Giant Crypt

Cryptocoryne usteriana

One of the tallest water trumpets: long embossed leaves, dark green above and burgundy underneath. Tough enough for a tank with large fish, and happy in hard alkaline water.

Light: low
Difficulty: easy
Height: 20 – 30 cm (7.9 – 12 in)
Temperature: 15 – 28 °C (59 – 82 °F)

Leaf colour: green, red +1 green, red, bronze or brown
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: slow
CO₂ demand: low
Tolerates light: low – high
pH: 6 – 8
Carbonate hardness: 7 – 21 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: cichlid-proof, background +2 cichlid-proof, background, midground, specimen
Propagation: runners, rhizome division +2 runners, rhizome division, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Narrow leaves 20–30 cm tall with a deeply hammered surface on a strong rosette. Under good light the upper side goes dark green to bronze and the underside turns wine red.

Keeping

Easy and slow. Dim light is enough, carbon dioxide optional; hard, alkaline water suits it better than most plants, which is unusual and useful. The leaves are firm and the rosette is strongly rooted, so it holds up in tanks where softer plants get shredded. It comes from rivers that dry out seasonally — a plant that melts back after a sharp change is not dead, and regrows from the rhizome.

Placement

The middle or back of a roomy tank, alone or in a small group, including tanks with big digging fish.

Propagation

By long runners: young plants appear at some distance from the parent and are separated once rooted.

Water conditions match

The water suits 976 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 Spined Loach 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 usteriana Topf, Cryptocoryne usteriana in Vitro

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Cryptocoryne usteriana: Engl.
Family: Araceae
Conservation status: EN

Giant Crypt

Tank conditions

Care and keeping