The second presentation at the 2008 AGA was Dr. Michael Kane of the University of Florida, who spoke about Tissue Culture for Aquarists. Tissue culturing is the rapid clonal propagation of plants. This is an extremely beneficial way of propagating plants because every plant produced is guaranteed to be identical genetically to the original plant. In addition, the plants can be disease free, produced in high volume, and can be grown in very little space.

Dr. Kane then proceeded to discuss in more detail how to propagate aquatic plants, specifically Cryptocoryne. One of the challenges of aquatic plants is obtaining a sterile source plant from which to work. For this reason, if it’s possible to do so, you ought to first convert your plant to emersed form, growing in a soiless potting mix. When the plant is ready, you need to further sterilize it by rinsing in water, soaking in 50% ethanol, and for 12 minutes in 20% bleach. Once complete, isolate the growing tip of the plant, and put it in your culture medium. This is a gelatinous substance containing nutrients, which will be placed in a sterile container. From here, they need to be grown out, and further split many times to ultimately end up with hundreds of individual plants. This is, of course, a gross simplification of the process.

Dr. Kane also detailed a number of ways that hobbyists could do tissue culturing in their own homes, using easily obtainable materials. In addition, he mentioned the he expects to be teaching a short 2-3 day course sometime next spring specifically on how to propagate aquatic plants. I would love to attend that course!

Throughout the talk, he offered a number of other useful tidbits. For instance, he mentioned that you can spray a Cryptocoryne with gibberellic acid to induce it to flower. He also stated the tissue culturing does not work for every plant, and even for some that do, it is incredibly slow (Anubias). Water lillies, for instance, are quite difficult to culture, as are true aquatic plants, which have no emersed form. This was one of the talks I was most looking forward to at this convention, and Dr. Michael Kane delivered.

The Aquatic Gardener’s Association 2008 Convention officially kicked off with Greg Morin of Seachem talking about Foliar vs. root-zone uptake for ferric and ferrous iron. I arrived a little bit late that day after spending some time going around Atlanta, but the talk was very interesting, although it was a little bit above my head. Greg explained how iron (Fe) is essential for plant growth because it facilitates electron transfer as a constituent for enzymes & proteins. In laymens terms, plants need it.

Plants have a number of methods for obtaining, and then regulating the iron that is needed for growth. Ideally, iron should be readily available to plants, either via the water column or in the substrate, but if it is not, plants can access a stored protein form called ferritin. Unfortunately, while this protein will work, new growth is slow, and yellowing of the leaves often occurs. Therefore, it is much better to make it readily available.

Greg detailed a series of laboratory studies that Seachem is conducting to determine the best way to feed iron to a plant. Essentially, there are two ways: via the leaves or via the roots. In addition, there are many compounds that contain iron, so they are comparing a chelated supplement (EDTA) verses iron gluconate (Flourish Iron). They’re using three types of plants, Crypt wendtii, Anacharis, and Echinodorus bleheri, to compare how different types of plants might react to the various iron forms. Preliminarily, they have found that roots are far more efficient (40:1) than the leaves at absorbing iron. In addition, compared to EDTA, their findings seem to indicate that iron gluconate is more easily absorbed by both foliar and root regions. They, of course, recognise that no plant can grow with just iron, so there are limiting factors when other nutrients are in short supply. Therefore, they are continuing their research to take some of these things into account.

Overall, what I heard from this talk is that the Flourish Iron I’m using in my tank is doing what it’s supposed to do, so I’m going to continue using it.

At the AGA Convention banquet tonight, the winners of the 2008 Aquascaping Contest were announced. For more information, better pictures, and runner ups, please visit the AGA convention website. Without further adieu, here is the best of show aquarium. The judges liked this aquarium very much. Karen Randal noted how the use of sand and varying size rocks in the foreground really added realism to the scape. Amano had some issues with the driftwood because it looked distorted from the use of a wide-angle lens for this picture. He also thought that the background plants could be a little bit more lush.

Due to his criticisms of the Best in Show tank, Amano offered his top two picks for best of show, even though he was ultimately overruled by the scoring of other judges. Amano really liked how this next aquarium has the bare-bottom of the aquarium exposed to create the look of a lake. He also liked how the lake reflected the color of the sky and clouds in the background. Basically, he valued the originality of this idea.

Amano was also very impressed with the rock-work in this next aquarium. He found the attention to detail, and the creation of depth very good. He also noted how it was a big risk to use rocks in the foreground, but that ultimately the aquascaper pulled it off.

For me, of all of the tanks that I saw this evening, my pick would be the following tank. I really like the sense of depth created in this tank, plus the whole glacier theme, and incorporation of a snow-covered mountain in the background. That’s a little bit unconventional, and overall, a very cool scape.

My runner up would this this scape. The depth is incredible. The background is a little overdone, but the close density of the plants on either bank is really impressive .

Please leave your thoughts for the best tanks in this contest.

At the AGA Convention banquet tonight, the winners of the 2008 Aquascaping Contest were announced. For more information, better pictures, and runner ups, please visit the AGA convention website. Without further adieu, here are the top aquariums in this category.

At the AGA Convention banquet tonight, the winners of the 2008 Aquascaping Contest were announced. For more information, better pictures, and runner ups, please visit the AGA convention website. Without further adieu, here are the top aquariums in this category.

At the AGA Convention banquet tonight, the winners of the 2008 Aquascaping Contest were announced. For more information, better pictures, and runner ups, please visit the AGA convention website. Without further adieu, here are the top aquariums in this category.

At the AGA Convention banquet tonight, the winners of the 2008 Aquascaping Contest were announced. For more information, better pictures, and runner ups, please visit the AGA convention website. Without further adieu, here are the top aquariums in this category.

At the AGA Convention banquet tonight, the winners of the 2008 Aquascaping Contest were announced. For more information, better pictures, and runner ups, please visit the AGA convention website. Without further adieu, here are the top aquariums in this category.

At the AGA Convention banquet tonight, the winners of the 2008 Aquascaping Contest were announced. For more information, better pictures, and runner ups, please visit the AGA convention website. Without further adieu, here are the top aquariums in this category.

Even though I’m still waiting on my 4x39W T5 light fixture to arrive from Catalina Aquarium, I’ve managed to borrow lights from some other tanks so that I can get going on the planting. I hooked up the Eheim 2026 Canister Filter, Hydor In-Line Heater, and CO2 canister so I’m good to go on everything but the light. I also added a few more rocks to fill in the hardscape. As this is my first planting, everything is subject to change and refinement as it grows in.

I’ve surrounded the large manzanita root ball with Stargrass, which I hope will provide a bright green backdrop to the wood. In front, I planted Hemianthus callitrichoides along with a little bit of hairgrass mixed in. This transitions up to some Blyxa japonica in the midground areas. In the back, I’ve planted five or six varieties of Rotala, which I’ll groom and cull once they’ve grown in a little bit. Unfortunately, I didn’t have full bushes of many of the stems, so they’ll all have to grow for a little while before I can truly scape with them. I still need to obtain a bunch of Fissidens fontanus moss to accent and soften the wood and rockwork. So, it’s definitely still a work in process… Comments welcome!