Adding sand into the substrate mix to improve growth

I had 2 pots of C. striolata collected from Sarawak, one with ADA Amazonia mixed with Ocean Free Super Pro-Peat Granule (pot A) and BE-1 organic fertiliser, the other similar except that SUDO Crystal Orange Sand was mixed within the substrate as well (pot B).

After more than a month, the C. striolata in pot B seemed to be growing much better than that in pot A. See below, the first 2 photographs are the C. striolata in pot B taken one month apart, while the next 2 are that in pot A, also taken one month apart.

I therefore decided to add the same sand mixture into pot A too (see below) to see if the growth would be improved thereafter.

Similarly, there are a few species of cryptocoryne from Sarawak which are not growing well currently too. As these species of cryptocoryne were found in habitats with sandy base, I decided to add sand into the pots of cryptocorynes as well to see if this would improve their growth as well.

Firstly is C. auriculata 'Mador', the two photographs were taken one month apart. The C. auriculata was initially grown in a mixture of ADA Amazonia and Africana with peat granules and BE-1 organic fertiliser. The second photograph is the most current with sand already added in, showing the cryptocoryne not doing too well.

Secondly is C. cordata var. zonata 'Sungei Engkramut'. It was initially grown in a mixture of ADA Amazonia with peat granules and BE-1 organic fertiliser.

Thirdly is C. cf. cordata / C. cf. xpurpurea 'Lundu'. It was grown initially in ADA Africana mixed with peat granules and BE-1 organic fertiliser.

Hopefully I will have some good news to announce a few months later regarding this.

C. auriculata 'Sungai Mador'

During our last Sarawak trip last month, we were trying to locate C. auriculata from Sungai Entabei as stated in "the crypt pages". However, by the time we managed to reached Sungai Entabei which was a very big river (at least the portion that we went to), it was past sunset already. We therefore had to made the painful decision to gave up trying to locate this species totally as we had many locations we wanted to cover within our limited 3 days trip and could not waste a few hours just to try to locate one species.

This trip, we decided to locate C. auriculata from Sungai Mador instead which proved to be a much easier option. The river was along the alternative route to Sibu which we missed during our last trip. The C. auriculata could be found growing emersed on the river bank under a big flowering tree . I had seen this species of tree along a few streams in Sarawak but do not know the name, any suggestions?

The leaves of the C. auriculata located in this river did not have the striking markings which were sometimes found on that from other localities. They were greenish in colour both on the upper and undersides and only had light markings.

The cryptocorynes growing nearer to the water were submersed.

Sadly, we only managed to locate an unopened spathe.

We also located a few specimens with variegated / albino leaves (due to some sort of deficiency?). My friend told me that some people were willing to pay higher price to purchase such specimens?!?! The question to ask is whether such variegation is stable and permanent?

The pH of the river water was about 6.0 to 6.5 and the river bed consist of mainly sand as could be seen below.