Pink Flamingo Crypts in 29 gallon tank

[Trigri]

I purchased 6 small pink flamingo crypts sometime near the end of February and I've seen some decent growth, but I am a little concerned about them. 2 of the 6 melted away completely a couple of weeks ago, which was a bit sad since they had experienced very little melt after being added to the tank and were growing new leaves. But now, they are completely gone. A 3rd one has had all its original leaves melt away and is now left with one new pink leaf that it has grown since I got it. I'm concerned it won't survive 😞

The other 3 appear to be doing well, with at least 2 new, bright pink leaves each, while also retaining a couple of their original leaves. All of the pink leaves are ones that have grown in my care, which is exciting, but their growth appears to be very slow, and I'm worried they might die. They are kept in a nice open spot in the tank so they can get enough light and have space to grow. I placed a couple of Aquarium Co-Op root tabs under and near them a couple of weeks ago, and I have a weekly schedule for fertilizing the tank. I have a hygger light on the tank, which I have on for about 9 hours a day, at 50-75% brightness. There are several species of bucephalandra scattered around the tank growing on wood and rocks, along with tons of java fern, a small anubias, a crypt lucens, and an amazon sword that has had an explosion of growth recently. All the other plants are doing fantastic and pushing out new growth all the time.

I understand that crypts grow really slow, and these plants are young so they may be growing slow simply because of that, but I just want some confirmation or advice so that these will do well and hopefully in the future I'll have some big pink crypts. Thanks for reading! (Excuse the tiny java fern plantlet hanging out on the crypt to the far right 😅)

Edited April 6 by Trigri

[Ladette]

They may pop back up I’ve never had them do it but a friend of mine melted back to nothing and we thought they are goners a few weeks later they came back and now are stunning! Crypt melt is normal and as long as you have good roots they should come back. I’m not an expert but hoping it’s just some melting and will come back for you. 

[Trigri]

@Ladette I know crypt melt is normal. They all arrived with only a few leaves and kept them for weeks without melting, but each plant had a couple leaves melt slowly, while they also grew new pink leaves. I found it quite strange. They are just baby crypts, so maybe they need time to grow and mature. I was hoping to hear from someone that has experience with pink flamingo crypts, so they could give me a bit of insight, but thank you! I now have a bit of hope that the ones that appear to have died will come back for me. Maybe just "forgetting" about them for a few weeks will encourage them to grow. That's how it works sometimes, right? As soon as you ignore or forget about a plant, it will explode in growth and do really well. 😅

[Pepere]

Pink Flamingo crypt is and odd one.   
 

I bought 3 of these from the Co op when they were carrying it.
 

All in separate tanks, but pretty much the same conditions.

 1 promptly died off never to rise again.

 1 grew out quite nicely with no muss or fuss.  I do have aquasoil  under a cap, and co 2 injection and a good dosing schedule.

The third struggled barely holding on for maybe 6 months. A new leaf would pop up, another would die.  Running in place and getting nowhere.  Well, maybe crawling rather than running… I would insert 3 root tabs around it on the first of the month every month… eventually I relocated a tiger lotus near it a foot away from it and within a few months it was noticeably improving and is growing well now…

 

About 2-3 months ago, I pulled some plantlets from my best growing tank and put them in a 17 gallon non co2 tank.  I didnt have high hopes giving how hard it was to get them to take off in a co2 injected tank, but  after a quick melt of leaves, it has been growing very well for a tank woh no added co2…

 

 

[Trigri]

@Pepere Thanks for sharing! Your pink flamingo crypts look so awesome! I'm hoping mine will look like that someday, otherwise it will just be more money down the drain 😅. I inserted a few root tabs around mine a couple of weeks ago but haven't seen much come out of that yet. I'm thinking I just need to give them more time. They all arrived as small individual plantlets a month ago, so they may still be adjusting to my tank, and it might take 2-3 more months to see some good growth on them. Your tanks look beautiful! Such a nice variety of plants and they all look so good. I really like the tiger lotus you have.