Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Flamingo'

Cryptocoryne wendtii

A pink form of Cryptocoryne wendtii: young leaves are bright pink and fade with age to a flesh tone with green veins. More compact than the ordinary wendtii and grows noticeably slower.

Light: low
Difficulty: easy
Height: 5 – 35 cm (2 – 14 in)
Temperature: 15 – 30 °C (59 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green, pink or purple +1 green, pink or purple, bronze or brown
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: medium
CO₂ demand: low
Tolerates light: low – high
pH: 5 – 8
Carbonate hardness: 1 – 18 °dKH
General hardness: 0 – 30 °dGH
Placement: midground, foreground +1 midground, foreground, background
Propagation: runners, rhizome division +2 runners, rhizome division, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Leaves range from light to deep pink, brightest when young. Height up to 10 cm, noticeably smaller than the ordinary wendtii, and it grows much more slowly.

Keeping

It needs more light than the species: in dim light the pink fades, the leaf turns flesh-coloured with green veins, and old leaves turn brown. Water from very soft to hard, pH 5–8, temperature 22–28 °C, CO₂ 10–20 mg/l is welcome. It is sold only as tissue-culture stock — growers propagate it by meristem — and in the aquarium it produces offshoots like other wendtii forms, but after tissue culture it settles in slowly.

Placement

A colour accent for the front and middle ground, and good as a solitary specimen.

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 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.

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Cryptocoryne wendtii jahnelii, Cryptocoryne wendtii krauteri, Cryptocoryne wendtii nana, Cryptocoryne wendtii rubella
Cryptocoryne wendtii: de Wit
Family: Araceae
Conservation status: NT