Updated June 4, 2012: Thanks to Bart to correctly identifying as Tobacco Horn Worm. Text corrected

I was out in my garden, and I noticed that a few of my tomato plants were nearly stripped bare of their leaves. I had noticed a few branches like this the other day, but couldn’t find the perpetrator. Well, I finally found the bugger — a rather large tobacco horn worm

Stripped tomato branch

Rather than simply plucking the large caterpillar from the vine, and “removing” him from my garden, I had to do a photo shoot with him first. I’ve been quite fortunate in the past to not have to deal with many of these worms, and the ones I did were usually invaded by wasp parasites.

Tobacco Horn Worm, backend

I didn’t realize at first that the horned part of the caterpillar is not their head. They have some incredibly convincing eye spots and markings to make it appear like they’re something you don’t want to mess with.

In fact, their head is the other end, which is much less intimating. They’ve got three sets of legs or feelers up front that help them to navigate the branches of my poor tomato plants.

Tobacco Horn Worm, full body shot

Overall, their body stripes and coloration really make these attractive creatures. This particular fellow did a number on 2-3 of my tomato vines, but I’m hoping that they’ll rebound, despite already being a little bit behind this year. Does anyone else have any experience with the horn worms, and know how to keep them away in the future?

On Saturday, GWAPA brought Luis Navarro all the way from Houston, TX to do an aquascaping demonstration at our monthly club meeting. I was fortunate to have some time to hang out with him on Friday evening after picking him up from the airport. He’s a really talented and knowledgable aquascaper, so just to talk plants with him was an honor. Prior to the start of the meeting, a few of us gathered at Francine’s house to prepare the 125G aquarium that Luis was going to aquascape. We also had to get the plants he wanted to use ready, which involved tying anubias to small rocks, breaking up Marsilea minuta into small plugs for easy planting, and such.

Around 1:00pm, members started arriving, and by 2:00pm we had almost 30 people packed into Francine’s basement. Everyone was very interested to watch Luis work. He answered a number of questions, and proceed with the aquascape. After about an hour, he had completed this rock scape using Marsilea minuta, Anubias barteri var. ‘nana’, Cryptocoryne crispatula var. balansae, and Vallisneria nana.

Francine's 125G, Scaped by Luis Navarro.

After the demonstration, we held our auction, which consisted of nearly 100 bags of plants for sale. I came away with a number of items this month, including Rotala verticillatus, Rotala sp. ‘Green Narrow,’ Nuphar japonica, Potamogeton gayi, an assortment of other plants. I also was happy to have some other plants on my doorstep when I got home, including Juncus repens, Limnophila sp. “mini”, Hygrophila difformis “variegated”, and Hemigraphis traian. I barely had room for all of that stuff in my tanks! Thanks GWAPA for another great meeting!

From Bailin Shaw of the Aquatic Gardener’s Association:

Fellow aquascapers, it’s that time of the year again! Time to tidy up the tanks, finish growing and grooming the plants, and time to make the final preparations before you snap the pictures for the annual Aquatic Gardeners Association International Aquascaping Contest. With this year’s convention being held in Atlanta, Georgia, your tank might be one of the winning aquascapes to be presented at the awards banquet. As in past contests, each aquascape will be judged by an esteemed panel of judges, and this year is no exception. Deadline for entry of a tank will be September 15 to allow ample time for judging prior to the convention.

I look forward to another exciting year of new and unique aquascapes.

Kind Regards,
Bailin Shaw
Aquascaping Contest Chair

So what are you waiting for? Prepare your tanks, and submit them for the contest!

I try to feed my fish a varied diet of commercially prepared foods, as well as, live foods when I have the extra time to obtain and care for them. A couple months ago, I was cycling a 10G tank, and when I was feeding blackworms to the rest of my tanks, I inadvertantly threw some in the 10G as well.

Blackworms in the 10G Substrate

As you can see, the worms have taken up residence in the substrate, and have actually multiplied quite readily. This is now the tank that I have my yellow shrimp in, and thus far I don’t think the worms are causing a problem. In fact, they’ve done a pretty good job of cleaning up any extra vegetable matter or algae wafers that the shrimp let be.

Blackworms looking for food.

It is a little bit disturbing, however, when you look in the tank, and you see a series of worms waving themselves from the substrate, presumably to filter the water overhead. In some ways, I probably should consider this a boon because I am now culturing my own source for blackworms, verses having to depend on my LFS for fresh shipments.

Just hanging around.

Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to figure out how to adequately harvest them from the tank. I have to be awfully quick with tweezers to snag one because when I get close, they speedily retreat down into the substrate. I may be able to siphon the substrate, through a sieve, and get them that way. Any suggestions? Anyone think they’ll be a problem long term?

I’m going to share an embarrassing story about something that I neglected to do, and am continuing to pay the price for. A couple weekends ago, I was at my favorite local fish store, and decided to pickup a dozen Neon Rainbowfish, M. praecox, to add to 7 others I had, in order to form a nice school in my 75G aquarium. The store has a good reputation for properly quarantining their fish for sale, and they all looked extremely healthy and vibrant. So, against my good judgement, I decided to acclimate them directly into my 75G.

Well, the next day, I noticed that 2-3 of the fish were off by themselves, some of them having discolored patches on their bodies. The next day, those fish were dead, and over the next 4-5 days, all 12 of the others continued to follow suit. I contacted the store owner, and he had received similar reports from the other customers who bought the fish, and agreed to fully replace them once he got a healthy batch in. That’s fine, and had I quarantined them, that would be the end of a very sad incident.

Instead, I’ve lost one of my other M. praecox in the 75G, all five of my beloved Red Lizard Catfish, and my newly bought and favored Apistogramma hongsloi sp. ‘Super Rostrich.’ The corydoras, L729 plecos, and Nannochromis nudiceps so far seem to be unaffected, but I’m not considering myself out of the water yet. In addition, I’ve also incurred the extra expense of having to medicate the entire 75G tank, instead of just a 10G quarantine tank.

So, please, learn from my mistake, and quarantine your fish. Even if you just keep an empty 10G aquarium lying around, you can fill it with water from your main tank, throw in a sponge filter (preferably a used one), and be setup for 2 weeks prior to introducing the fish to your main aquarium. I usually follow this advice, and wish I did in this instance, as well.