Brazos Bend State Park

In the last few weeks I have made a couple of trips out to Brazos Bend State Park (BBSP) near Houston after hearing about it from a friend. There are lot of aquatic plants around the park and some interesting wildlife. I could not do any collection here as this is a state park and collection is prohibited.

Echinodorus cordifolius were growing huge and were ominipresent around all the lakes.

E.cordifolius flower

Polygonum hydropiperoides growing through out the park were in full bloom.

As I looked around the bank of the lake for more plants and was trying to reach for some Limnobium laevigatum (Amazon Frogbit) , this guy waited patiently for me to do a mistake.

This beauty had ventured quiet far from the lake probably to lay eggs.

Pistia stratiotes and this Hydrocotyle sp was also easy to spot along the lake.

Hydrocotyle sp

Nelumbo lutea (American lotus)

A view of the Elm Lake,  one of the few lakes in BBSP.

Sagittaria platyphylla was another plant common along the lake’s bank.

This yellow crowned night heron tolerated me quiet a bit as I kept on disturbing him as he hunted for his supper.

This guy was not so accomodating.

A sunset at 40-Acre Lake.

Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Florida Sunset’ spathe

Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Florida Sunset’ was introduced to the hobby by Florida Aquatic Nursery(FAN) in November of 2008 at the AGA convention.  It was not until March,2009 that FAN started shipping out this plant to its distributors. C.wendtii ‘Florida Sunset’ is a variant of C.wendtii ‘Mi oya’. In emersed culture the leaves are brown with shades of  pink and small amount of white.

C.wendtii ‘Florida Sunset’ is a easy plant to grow both emersed and submerged. It loses its variegated form underwater.This Cryptocoryne  is extremely easy to flower. My plant send out a spathe approximately one month after it was planted in my emersed set-up and has been putting out spathes continuously since then.

The twisted yellow limb of the spathe is clearly visible in the picture above. This is not typical of a C. wendtii limb which is generally reddish brown. The deep brown collar is fairly pronounced.

A cross-section of the kettle shows a short spadix.

Polygonum hydropiperoides

Polygonum hydropiperoides in my emersed Cryptocoryne set-up put out an inflorescence last weekend. P.hydropiperoides is native to both North and South America and is generally found growing along ponds and swamp margins.  Typically flowering from June through November,this plant had flowered for me in July of  2008 when I had just started my emersed set-up.

P.hydropiperoides is one of the less popular Polygonum sp. in the hobby. This is probably due to its less flashy colors as compared to the other Polygonum species.  P. hydropiperoides is a moderately difficult plant to grow submerged.

P.hydropiperoides has a straight upright growth pattern and tends to grow out of water if given a chance. Although this plant is not available from any of the aquatic plant nurseries it is easily obtained by collection throughout United States.

P.hydropeperoides growing in its natural habitat at Armand Bayou Nature Center, Pasadena , Texas.

Houston Plant Fest 2009- Part 2

ADA 180P at ADG Gallery

The third day of Houston Plant Fest started early for some of the NASH members who volunteered to help Mike Senske prepare plants for his demonstration. Mike was gracious enough and offered to do a planted tank set up demonstration for the group which had gathered in Houston for the Plant Fest. The ADG Gallery was looking great as usual.

ADA Mini-M

The ADG Gallery also had  some great looking marine set ups.

As Mike and team prepared for the presentation some of the people who had arrived early spent  some time pouring over  Aqua Journals and gazing at the relaxing aquascapes in the ADG confrence room.

Ghazanfar And John

Ghazanfar, Thanh and Dave

Other than the beautiful aquariums, the ADG Gallery also has some interesting pieces of wood  on display.

Mike started his presentation with a brief introduction about his business and how he  and Jeff Senske have made Aquarium Design Group what it is today.

Mike was setting up a ADA 90P for this demonstration. He had decided to do a divided substrate set up with ADA Bright Sand in the front and AquaSoil Amazonia in the back.

