The informational part of 2008 Aquatic Gardener’s Association Convention wrapped up on Saturday evening with Karen Randall talking about her collecting trip to Thailand with aquatic plant author and expert, Christel Kasselman.

When they first got to Thailand, they wanted to experience the huge market in Bangkok. They had heard stories about the size and quality of the aquarium-related stands setup there. After much walking, they finally came to some of the dealers, finding rack after rack of aquariums filled with aquatic plants. Karen said that they could pretty much locate any aquarium plant known to the hobby in that market, in addition to some new ones.

Take for example this variegated fern shown above, which was purportedly a form of Java Fern. Unfortunately, with several weeks ahead of them, they weren’t confident they any plants bought in the market would survive to make it back to their homes. In addition to the plants, the markets had an amazing selection of other materials including rocks, wood, equipment, and even an insane variety of gravel. (shown below)

I can only imagine what it must be like to walk through so many shops who really get it in terms of aquatic plants. From there, Karen and Christel traveled throughout the country, collecting various crypts and other plants trying and find something new. They did find some interesting stuff, which she promised we’ll hear more about soon.

The next day, Sunday, was an all-day auction. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a thousand bags of plants spread across 4-5 rows of tables. I took 30 bags of plants myself to sell, but only came home with four. There was pretty good variety present in the auction, and prices were all over the map. In the beginning, prices tend to be a little bit inflated, but as the day wore on, several folks got some really good deals. It’s interesting to see relatively well-known plants, such as Anubias barteri var. nana, go for high prices while lesser known new plants go for less than they’d sell for online. Every auction is different, however, and I had a great time chatting with folks, while occasionally placing a bid. After 4-5 hours, I was off to the airport, after enjoying a fantastic convention. I highly recommend that every aquatic plant enthusiast try to attend at least one of these conventions in the future.

Two weeks ago, I posted a rather pathetic version of my 2.5G aquascape. I got some great comments from everyone, and have updated the scape in a few areas. It’s amazing the difference that the Blyxa japonica, in particular, makes in this scape in the back left. Otherwise, I added some Anubias barteri var. ‘nana’ and moved all of the Java Fern to the right side of the tank. What do you think?

I also decided to practice some of my photography skills for this picture. With these smaller tanks, you really have the luxury of being able to flash the heck out of the whole tank evenly, using just a couple of strobes. You can see my setup below. I sat one flash on top of the light fixture pointing upward into a domed piece of computer paper. The dome reflects the flash down the back of the tank, illuminating the white paper background sitting about 3-4 inches behind the aquarium.

Then, I have a second strobe suspended, using an improvised snoot to focus the light into the tank, which illuminates the front of the scape, which would normally be shaded by the rocks. Of course, the aquarium light itself provides pretty decent light as well, so these strobes are really just for a bit extra refinement. Any suggestions?

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!

My 2.5G aquascape is now planted, and a week old. I haven’t really seen a ton of growth yet, but I’m hoping that the plants are just getting themselves acclimated to the conditions. I am running pressurized CO2 into the aquarium in hopes that it will speed things along.

The plants are pretty bread and butter type plants for a nano tank. From left to right, in the back I’ve got Downoi, Narrowleaf Java Fern, and Java Fern ‘Trident/Fingers’. In the foreground, there’s Hemianthus callitrichoides (HC) and Anubias barteri var. ‘nana petite’ in the midground. I’m going to need to thicken up the downoi a little bit, and let the HC grow in, but otherwise, if those two things happen, I’m pretty happy with this aquascape. As always, I would love some comments/critiques.

When I got back from Florida last year, I started a small emersed setup in my office to keep some of the cryptocorynes we bought there. First, an emersed setup is one that allows you to grow your plants terrestrially, or out of the water. Really, all that is required is a light, a closed container to maintain proper humidity, and some sort of fertilization plan. It’s not much different from starting seeds or a lite version of hydroponics.

Why would any planted aquarium keeper want an emersed setup? There are many reasons, but one good reason is to more quickly grow out enough plants to start a new aquascape. It’s also a good place to store plants that you want to keep, but don’t want in your current aquascape. Or, you can use one to flower your plants for get seeds, or just simply to see what the terrestrial version of a plant/flower looks like.

I started with a simple seed-starting tray and dome (above) from the hydroponics store. Make sure to get a high dome so that there’s room for your plants to grow vertically. Just recently, I transferred all of my plants from that dome/tray setup into a 10G aquarium in order to gain even more height.

