GWAPA – March 2007 Meeting

March 25th, 2007

Sean Murphy's Nano CubeGWAPA’s March 2007 meeting was another great meeting, this one at Sean Murphy’s home. For a guy known for his Cryptocoryne expertise, he sure can put together an amazing aquascape. This nano-tank to the left, sits innocently on his kitchen counter, with only a desk lamp over top. The desk-lamp sports only a daylight compact-fluorescent spiral bulb. I didn’t measure it, but I believe it’s just an 8″ cube, but he’s made it look much bigger here. Nice work Sean! This tank aside, the rest of Sean’s tanks are all “crypt farms.”

The topic for this meeting was “Growing Aquatic Plants Emerged.” A meeting summary can be found on the GWAPA website.

I was excited about this meeting because I had lined up a trade with Rob to swap my Apistogramma panduros for a half dozen of his Apistogramma sp. ‘Rotpunkt.’ So far they’re settling into my 40G nicely, but are still too young to sex. I hope to post some pictures of them up here soon.

Besides this fish swap, there was a huge auction this month with just about any plant you can think of being auctioned — everything from java moss to sunset hygrophilia to any of the more exotic cultivars you can think of. I only came away with two items, but I’m excited about getting them going. My auction wins are Ludwigia sp. ‘Guinea’ and Bacopa sp. ‘Araguaia.’ I kept Ludwigia sp. ‘Guinea’ previously, but I think it got overgrown by Rotala macrandra var. ‘Green,’ and subsequently melted away. I haven’t kept many Bacopa’s because there’s something about their vertical stance that is unappealing to me, but I’m going to give this one a try nevertheless. Even if I don’t like the look, who can deny the minty smell of its leaves?