John And Luis , helping Mike.

Mike’s demonstration was great as usual and was an amazing opportunity for people who had gathered to learn and discuss the intricacies involved in setting up a show quality aquascape.

The finished scape.

The Houston Plant Fest was graciously sponsored by Seachem Laboratories and Deep Sea Aquatics. Seachem had arranged for a lot of  free goodies for the people who attended the presentation at ADG.

Deep Sea Aquatics had donated an awesome  rimless tank setup to be raffled at the end of the presentation. Mary Beth, the winner of the raffle was definitely pleased with her prize.

Mary Beth excited about her prize.

After the presentation NASH had a impromptu plant auction. Kevin, did a good job as an auctioneer . There were some great plants to be had at dirt cheap prices.

Kevin trying to sell me some Anubias minima.

From ADG Gallery the group headed to a BBQ party at Valerie’s Lake House on Lake Houston. Valerie is one of the founding members of NASH and was kind enough to host the BBQ party at her beautiful lake house.

Valerie’s Lake House

I arrived a little late for the BBQ party and missed out on some of the delicious food Kevin’s dad had cooked. But  just hanging around with friends, having some drinks together and checking out the beautiful sunset from the lake house made up for it.

Overall this was a great weekend which we all enjoyed as a group. On behalf of NASH, I would like to thank all the people who participated in the Plant Fest 2009. A big thanks goes out to Aquarium Design Group, Seachem, Fish Gallery , Houston Aquarium Warehouse, Deep Sea Aquatics, Valerie and all the volunteers from NASH who made this  fun filled weekend possible.

 

Houston Plant Fest 2009- Part 1

Houston Plant Fest 2009 kicked off on Thursday April 9th with a get together at Houston Aquarium Warehouse. Planted tank enthusiasts and friends from all over United States had flown to this event hosted by Nature Aquarium Society of Houston (NASH). Daniel Villasenor owner of Houston Aquarium Warehouse is a reputed discus seller and stocks a lot of “hard – to-find” fish perfect for planted tanks.

The Red Leopard Snakeskin Discus that Daniel had in stock were some of the best I have seen. After some drinks, snacks and catching up on old friends and new  I had to head out with Thanh to pick up the vans for our next days trip to San Marcos.

Checking out crystal clear water at Aquarena Springs

John looks pretty excited.

The drive to San Marcos started early. When I arrived at the meeting point with the van along with Thanh every one was already there, geared up with their collection equipments and cameras for a fun filled day ahead. There were 22 people in the group who made the trip. The drive was interesting as we spent a lot of time discussing our planted tanks.  We reached Aquarena Springs around 9 am. The day was looking great for our collection trip. After gazing at the beautiful underwater scenery at the Aquarena Springs reservoir through its crystal clear water the group was ready to head downstream to collect some plants.

Drinda ready to collect some plants.

Dave trying to grab some Fissiden fontanus.

Collected Fissiden fontanus

The first stop down stream was a great spot just off the road. The group collected a lot of Riccia fluitans and Hydrocotyle verticillata at this spot. Heading further down from there we spotted Fissiden fontanus growing along the embankment. This was the first time we had spotted F.fontanus at this location.

The group headed further down the river where we spotted a lot of  Hygrophila polysperma , Potamogeton illinoensis, Ceratopteris thalictroides and Ecihhornia crassipes. It was really disheartening to see the river choked with these introduced species.

Hydrilla verticillata clogging the river.

From here we proceeded to our next location to find the elusive Cryptocoryne beckettii. This is another non-native species which is gradually spreading in this river system. The group followed a trail along the river trying to spot some crypts. Along the  river banks we spotted Nuphar lutea, Ludwigia repens, Pistia stratiotes and more H.verticillata. We were not lucky enough to spot the Cryptocoryne but we spotted a school of large Koi cruising peacefully in a secluded section of the river.

