# Crypt pink - flamingo vs panther?



## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

Hello all,

I have what I'm hoping is ultimately a simple question to answer.

Is there any practical difference between cryptocoryne pink flamingo and pink panther?

I know that they're different cultivars, which is (probably) why the names are different...but are there any practical differences? Does one get larger than the other? Does one get more pink or stay pink easier than the other?


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

When I looked into this, I've only been able to dig up threads where people claimed them to be the same. Just marketed by different people. From the dennerle's tissue cultures, its flamingo. From ada's tissue cultures, its pink panther. 

I do wish they are separate though. I've had enough trouble with my crypt flamingo attempts that I'm tempted to just get a cup of pink panther just to try it out. 

Then again, my flamingo came from another hobbyist so who knows which supplier it really came from or if they've got it confused themselves. 

*shrug*


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## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

ipkiss said:


> When I looked into this, I've only been able to dig up threads where people claimed them to be the same. Just marketed by different people. From the dennerle's tissue cultures, its flamingo. From ada's tissue cultures, its pink panther.
> 
> I do wish they are separate though. I've had enough trouble with my crypt flamingo attempts that I'm tempted to just get a cup of pink panther just to try it out.
> 
> ...


Oh man, what issues have you had?


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Just general bad luck or the lack of ability to grow it. 

The first tissue culture cup from dennerle arrived in not the best of conditions. and promptly melted away to nothingness over time. Come to think of it, my current cup of pogostemon helferi from dennerle is melting away too. I wonder if plants grown in that gel cocktail of dennerle are just not liking my tank!  

My second attempt was a juvenile plant bought off of fleabay. This guy survived, but is .. in probably survival mode. It puts up leaves as fast as it loses them.. or shall I say, it loses leaves as fast as it puts em up. So, no net gain. plant purgatory is the phrase I used for someone else the other day  

My third attempt to follow rumors of finding the tissue cultures available at petco from "Complete Aquatic Systems" yielded in one super badly melted bag and months of wild goose chasing with associates who simply had no idea when they would get a shipping or even if they sold it at all despite me being able to give them the sku. 

There's also various threads of inconsistencies with this plant on here  
https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/33-plants/1253225-crypt-flamingo-share-pictures.html
https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...hallenge-cryptocoryne-flamingo-journal-4.html
just search crypt flamingo and follow through all those threads if you want more

I've seen a couple people on the facebook pages grow it decently, but on here, I've only known @Xiaozhuang, @burr740 (maybe finally), and @kaldurak to grow it awesomely. Even kaldurak uses the flamingo and pink panther names interchangeably in his progression soooo, take it with a grain of salt  @Xiaozhuang has an awesome page dedicated to it: https://www.advancedplantedtank.com/plant-guide-cryptocoryne_flamingo.html

At this point, it's a crapshoot, so I wish you the best of luck and hope you a) find good starting stock and b) have great success and post about it so that I can add you to my mental shortlist of successful pink crypt keepers!


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## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

ipkiss said:


> Just general bad luck or the lack of ability to grow it.
> 
> The first tissue culture cup from dennerle arrived in not the best of conditions. and promptly melted away to nothingness over time. Come to think of it, my current cup of pogostemon helferi from dennerle is melting away too. I wonder if plants grown in that gel cocktail of dennerle are just not liking my tank!
> 
> ...


Yeah, I read through the thread @*kaldurak* wrote with the flamingo. It's absolutely beautiful...I wonder if he'd be willing to sell one plant. lol

Thank you! I'll definitely chronicle the journey, providing I can get some. Doing a nano tank right now and a pink crypt is necessary to get the tank scaped accordingly. :grin2:



ipkiss said:


> Just general bad luck or the lack of ability to grow it.
> 
> The first tissue culture cup from dennerle arrived in not the best of conditions. and promptly melted away to nothingness over time. Come to think of it, my current cup of pogostemon helferi from dennerle is melting away too. I wonder if plants grown in that gel cocktail of dennerle are just not liking my tank!
> 
> ...


Well, I just ordered a tissue culture cup from Aquarium Plants Factory. Many people said they had great experiences with the vendor so hopefully it's all gravy, they're in the same state so shipping should be fast. I'll keep you updated as well as chronicle the experience in the journal (in my sig). Fingers crossed I'm one of the lucky ones lol

I was thinking of accenting them with pogostemon helferi downoi, what do you think? Let them grow taller than the s. repens and hairgrass.


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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

Just bumping an old thread to see how this plant did (hopefully is doing) for you @varanidguy.


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## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

Blue Ridge Reef said:


> Just bumping an old thread to see how this plant did (hopefully is doing) for you @varanidguy.


Hey @Blue Ridge Reef this response is super delayed.

