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Humidity
It's been noted that Crypts grown in emerse culture in aquariums sometimes display the following characteristics:
The first suspect that comes up is humidity. Is it perhaps so much more hubid in aquarium emersed culture that the plants tend to a quasi-submerged leaf pattern? If no how can this humidity be controlled to show more emerse-like leaves that are more robust than what is sometimes seen now. Something doesn't sit right about this idea though. Or maybe that it's not something to do directly with the humidity in the tanks. Lets look at other situations where Crypts. are grown emersed: in the wild, in giant cement or natural beds in commercial propogation, and in outdoor emersed growth in, say, your backyard in some form of container whether it be a half barrel or an old fishtank. In both these cases there is no lid. The sides of the barrel or tank are the only thing keeping the moisture in from the soggy substrate. I've never measured the humidy here but common sense says it's wetter than ambient but probably dryer than if there was some sort of a lid. So, is it actually the humidity per se or perhaps the effect of stronger sunlight and air movement that is respoonsible for the morphological differences in leaves grown this way. Here's the only picture I could remember taking of "backyard crypts" some "brown" C. Wendtii grown in just sand in a two gallon tank put, without much thought on a picnic table in the backyard. I pretty much ignored it and let natural rainfall take care of water. I don't remember feeding these plants, ever. (More pictures here)
Now, as for leaves touching each other and melting, have a look at the full sized version of this photo by clicking on the tummbnail:
 I'm going to go with the "poor circulaton" theory here. That is in areas where water or air ciculation is low leaves touching each other becomes "an issue". Perhaps this is related to the "melt" phenomenom - necrotic crypt tissue is pretty much lethal to any plant material it seems to come in contact with in the aquaruim in areas of poor circulation. Perhaps why Crypt leaves cannot move they simply die a pre-programmed death. I've seen leaves in emersed conditions trying to grow thorugh aquarium glass but come out on the losing end of that proposition, but it did seem like where a crypt leaf simply cannot physically move, that part of it dies and that dead crypt tissue, if acting on another plant would be beneficial to the crypt. So this may all make sense and they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. So, I posit that in nature, a constant breeze or the constant action of moving water prevents whatever bad things happen when leaves come in contact with each other and that the answer to "leaves that kill" is better circulation. So use bigger tanks and improve circulation!
RJS: 3-Mar-2008
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