$30 plant I thought died found months later after gravel vac

[Bjorn]

Bought this Cryptocoryne Pink Flamingo from ACO last October (8 months ago) for $30. No idea why I decided to spend that much on a single plant; guess I thought the pictures when it looked healthy and red were cool and I might have been a little buzzed.

Anyways, made the mistake of spot treating with glutaraldehyde around 6 months ago and it did not like that one bit. All the leaves melted after a few days and I never saw it again... Until a few days ago when gravel vacuuming I resurfaced it! And it has little leaf on it to help it revive itself as well!

Place the thing under the area with the most intense light. Made a well for a root tab and covered it with a teaspoon of aqua soil. I've already been auto-dosing liquid fertilizer and using pressurized co2. Super excited to see if I can get this thing to revive!

[anewbie]

It requires a lot of direct light and i find root tabs help.

[Bjorn]

On 6/9/2022 at 3:06 PM, anewbie said:

It requires a lot of direct light and i find root tabs help.

Thanks! My light is stock with the lid. It's strong enough to keep Alternanthera reineckii a decent shade of red at substrate level but if I could upgrade to something stronger while keeping my lid that would be more ideal, I think.

Edit: I guess with higher powered light it's better to have some distance between the surface and the unit. Which means I'd have replace the lid with something else; so stock it is for now.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Bjorn

[anewbie]

Keep in mind that intensity of light drops off quadratic (I think) as the depth increases; the reineckii grows up to the light but the crypt is on the very bottom. Also the crypt will (at least in my experience) require more light than the reineckii.

[lefty o]

ill bet it comes back. with plants, if there is still green , there is still hope.