They say Cryptocoryne lutea ‘Hobbit’ is a small crypt, but saying it and seeing it are two different things. This is a really small crypt! The original idea was to have a small plant to go in front of the Lobelia cardinalis ‘Dwarf’ to hide the rooty lower stems of the Lobelia without covering up the pretty bright green higher foliage. The ‘Hobbit’ is listed as a maximum height of 5 cm which sounded about right, but now I think that’s too small. The ‘Hobbit’ adapted to submerged growth easily, but after a good number of months still ranges from 2-3 cm in height. Further, the dark brown/purple coloration of submerged form ‘Hobbit’ gets lost against the dark colour aquasoil making the ‘Hobbit’ hard to see. To top it all off, the ‘Hobbit’ became overrun by the Marsilea hirsuta carpet, which is about as tall as the Hobbit and spreads much more aggressively.
Overgrown by Marsilea
Size reference
Side view
I like the ‘Hobbit’ but I don’t think it’s fit for the original purpose in the spot. Accordingly, I decided to try the “next size up” in crypts, Cryptocoryne parva. That left open the question of what to do with the ‘Hobbit’ so I’ve moved the Hobbit to the front and centre of the tank.
Relocated ‘Hobbit’
New Hobbit home
Cryptocoryne species have a reputation for ‘melting’ if they get traumatised. In this case they shed all their existing leaves and make it a do-over with fresh growth. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen with these transplanted Hobbits. The aquasoil only very loosely holds the roots such that there wasn’t much root tearing, and the replanting procedure was more a nestle-in-place rather than putting them in a hole and covering them with dirt. I’ll keep them free of Marsilea invasion and the new venue has more illumination as well since it is more centrally located under the light and isn’t generally overshadowed by any of the taller species: Lobelia, Ludwigia and Lysimachia.
The pots arrived promply and in excellent condition. It was straightforward to remove the rockwool growth support using pinsettes, and I was then able to tease apart the two substantial plant masses into many smaller plantlets for individual planting.
My first thought was to plant the parva amongst the pre-existing Marsilea hirsuta and C. lutea ‘Hobbit’, but that rapidly proved impractical so instead I removed a substantial portion of the marsiliea which really was growing a little rampantly out of control, and I transplanted the ‘Hobbit’ to the front-centre of the aquarium to clear the ground for the parva.
height indicator
row of parva
side view
The parva planted easily in the cleared ground and made a neat row right across the front of the aquarium. There’s still a lot of cleared space behind the parva which I’ll leave open for now.
One week update
Well… “I’ll leave it open for now” didn’t last very long as a concept. I picked up three more pots of parva, and because Pro Shimp was sold out (I got the last two pots), this time the parva was grown by AquaFleur and sold locally by Aqua Essentials. I thought these new parva pots weren’t quite as nice as the first two: a little smaller and showing some touches of raggedness, but still good. The new parva plantlets filled in some of the thin patches in the front row and let me extend the planting back into the empty space behind. Whilst that was happening, I removed all the leggy Lobelia cardinalis ‘Dwarf’ and replanted the tops to fresh things up, which will also mean more light for the parva. The new parva looks smaller in the aquarium because it was a little smaller, but also because I made an effort to plant it a little more deeply than the parva in front. AquaDip claims a maximum height of 10 cm for the parva, whilst AquaFleur says 5 cm. We’ll see how that shakes out in time.
Adding more parva (front view)
Adding more parva (side view)
Cryptocoryne parva vs. Cryptocoryne lutea ‘Hobbit’
Emersed form C. parva vs. submerged form C. lutea ‘Hobbit’
For a long time, C. parva was the smallest available cryptocoryne but that changed in recent years with the introduction of C. lutea ‘Hobbit’ to the trade. Here’s a comparison of the new C. parva emersed form plantlets with C. lutea ‘Hobbit’ plants that have been growing in the fully adapted submersed-form for at least three months.
The adapted ‘Hobbit’ is a dark brown/purple colour which is a strong contrast with the bright green colour of the emersed-form ‘Hobbit’. The new parva is a similar bright green, but I expect the parva to stay roughly this same shade of green. The maximum height of parva is listed as 10 cm, whilst the ‘Hobbit’ is listed as growing to 5 cm and indeed the new parva is already as tall as the ‘Hobbit’. The eventual side-to-side comparison of the two will be interesting so hopefully the ‘Hobbit’ will emerge from its transplanting relatively untraumatised.
20 week C. parva vs. C. lutea ‘Hobbit’ update
After 20 weeks the parva has filled in nicely, but hasn’t gotten any taller – the leaves curve over so even at a length of 5 cm the height of the parva tops out at 3 cm. The ‘Hobbit’ lists as being smaller than the parva and whilst this is true in terms of leaf length, the Hobbit leaves stand up straighter and also have an overall height of at most 3 cm. Cryptocoryne parva has thin green narrow leaves – the emersed and submersed forms of parva look nearly identical – whilst the Hobbit has a wider bladed-shaped leaf in dark olive-brown. These are both pretty great small crypts; personal preference might be the decider here rather than height and of course, you can have both!