I use mostly coconut-fiber pots filled with a mixture of leaf compost and ADA Aquasoil. This is especially good for most cryptocorynes, but works for other plants as well. Then, after planting each plant, I lightly cover the surface of the soil mixture with moss. Mosses have a natural anti-fungal agent that helps to prevent your plants from being overwhelmed with white-fuzzy-fungus that can easily ruin the whole setup. After that, I fill the container to a water level of about an inch below the rim of the pots. This supplies the pots with a constant water source. Finally, I’m using plain fluorescent strip lights over top, and a small powerhead to circulate water around the tank.

CO2 is not a concern because it is abundant in the atmosphere. Algae doesn’t grow out of the water, so all of your leaves will be algae free. These two things are the largest reasons many of the large aquatic plant nurseries grow their plants emersed before they arrive at your local fish store. For fertilizers, you can use hydroponics solutions, dry ferts, or even aquarium liquid ferts.

Currently, I’m growing Cryptocoryne moehlmannii, Utricularia graminfolia, and several Anubias barteri nana ‘petite’. I want to build up a nice supply of A. ‘petite’ for some upcoming aquascapes. I’m curious to try and flower the Utricularia, and I just haven’t managed to move the crypt to a tank. I hope to expand the number of plants grown this way now that I have more space in my 10G aquarium.

I finally did it! I removed all of the Soilmaster Select from my 75G, and went with Aquasoil/powersand using the manzanita I ordered months ago. This is really the first aquascape I’ve down with manzanita wood. Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true since Jeff and I aquascaped the AquaFest demonstration tank with it about 4 hours before I setup this tank, but I don’t think that counts.

A few goals for this tank are to actually get a good Utricularia graminfolia foreground growing well, have better circulation (and less algae), and perhaps fewer stems than I had before. So far, I’ve got quite a few crypts in the tank with C. affinis, C. wendtii ‘Dewitt,’ C. wendtii ‘Green Gecko,’ C. willisii x lucens ‘green,’ and C. moehlmannii. I’ve also got my share of anubias with A. sp. ‘garbon,’ A. heterophylla, A. lanceolata, A. barteri var. ‘nana,’ A. sp. ‘Eyes’ and A. sp. ‘Gasser.’ I do still have some stems in here consisting of Pogostemon stellata ‘broad-leaf’, ‘needle leaf’, and regular. Plus, P. yatabeanus, Ludwigia arculata x repens, and Rotala macrandra.

I’m still figuring out what species of fish I want in this tank. So, far, the three bags of fish I got at Aquafest are in here, so some Nannochromis nudiceps, Ancistrus sp. L279 “Huaco Mayo,” and Corydoras Paleatus. I’m thinking about getting some other West African dwarf cichlids, but I haven’t decided on the exact species or color morph yet.

It still has a lot of growing in to do, but I’d love to hear some initial feedback.

Aquafest 2007 was much more than just a set of lectures. In addition to being a fun, social event, CCA also hosted a fish show, showcasing over 100 top-quality fish from around the area. As you can see below, there was no lack of tanks. Cichlids seemed to be the most prominent type of fish on display with discus the size of dinner plates, gorgeous Africans, and even a few apistogramma making appearances. There were also a number of catfish showing.

In addition to the fish show, Ray “Kingfish” Lucas had a number of displays setup, touting products from a number of great aquarium-related manufacturers. Tony Orso was also setup, with a few other vendors, such as Anubias Design, at the festival.

Besides introducing Eric Do, GWAPA’s big event of the weekend was the aquascaping demonstration, led by myself and recent APC tank-of-the-month winner, Jeff U (bigstick120). Aaron T, Dave W., and Eric Do also helped field questions while we were presenting.

We gave a pretty straight forward aquascaping demonstration, trying to mimic Amano’s demonstration at the 2004 AGA convention that GWAPA hosted. Jeff added some brand new Seachem Flourite Black to our 37G Oceanic tank, and began setting up the hardscape. I did my best to explain that you often want to group rocks into odd numbered groupings, and avoid symmetry when possible.

Once the hardscape was in place, Jeff and I started planting HC in the foreground, along with some Blyxa japonica, anubias barteri var. ‘nana‘ and downoi in the midground.

We explained how you want to plant the tank mostly dry, with just enough water to compact the substrate for easier planting. After planting all of stems it was time to fill up the tank.

Eric Do helped out with the chore of filling up the tank, using the empty Flourite Black bag as a shield to disturb the substrate as little as possible. (I mentioned yesterday how Eric is a great guy, right?) I continued planting, and also added some Java moss to the branches of the manzanita.

Finally, with the help of a H.O.T. magnum micron filter, the water cleared, and we were left with the aquascape below. It didn’t come perfectly, but it was enough to inspire plenty of questions from the folks attending. This entire setup was raffled off the next day, with lucky winner Rodney C., winning the raffle.

