i am no expert!
> 
> For my crypts, I do not use overnight water, too troublesome.
> 
> But when i pour the water in, I avoid pouring in the area with the crypts, or with the least crypts. Water is poured in very slowly with my palm blocking the downpour. This will prevent a sudden change of temperature and ph close to the crypts and induce melting. Seems to work so far.


Ok, noted. Will try this ! Thx !

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## anttz

My submersed wendtii has a sligthly reddish brown colour. The lighting is 2.5 watts per gal and no CO2, The stems are much longer and my leaves are not bullated.

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## GaspingGurami

> But when i pour the water in, I avoid pouring in the area with the crypts, or with the least crypts. Water is poured in very slowly with my palm blocking the downpour. This will prevent a sudden change of temperature and ph close to the crypts and induce melting. Seems to work so far.


How about changing water where there is long crypts like crispulata or balansae? I noticed that once the water level exposes the leaves, they will melt after the waterchange even though the leaves did not dry out.

Any advise on this?

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## lorba

Hmm, shouldnt be a problem if your balansae is established.

I have tank with all balansae established for the past 1.5years. For them, I don't really care about the water getting into them or even when its warm. 

Could it be old leaves? Or perhaps you can try to soak the leaves in the remaining water or comb them all to one side when you introduce the water? 

How much water are you changing?

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## GaspingGurami

Hi Roland,

Did not see you come to my office. Did the webmaster contact you?

Anyway, I change 50%, sometimes more. The plant has only 3 leaves, it takes sooo long to grow one single leaf. And when I change water, the exposed part of the leaf melts.

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## lorba

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.

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## 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.

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## 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!

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## 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?

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## barmby

Excellent pictures there.

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## 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?

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