Arrowhead Crypt

Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia

A tall water trumpet with broad arrowhead leaves on long stalks. It grows well on substrate alone — no bright light, no carbon dioxide, no dosing.

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

Leaf colour: green, pink or purple
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: slow
Tolerates light: low – high
Carbonate hardness: 2 – 14 °dKH
Placement: background, midground +1 background, midground, specimen
Propagation: runners, rhizome division +2 runners, rhizome division, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Heart- to arrowhead-shaped leaves, light to olive green, sometimes pink underneath, on stalks long enough to make this one of the taller crypts.

Keeping

Easy and undemanding, and unusually self-sufficient: in a nutritious substrate it feeds through the roots and grows steadily without extra light or carbon dioxide. Like all crypts it dislikes being moved and reacts to sudden changes in water by dropping its leaves — the rhizome survives and pushes out new ones.

Placement

The middle or back of the tank. A single plant is large enough to stand as a specimen; a group forms a solid green wall.

Propagation

By runners: young plants appear around the parent and are separated once they have their own leaves. A large rhizome can also be split.

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.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Cryptocoryne sulphurea
Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia: Schott
Family: Araceae
Conservation status: VU