rjfurbank

Hi Everyone!

Have been wanting to try my hand at emersed crypt growth for a while now and finally got around to setting up a spare 10g today. I have been reading all the threads on APC and the blogs set up elsewhere on this and mainly followed the instructions from Ghazanfar Ghori's blog found here:

http://kryptokoryne.aquaticscape.com...oryne-emersed/

I plan on only keeping the usual crypts that I have growing in my submersed tanks for now so did not worry about the black water type set up. I was not sure what substrate to use and it seems people use all kinds of things. I would have liked to go w/ Aquasoil (as this seems to be the all-around preference) but didn't want to shell out for the shipping. So instead I went w/ a 50/50 mix of sphagnum peat and potting soil which I could get from the local big box for ~$10 which I have read others have had success with.

I am using a standard 10g glass aquarium w/ glass top; a standard 15W T8 strip light; and a heater to keep the water at ~72-73F. Will need to get a device to monitor the humidity. I've read that ~80% is desirable.

Here's some pics:

The substrate materials I used



The pots used--3" net pots from a local hydroponic store (and my friend who helped me set this up)


The potted crypts (and 2 ludwigia's for fun) from my aquariums


Just after filling


With my fun Xmas gift added


Any comments suggestions welcome.

Thanks for looking!

-Roy

maknwar

looking good!

rjfurbank

Thanks maknwar!

Just a quick update. RH holding around 70-75% and the water is heated to ~78. Looks like things are going well so far. I have at least one new leaf on each of the crypts except for 1.

It is interesting to me that not all the plants "melted" in the same way. All were transferred from submersed aquarium growth so I thought they would behave similarly in changing over to emersed. Most of the plants had 1 or two leaves drop before throwing up a new leaf. One of them (the big red wendtii in the right rear corner) dropped all of its leaves but now has a new leaf shooting up. One or two of them didn't lose any leaves at all.

So far so good. . .