H.verticillata was growing everywhere.

At around 3pm we headed back to Houston. Fish Gallery one of the premium aquarium store in Houston was hosting a small cocktail party in the evening.  At Fish Gallery we got a chance to relax and chat about our hobby with other fellow hobbyist. I grabbed this opportunity to snap some pictures of their beautiful livestock.

Pterois volitans

Ginglymostoma brevicaudatum

The day ended on a high note with all of us eagerly looking forward to the presentation from Mike Senske the next morning at the ADG Gallery.

Cryptocoryne ponterderiifolia & Cryptocoryne usteriana ‘Red’ spathe

The genus Cryptocoryne consists of  60 plus species of plant which can be found from India all the way to Papua New Guinea. I have been fascinated by this genus ever since I started in this hobby. About eight months back I started my emersed Cryptocoryne set-up just to save the extra plants I had from a tank I had taken down. Over the time my collection kept growing from a few odd pots in a small 10G to over 20 different species.

Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia flowered for me approximately four months after planting. The spathe on this plant started developing after I spotted the spathe on the C .usteriana ‘Red’ but the C.pontederiifolia spathe opened within a span of week.  The  collar and limb was beautiful yellow with a white throat.

C.usteriana ‘Red’ spathe took about two weeks to open up. The spathe was 8cm in length. The limb of spathe was deep yellow with a brownish uneven edge. This plant has be growing rigorously for me  putting out plantlets regularly.

This plant was simultaneously putting out another spathe when the first one flowered. It is visible in the picture above.

Hygrophila sp. ‘Araguaia’

I have been growing a few stems of Hygrophila sp ‘Aragaia’ emersed for about six months now. The stems were initially planted in a small 5gallon cube which has a 1.5” layer of old Aquasoil Amazonia II and Bright Sand. I had a 26 W 6700K CF bulb on it. The stems I initially got were grown submerged. I cut the top of the stems to approximately 2” and planted them. After not seeing any significant growth for about 3 weeks I moved them to my emersed Cryptocoryne set up. Initially the stems were planted in a pot with some Cryptocoryne willisii. After a couple of weeks I could see some improvements in the growth. The plant was putting out new leaves but the growth was very very slow. In December, 2008 I decided to plant the stems in their own pot and moved the pot directly under the 65W CF light I had over this tank.

Over the next few weeks the growth increased significantly but I would still consider it slow for a Hygrophila sp. Finally after six months it flowered for me confirming it was a Hygrophila sp.

Beautiful lilac flower with sprinkle of lavender.

NASH January 2009 Meeting – Kevin Christy’s 75G Set-up

2008 was very successful year for Nature Aquarium Society of Houston. The Wabi-kusa presentation, Invertebrates presentation by Eric Do, The San Marcos Collection Trip and the great NASH representation at the AGA Convention 2008 were just a few of the accomplishment for NASH in 2008. Nature Aquarium Society of Houston started 2009 with a bang. The January meeting was graciously hosted by Kevin.The plan for this get together was to do a planted tank set up demonstration for some of the newer members of our club. Luis Navarro along with help from Kevin decided to do a mangrove style aquascape inspired by AquaJournal July 1996 Vol.25 “Blessing of the Mangrove”. Luis is an accomplished aquascaper and winner of several aquascaping contests, so his experience was really vital in this demonstration.

Kevin had actually started preparing for this project since November of 2008. The 75G  aquarium Kevin choose for this project has 1/2″ thick glass with no center brace. The tank was drilled from the bottom so there was no unsightly hardware hanging in the tank. Kevin is using an Eheim 2260 for filtration with an in line AquaMedic 1000 Co2 Reactor for Co2 diffusion on this tank. The stand used for this tank was hand painted by Kevin and he had done a great job. This was going to be a open top tank , so Kevin had two 150W Coralife  pendants suspended from the ceiling.

