Back in June 2007, a few GWAPA members went down to Florida to see what kinds of plants/fish we could find for our aquariums. One plant that was absolutely everywhere was a Hydrocotle species that mixed into the grass of people’s lawns, and existed in virtually every roadside ditch we visited. I grabbed a small amount, expecting it to completely take over my tank.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. This small plant has been living in my 40G tank for over 6 months, while only throwing up a single new stem. Recently, I upgraded my lighting to a 2x96W setup from AHSupply and I’ve noticed that the Hydrocotle sp. has started to grow, sending up a new stem and leaf in just the last week. Right now, the stems are approximately 6 inches tall, which is slightly taller than I’d prefer them. I’ll be sure to post if it evens out, and becomes a nice accent plant in my aquascape.

Our area finally got some snow yesterday for only the second time this winter. The temperature barely stayed below freezing, but it allowed for 2-4″ of snow. I got home from work with just enough daylight to spend about 45 minutes photographing spots along the Little Patuxent River near my home.

I’ve been waiting all season for a good snowfall so that I could come out and take pictures of the river with snow-covered banks, rocks, and vegetation. I figured that I’d be the only one out on the trails, as it was sleeting when I was out there, but surprisingly, I saw joggers, dog walkers, and even a cross-country skier.

This was a very wet snow, so it stuck to anything and everything. Tree trunks were painted quite nicely with snow like the one below.

When first looking through these pictures, I was taken by how they look like black+white prints. I really didn’t desaturate any of them. The lack of green from the seasonal leaf drop, combined with the contrast of the bright snow to the darker tree limbs yields little color.

In many places the water seemed to be moving slower than usual, even though it wasn’t frozen hard. I’d like to say that it was like a moving slurpy, but I’d be lying. It’s more like a glass lake.

That said, some parts still kept their usual ripples and rapids. But, of course, the white precipitation made them even prettier than usual.

I’ve always enjoyed the first few hours after a good snow because the tree branches are completely coated with white. Then, as squirrels and wind breaks through the limbs, the original luster is lost.

I imagine this snow won’t stick around very long, as it’s supposed to get a bit above freezing this weekend. It’s the snow covered rocks in this picture that I really like.

Here’s a zoomed in shot from the same vantage point. I think I like this one better.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures, and hopefully if you got snow yesterday, you were able to enjoy it like I did, instead of being frustrated by the inconveniences it can cause.

This weekend, my wife and I made went hiking in Patapsco Valley State Park. We’ve been to the park before to see some small waterfalls, but this time that part of the park was closed, so we took to the forest trails. All of the leaves have now fallen, but this allows you to see the landscape better, and for longer distances.

From a distance, fallen trees in small valleys could easily be inspiration for aquatic hardscape. Even scenes that aren’t very interesting, still have appeal, if just for some awkward bending tree trunks like the ones below. On the trail, besides the occasional mountain biker, it was pretty quiet. We saw a few squirrels, and the occasional woodpecker searching for a hidden meal, but for the most part it was a nice quiet walk through the forest.

After a few miles, we finally came back around to find a cold stream flowing over river rocks. We took a minute to listen to the trickling of the water, and enjoyed the green of the evergreen beside it. I spend a good deal of time trying to create a beautiful underwater landscape to enjoy, that it’s easy to forget that free ones are all around you outside.

We’ve had some unseasonably warm weather in our region recently, but gradually the weather has been turning cooler this week. I know many folks enjoy year-round warm weather, but for me, I enjoy the cold winters, the seasonal change, and the landscape that changes with it.

On Saturday, I decided to install a new AHSupply 2x96W kit into the canopy over my 40G aquarium. I used to have ODNO lighting on this tank, but I wasn’t comfortable with the amount of energy being wasted to squeeze out a little bit more light from the 36″ 30W bulbs. Below is what that configuration looked like: 4 bulbs driven by 4 ballasts, over cheap shop-light reflectors.

After I removed the existing equipment, I was pretty happy with the condition of the wood. When I built this canopy, I put extra coats of finish to prevent moisture damage. It held up to the moisture and heat pretty well!