The auction itself was a HUGE event. Registration started around 9:00am. All items were auctioned off by 7:45pm. Yes, the auction ran non-stop from 10:00am to 7:45pm, selling at least2000 individual items by my estimate. Some club members believe that it may be the largest aquarium auction ever in the history of the three clubs participating. If you missed it, you missed an opportunity to grab anything from books, tanks, equipment, fish, plants, invertebrates, substrate, etc. at great prices.

I didn’t come away empty-handed, either. I won the following:

Fish:
Nannochromis nudiceps
Ancistrus sp. L279 “Huaco Mayo”
Corydoras Paleatus

Plants:
Crypt. wendtii “Dewitt”
Anubias sp. “Gasser”
Anubias barteri var. ‘nana eyes’

I’ll post more about where all of those things went later this week.

GWAPA is nearing the end of its 2.5G aquascaping contest with all entries due by October 1st. I’m cautiously pleased with how mine is progressing. I’ve added in some more anubias barteri var. ‘nana’ and anubias barteri var. ‘petite’ to the crevice between the rocks. I’ve been picking riccia fluitans from the crasula helmsii in the foreground. I’m not entirely sure how it got in there, but it seems to be doing well — too much so. You generally think that riccia is a bright green colored plant, but this crasula in the foreground puts it to shame; the riccia looks dark green in comparison. There’s also a little bit of fissidens sp. moss growing on a few of the rocks. Ideally, I’d like that to cover most of the rock’s surface, but unfortunately, I don’t think that’ll happen by October 1st.

Since this is a photo contest, I’ve been experimenting with a couple different backgrounds for this tank. Here are two that I took a day apart, where the only difference is that one is a white background, and the other black. Comments welcome!

Monday, our last full day in Florida, we had an appointment with the owner of Florida Aquatic Nurseries (FAN) for a personalized tour through their facilities. FAN is probably the largest grower and wholesaler of aquatic and pond plants for the entire United States. Chances are, if you see a potted plant at your local fish store, it originated from these guys. Their 5 and 10 acre facilities are really quite impressive. Below you can see how most of the aquatic plants are grown hydroponically in their greenhouses. The plants sit in large tubs of water that are constantly circulated throughout the bins.

Other plants are grown individually in pots like the Anubias barterii var. nana ‘petite’ shown below. Nearly all of the plants are flowering throughout the greenhouse, so we saw flowers for crypts, sword plants, various hygrophilia, ludwigia, hydrocotle, you name it.

Outside of their greenhouses, they have countless numbers of large concrete ponds where they grow more aquatic plants, this time, mostly submerged. These ponds are packed with stem plants, all bright red and orange from the intense Florida sun. Take note of the Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata ”Cuba” below. They have a fairly large work force at hand, constantly monitoring all of the plants, and taking cuttings from the large ponds to sell.

We were quite surprised at the sheer number of popular plants FAN is growing that rarely seem to show up in our local stores. Everything from nana ‘petite’ to HC to downoi were there. I’m not sure if the distributors aren’t stocking these plants, or if the local stores only carry bread and butter plants, but it’s a shame to know that these things aren’t widely distributed. Beyond aquarium plants, there were countless water lilies in bloom throughout the nursery. Beautiful!

Our last stop before heading home was an orchid nursery that supposedly stocked some rare crypts that were given to them by the late Robert Gasser, a pioneer grower of Cryptocoryne species. We called the owner of the nursery, and he agreed to show us around. Not a crypt guy himself, the owner didn’t know many of the species that were spread throughout his nursery, but we did end up purchasing a pot or two of what we believe is Cryptocoryne cordata var. zonata. Beyond the exotic types, he had Crypt. wendtii growing in his ponds, one shown below.

I have to say that this trip was unlike any other that I’ve been on. It was very free-form in nature, and had surprises at every waterway, nursery, or ditch that we stopped at. Hopefully, GWAPA members will make this trek down I-95 an annual or semi-annual occurrence!

GWAPA’s aquascaping contest is currently underway after we handed out the equipment at our May meeting. So, what did I do? I went straight home, filled my tank with aquasoil, popped in some new bulbs into my old fixture, and setup the aquascape below.

Obviously, this is a mound style of aquascape, using the downoi and blyxa japonica to highlight the rocks. In the middle is anubias barterii nana var. ‘petite’ with crassula helmsii in the foreground. I have a little bit of ranalisma rostrata in the back right to transition to a better height from the blyxa japonica. I’m still deciding how much I like this scape, but I hope to have it grow in with enough time to take a picture and try another scape before the October deadline. Hopefully that’s allowed. 😉