Cryptocoryne cordata var blassii in spike!

[RSS]

Growing emersed in 80%+ humidity under low light. Not the healthiest looking crypt on the block but it decided to send up a spike, hopefully it will open for me. Some day I'll get around to adding some sort of fogger for them.


Cryptocoryne cordata var blassii by randallsimpson, on Flickr


Cryptocoryne cordata var blassii by randallsimpson, on Flickr

 

[Newman]

probably needs more humidity? it looks nice but a lot of crypts are grown underwater.

 

[jerrysmith]

Nice RSS. Have you shown your emersed setup elsewhere that I've missed? I'd be very interested in seeing it. I am growing seven Crypts emersed in something like 1/2 gallon glass jars I got at Walmart a few years ago. I keep them in a south window out of direct sun in the summer. They are at work, so I keep them on top of a transformer with a 55 watt PC over them in the winter. The Transformer keeps the jars at 80F even when the room goes down to 60 on the weekends. I have had a few bloom, but not recently. One pot contains C. parva. Another contains C. wendtii, another C. beckettii, and others I've forgotten or never knew the ID. One or two jars need to be thinned out. The substrate varies. One is pure long fiber Sphagnum Peat Moss. Another contains Mineralized Soil and Seachem Flourite substrate. In all of the jars, the substrate is only about 1 1/2" deep at most. I have a fairly constant problem with a Blue Green algae that grows on the surface of the substrate. I recently removed a lot manually and then added about 50 ml of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide to the jars. The algae does seem to be going away and the plants did not die. This algae is very jelly like and comes off almost like an Agar-Agar gel.

Emersed Crypts from 12-30-09: http://s178.photobucket.com/user/jerrytheplater/slideshow/Emersed plants/12-30-09

I grew C. cordata var. Blassii years ago when I had acid water aquariums. Once I switched to Tanganyika water tanks, they did not survive the hard water. They did bloom for me underwater once. I took a photo of it with a 35mm film camera with the flash over the top of the plant, so it is washed out.

C. cordata var. blassii

 

[RSS]

I don't have an emersed crypt setup per say, I'm included them in other setups I have. So they were not constructed with Crypts in mind, I have just tried to grow then there. Basically this one is just in an Exo-terra planted in some mud very far from the lights. Here is the build log I started http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/parts-construction/85585-exo-terra-36-x-18-x-38-build-log.html

If I misted them a few times a day or even a few more times a week it would be doing so much better. A flood system or fogger would be prefect I would think but overall I'm trying to lower the humidity of this setup not increase it. They are all growing and new runners are popping up but they still want more water/humidity than 80%+ :-(. I'm working on slowly increasing the overall water level hoping this will do the trick.

The flower is still developing at a snails pace its maddening!

 

[jerrysmith]

Thanks for the link to your build thread. I didn't realize you had your plants in a Vivarium. I have two orchids I bought last year at an orchid show at the local garden center. They would be right at home in your vivarium. Bulbophyllum taiwanese and Chiloschista segawai. I have both on cork with long fiber sphagnum under the plants. I water daily and just keep them on a bookcase near a window. No enclosure around them. Fertilize weekly with dilute Dyna-gro Grow.