I chose to go with AHSupply’s 96W kit because they have fantastic aluminum reflectors, and the 96W bulb fits a 3′ tank perfectly. I know that T5 lighting is all of the rage these days, but I’d prefer to stick with a consistent power compact lineup so that I can buy replacement bulbs in bulk for all of my tanks.

The kit comes with a set of very detailed instructions for installing into a canopy, or building a DIY strip-light enclosure. Everything you need for either configuration is included. To start, I installed the reflectors and bulb clips into the canopy.

The reflectors come with a yellow plastic film over top of them to avoid scratches during installation. They’re a fantastic parabolic reflector that really focuses most of the light output from the bulb down into the tank. They claim that their reflectors make their setup produce 2.5X as much light as a store-bought solution.

Wiring up the ballast was very straight-forward thanks to the included wiring diagram. The hardest part was trimming the wires to length, and stripping them to use the wire nuts. After screwing down the 2 ballasts, and installing the bulbs, I was all done.

Time to fire them up — Man are they bright! It seems like they’re 10X brighter than my old ODNO lights, using equal or less the wattage. By mid-afternoon, the entire tank was pearling more than I’ve seen it pearl in years. This continued for 3 straight days, so I’ve increased my CO2 injection, and dosing amount to compensate. The fish really pop under these lights as well. I’d recommend AHSupply products to anyone looking for a DIY lighting solution.

The Capital Cichlid Association opened the year by bringing in Julie from FryBabies.com to talk about keeping, and breeding, Tropheus cichlids from Lake Tanganyika.

Tropheus are a mouth-brooding cichlid that are fairly common among African cichlid keepers. I, myself, have never kept them, so I found Julie’s talk quite interesting. She imports a lot of fish, making it unpractical to slowly acclimate new imports to her water. So, presuming the pH of the two waters is not terribly different, she simply nets them from the bag, and puts them in her tank. While this may sound alarming, she indicates that she has had zero deaths resulting for this treatment, which is not true for when she slowly acclimated them.

Once in the tank, she withholds feeding them for 3 days to allow their gut to clear of any previous food. Then, watching for some trouble signs (stringy feces), she gradually increases the amount of food she gives them — mostly vegetable-based foods.

Her tanks are generally 50-75G, and she sets them up using rocks/wood to obscure long lines of sight. This helps to lower the aggression level of the males to one another. In addition, she usually stocks at least 20 fish per tank so that no one male beats up on the other fish. The idea is that with that many fish, the aggression will be spread out evenly, resulting in few if any deaths.

When the Tropheus breed, she usually doesn’t strip the eggs from the mouths of the female. In most cases, she allows the parents to raise the fry themselves until the fry are about 1/2″-3/4″ in length. However, if Julie does end up extracting the eggs, she usually waits about 2 weeks until heads and tails are developed and visible in the egg. She has observed that if she does it before this time, the number of fry surviving the move to their own tank decreases. To extract the eggs, she fills an airline tube with water, inserts it into the female’s mouth, and holding the fish upside down, blows on the opposite end of the tube to force water into the female’s mouth. The female usually releases the eggs, but 2-3 tries may be needed to get all of them. A CCA member noted that it’s also possible to just move the female to a small tank of her own, and she’ll usually get stressed, dropping the eggs.

Julie rarely feeds any live foods to her Tropheus, but if she does, she’s sure to follow that feeding with a heavy veggie meal to help push the meat through the fish’s gut. Failure to do this can cause fatal problems with Tropheus due to the length of their intestines, so it’s probably best to stick to a vegetarian diet. Multiple species of Tropheus can be kept in the same tank, but make sure they are different color forms. Even so, if you plan on selling the fry, it’s best to keep each species in their own aquarium. You can, however, keep other types of fish, such as Petrochromis, catfish, and gobies with Tropheus, as long as you ensure that the habitat of the aquarium is appropriate for all species involved.

All-in-all an interesting talk from someone who’s bred her fair share of Tropheus!