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Originally Posted by hooha  where can you get a 6 inch tank??  |
I got the tank from a reef store that had used it to display corals. Turns out to work well for growing emergent aquatic plants, too.
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that's a great setup, cheap low maintainence, and quite visually striking. Can you review your setup, (substrate, lighting, progress and growth, etc)?
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Thanks hooha. I can't remember the exact mixture of the substrate but I used a mix of bonsai soil (lots of fracted clay), worm castings, peat, and a little vermiculite. Lighting is sunlight from a south-facing window so it varies seasonally but I seem to be getting a lot more spathe formation recently than I did in the winter so it is possible that the longer photoperiod is a factor.
Progress was quite slow for the first 5-6 weeks for the Crypts (
C. wendtii 'Green Gecko', C. cordata var cordata 'blassii', C. parva, and C. petchii) but has stabilized in the last three months or so. I had some initial issues with keeping the humidity stable but things have improved noticeably since I resolved them. Growth rate is still quite slow compared to the submersed growth that I am familiar with from these species.
The
H. sibthorpioides was a major surprise. I threw it in the tank as an afterthought. I have had excellent luck flowering
H. verticillata emerged so I was curious to see
H. sibthorpioides flower. It has gone nuts in this tank and has formed a very nice ground cover, but not thick enough to choke out the Crypts. It is flowering heavily. I'll try to get a picture but my camera is not good at close ups and the blooms are very small.
I just counted four new
C. wendtii 'Green Gecko' spathes this morning so I should have more photos to post soon.