Above: Bucephalandra 'Brownie Ghost 2011' has a particularly strong purple hue. Buceps are a genus of flowering rheophytes that grow with a creeping rhizome. They are endemic to Indonesia and come in many unusual forms.

Above: Buceps are most commonly grown on hardscape, although they can be grown directly on substrate if their rhizomes are not buried too deeply.

3 common mistakes

While outwardly hardy, they can also be prone to "melting" and algae infestation. These problems stem from 3 common growing mistakes.

Mistake 1:

Uncycled / biologically immature tank
Buceps are very susceptible to melting in new tanks that have not been sufficiently cycled. This is quite deceptive as they look 'hardy' and have tough looking leaves. However, as slow growers, they expend considerable energy to adapt to new environments and are very susceptible to ammonia damage in new tanks, which may not be detected by surface water measurements.

Cycle a new tank for at least 2 weeks, and allow other plants to grow in, before adding Buceps.

What if I have introduced my Buceps too early?
Your buceps may be covered in diatoms, as shown in the picture above. They look nasty, but fortunately they are quite harmless. The best thing to do is to keep the other parameters (lighting, food, flow) constant and just wait. This can take several weeks, but diatoms can also disappear very quickly. The worst thing you can do is to add more variables (e.g. new additives) that make it harder for the buceps to acclimatize.

What if my Buceps have melted?
Unfortunately there is no way to ‘save’ plants that have melted.

Mistake #2

Having high organic waste levels / little housekeeping
Keeping Buceps in a tank with very high fishload is generally a bad idea. Organic waste easily accumulates on their slow-growing leaves, which become covered with algae, such as shown below:

What can I do?

Practice changing water the 2Hr Way regularly, which involves stirring up and siphoning away detritus on substrate and on the surface of slow growers such as Buceps. This instantly reduces the #1 algae trigger- organic waste. Being slow growing, Buceps have a much harder time outgrowing algae than faster growing stem plants. APT Fix can be spot-dosed as an effective remedy for existing algae, while more regular water changes (and more moderate feeding) would help to control the build-up of organic waste in the future.

Mistake #3

Insufficient flow

Buceps work much better in environments with good flow. Small tanks with backpack filters tend to have 'dead zones' of poor flow. Sometimes wood and rocks can obstruct the flow. It is better to avoid these areas when planting. This can be counter-intuitive as Buceps can grow on hardscape and we have a natural tendency to place them in deep crevices.

What can I do?
Adding a supplementary pump may help improve flow. In a tank with wood and rock aquascape, try to relocate the Buceps to zones where there is better flow. However, too much flow is also a magnet for BBA. Read more about this here.

Summary

Bucephalandra require stable aquarium conditions to grow well. Ideally, they should not be introduced until the tank has stabilised. Signs that a tank has reached this stage include the absence of diatoms, the presence of a healthy population of smaller organisms (small snails, etc.) and plants that have 'grown in' for a while. This greatly reduces the risk of 'melting'.

As slow growers, buceps have a harder time outgrowing algae than faster stemmed plants. Lower levels of organic waste help to keep Buceps algae free. Fewer fish relative to plant mass and regular water changes are important.

Buceps do well with good flow, so a properly sized filter will help. Also, keep them in areas of good flow (as opposed to 'dead zones'). Hobbyists have much higher success rates with lower light (50 umols PAR) and a full but not heavy nutrient regime (APT Complete is preferable to EI-style dosing in these cases). They also perform better at lower temperatures (71F/21C to 79F/26C).