I decided to take up a challange.
I wanted to grow various Crypts emersed to see if I could get them to flower.
The idea came from reading several blogs and books regarding Cryptocoryne identifications.
Plants purchased from other hobbiests and wholesalers
My original plan was to make a dedicated tank to house the plants while growing.
I made this tank with the idea of having the water constantly flowing to give evenness of water temperature around the roots.
This is what I ended up doing.
Initially, until I built up numbers of plants, I used a small glass aquarium inside a bigger tank to make heating more efficient.
Once I had more plants, I took them out of the smaller tank and put them directly into the big tank.
Heat is provided by a 300w submersable heater.
The plants have been planted in a mixtue of
Sand
General Potting mixture
Clay
Peat moss.
Lighting is provided from the tanks
3 X 36 watt T8 tubes.
6500k x 2
glowlux x 1
A power head is used to circulate the water around the tank.
Some Growth showing
Updated Pic
24/07/09
Another updated picture, 14/11/09
More photos of the plants and flowers can be found here
