I first purchased this plant at the Peel Region Aquarium Club auction in November of 2013 and since then I have seen a significant amount of growth with this plant considering I have it in a VERY low-tech aquarium besides the pressurized CO2. I keep this plant in my fathers aquarium to give him some “flavour” besides the Anubias sp. and Bolbitis sp. he likes to keep and it’s been sending runners and growing like a weed in comparison to how I have it growing emersed.

There is no “special” gravel or additional root tabs added to the substrate and it’s not even a “real” substrate as it’s an old-school substrate which is basically just painted pieces of some type of “plastic” material as we could say? Anyone who has been keeping fish tanks for a number of years knows exactly what I am talking about, the gravel itself is not a real rock composition and seems to be manufactured in the masses out of a cheap material.

Although there is no special substrate, the thing that this aquarium has going for it is that it’s collected well over 12 years of fish waste which the plants can feed off of for quite a while. One day this will however run out, which is why I’ve fully stocked the aquarium with a large bio load in order to feed the plants accordingly. My father does not like to keep up with regular maintenance in terms of additional fertilizers so I try to limit this by supplementing a larger bio load to feed the plants which has been doing perfectly fine.

As you can see in the pictures below the Cryptocoryne sp. Affinis is growing absolutely great; it is in a 40 gallon tall aquarium and the plant itself is at least 14-16 inches tall considering the tank itself is 22″ tall. Throughout the year that it’s been planted it has sent over 12 daughter plants/runners and continues to grow strong with the conditions that it’s in. I believe the pressurized CO2 does account for the majority of the growth, although I do have it under a tinted glass lid, AND black screen shade cloth since the Marineland Aquatic Plant LED has given me PAR results of over 140 at a 19″ depth which should be slowing down the growth.

Below are some pictures of the plant and as you can see the daughter plants have yet to develop their bullate leaves like the mother plant.

Overall this is a fairly easy Cryptocoryne to keep although it is not as commonly found in the hobby like it once was. If you do get a chance to purchase this plant, DO SO RIGHT AWAY!

As always here is the conditions I also keep the plant in

PH- 7.4 at night, 6.5 during the day when CO2 is on.
Temperature- 72-74
Lighting- Marineland Aquatic Plant LED with the use of tinted glass cover + blade shade cloth underneath the light.
Filtration- Marineland C220 Canister Filter and Hagen Aquaclear Mini
Substrate- Cheap artificial aquarium gravel
Water Changes- X 1 a week
Dosing- Micro + Macro during every water change once a week