Palawan Crypt

Cryptocoryne palawanensis

A small water trumpet from the Philippine islands of Palawan and Busuanga, long mistaken for another dwarf species. It is kept exactly like the familiar Sri Lankan crypts.

Light: low–high
Difficulty: easy
Temperature: 18 – 28 °C (64 – 82 °F)

Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: slow
Tolerates light: low – high
Carbonate hardness: 8 – 20 °dKH
Placement: midground, foreground
Propagation: runners, rhizome division +2 runners, rhizome division, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

A compact rosette of modest leaves on short stalks — close in size and habit to the common water trumpets of the wendtii and beckettii group, which is the easiest way to picture it.

Keeping

Easy and slow: medium light and a nutritious substrate are what it asks for, and it grows in medium-hard water as well as in soft. Like all crypts it spreads by underground runners and dislikes being disturbed once planted.

Placement

The front or middle of the tank, in a group — a single plant is easy to overlook, a group makes a low even thicket.

Propagation

By runners: young plants appear beside the parent and are separated once rooted.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1007 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Red Zebra Cichlid Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Kenyi Cichlid Cuckoo Catfish Golden Swordtail Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo Zebra Mbuna

Will eat this plant

These species damage plants, especially when their diet is short of vegetable food.

Bengal Loach Zebra Loach Burmese Border Loach Emperor Botia Marbled Headstander Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Common Metynnis Mylossoma duriventre Red Whiptail Catfish Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly Moonlight Gourami Melanotaenia parva

Will uproot it

These species dig through the substrate and pull rooted plants out.

Marble Loach Peacock Eel Forktail Loach Guntea Loach Long-nosed Loach Horseface Loach Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Painted Pleco Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Aulonocara maylandi Aulonocara multicolor Aulonocara Orchid Geophagus altifrons Geophagus winemilleri Pearlscale Cichlid Pearl Cichlid Redbelly Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid Chuco godmanni Haplochromis philander Red Chromide Jack Dempsey cichlid

Matching water does not mean the fish will leave the plant alone.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Other varieties: Cryptocoryne palawanensis pygmaea, Cryptocoryne palawanensis pygmaea in Vitro XL

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Cryptocoryne palawanensis: Bastm., N.Jacobsen & Naive
Family: Araceae

Palawan Crypt

Tank conditions

Care and keeping