But I do have some pink flamingo that's doing rather well. It went through months of neglect, I admittedly lost motivation to do maintenance for a while. Surprisingly the flamingo did great! Didn't stay extremely pink but it kept most of the pink.










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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

Nice! I bought some from a forum member whose were completely brownish green in his low tech setup. I put them in a high tech tank and they're getting some new growth that's pinkish but not as bright as I see in photos by any means. Top leaves were existing growth:








This is encouraging since it's a 24" deep tank and has tons of hardscape and shading plants, plus lighting not turned up too high. FTS:








I do think that in a shallower aquarium I could get some pretty good colors from them. My hope for now is just that they grow and I get more plants. At some point I'll redo one of my current non-cube tanks and use the pinks there with higher light. No timetable on that, but I'll obviously start a journal when I do.


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## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

Blue Ridge Reef said:


> Nice! I bought some from a forum member whose were completely brownish green in his low tech setup. I put them in a high tech tank and they're getting some new growth that's pinkish but not as bright as I see in photos by any means. Top leaves were existing growth:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That would be awesome! In my experience, it takes a couple of new leaves to really see that bright pink. I'd love to see what you can do with them!

These plants went without co2 for two months and they were mostly shaded by Vesuvius swords the whole time. I'm surprised they kept the pink at all honestly. Now they're getting blasted with co2, light, and fertilizer again so hopefully they really brighten up.

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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

Lots of conflicting information out there on this plant, but I've been dosing leaner on ferts based on what I've read here. I have four 20 gallon longs on my shrimp rack and considered putting a couple pink crypts in each and seeing if different care regimens/lighting produce vastly different results, but as long as shrimp are the focus of those, I'll be pretty hamstrung. I think these have a lot of potential for breathtaking aquascapes if we can dial in their needs. There are some plant variants I've just given up any hope of keeping (white and variegated Anubias species, for example) but I have feel like these are a little light and parameter balance away from being a splash of color that's actually pretty hardy. Reading through @*kaldurak* 's thread now and trying to convert his fert measurements.

Got home and took some updated pictures since those were about a month old. Here's the same plant I showed earlier. Not hot pink by any means but the difference between old and new growth is stark:
















Here's another in the opposite tank:








This one I had missed and was getting grown over. Did a little trim after taking the picture to remedy that:








Not a huge color difference in any of them. I bought both pink flamingo and panther when I got these and have no idea which is which. All had the dark green coloration you see in the old growth leaves when I received them. I think the potential for them to achieve great color is there, but not at the bottom of these deep tanks without so much light it would cause bigger issues.


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## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

Blue Ridge Reef said:


> Got home and took some updated pictures since those were about a month old. Here's the same plant I showed earlier. Not hot pink by any means but the difference between old and new growth is stark:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Honestly that's looking really good! Sure the leaves would probably be a hotter pink under really high light, but that's still nice and pink. Very good contrast and still eye catching, which is the point of getting these exotic cultivars, right?

Here's an update photo of mine taken today. One thing is the tissue culture flamingos purchased never did anything. They never died, never grew, just sat there for many months. So I gave up on them. These plants started off as one, purchased in a pot from a fish store during a club meeting. $20 for one plant, from a retail store, that was actually a good deal imo. After ripping apart the 40 and doing a rescape, even after all that neglect, I was able to split it into four decent sized plants. As you can see, the new leaves are coming in bright. The tank has two Fluval 3.0 fixtures both at 70% peak. Where it's at in the middle of the tank, it's getting coverage from both fixtures. I haven't set up the Seneye to get a PAR reading yet, but I did measure a single 3.0 on this tank @ 114 PAR running at 100% brightness on this tank. So it should be getting high light where it's at. Fertilizer regimen is modified EI (I dose lower Kno3 and higher Kh2po4) and the micros are dosed three times a week, using the GLA EDTA+DTPA mix. Off gassed the tank sits at about 8.2 pH and saturated at 6.6-6.7 pH. The dKH is 5 and dGH is 7.










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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

If those new leaves keep that color, that's going to be impressive! That's pretty close to as pink as plants get.


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## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

Blue Ridge Reef said:


> If those new leaves keep that color, that's going to be impressive! That's pretty close to as pink as plants get.


All I can do is hope right now lol.

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## jake21 (Aug 11, 2019)

varanidguy said:


> Hey @Blue Ridge Reef this response is super delayed.
> 
> But I do have some pink flamingo that's doing rather well. It went through months of neglect, I admittedly lost motivation to do maintenance for a while. Surprisingly the flamingo did great! Didn't stay extremely pink but it kept most of the pink.
> 
> ...


I would say that plant is not quite the same as my flamingo; but very similar. The flamingo the leaves grow flat against the substrate in a high tech tank with bright light. It is very similar but your plant is definitely a lot more wavy - but maybe it is your growing condition.


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