Luis started aquascaping the tank by spreading a large bag of  Power Sand Special M  as the bottom layer of the substrate. The next thing to go in were four bags of AquaSoil Amazonia II. After properly leveling the substrate, Luis started arranging the pre-soaked driftwood. As Luis was working on arranging the hardscape a team of NASH members was preparing Anubias and Marsilea. The arranged hardscape which consisted of a lot of separate pieces of driftwood was then tied together using wire ties. The finished hardscape had turned out excellent.

Kevin and Luis started planting the tank by first tying some Java moss to the wood. Luis then arranged the Anubias which was tied to small lava rock pieces using ADA Woodtight.  Some Bolbitis heudelotii ‘mini’ was then tied to driftwood. Blyxa japonica was planted around the base of the driftwood.

The next step was to plant the Marsilea sp foreground which would have been a very tedious task had it not been for the members who had already prepared the nodes for planting. Some Cryptocoryne spiralis was then planted in the background to finish the planting.  This tank is a great example of a minimalistic aquascape which would turn into a beauty as it matures.

Luis and Kevin spend some time answering all the questions which some of our newer members had about aquascaping and the planted aquarium hobby in general after filling up the tank. Kevin has still not decided on the livestock he wants to put in this tank. But he has promised us that he will keep us updated on the progress of this tank.

The NASH January meeting was a awesome start to another great year. The meeting had a great turnout and was a good opportunity to meet some old friends and to make some new ones.

Aquatic Gardener Association Convention 2008- Day 2 & 3

After hardly 5 hours of sleep the previous night, AGA Convention Day 2 started with an early breakfast at the Sheraton’s Cafe. The previous night, at the hospitality suite Luis had told me and Kevin that we would be helping Mr. Amano along with him to prepare the plants and the driftwood for his demonstration today. Luis had been entrusted with the  responsibility to arrange all the plants Mr. Amano needed for his demonstration. This had kept Luis on his heels all day on Friday.

Dr. Benito Tan

The second day of the convention kicked off with a presentation from Dr. Benito Tan. Some of us who have been in the hobby for quiet sometime might remember  Low Kwek Leong from Killies.com. Dr.Tan is the “Professor” Mr. Leong mentions quiet often when it comes to aquatic moss identification and taxonomy. Dr. Tan’s topic was “Aquatic Mosses: Taxonomy and its application in commercially sold aquatic bryophytes.”  Dr. Tan started off with a paper he had published correctly identifying the common Java Moss. He then explained the common misconceptions in our hobby in regards to the identity of the “True” Java Moss. Another interesting subject which Dr. Tan bought up was identification of   ” Subwassertang” . Subwassertang was widely considered as a liverwort related to Monosolenium tenerum aka Pellia. Research by Dr. Tan and his co-researchers has found out that Subwassertang is not a liverwort at all. It is a gametophyte of  a fern Lomariopsis lineata. Dr. Tan had a great sense of humor and warned the hobbyist against submerging terrestrial mosses in and attempt to grow them underwater.He finally concluded his presentation with some great pictures of some mosses which will make great addition to our aquariums in near future.

Mr. Takashi Amano

Around 10:30 am Mr. Takashi Amano took the stage. The convention hall was full to capacity at this point. The long awaited moment had finally arrived for a lot of people in the room. Mr. Amano started  with a short introduction  with  a single English sentence ” I am Takashi Amano.”  Mr. Amano does not speak English. So his short introduction in English got a loud applause. Mr. Amano was accompanied by his translator Ms.Tomoko Schum. Ms. Schum did a great job. Mr. Amano’s presentation was titled “Nature Aquarium Layout”.  Mr. Amano started with results of the International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest 2008. He introduced the top 5 layouts and then went into details with slides of some layouts which were not ranked that high. He pointed some flaws in these layouts and that gave a good glimpse into the mind of  an IAPLC judge. I would like to document few of Mr. Amano’s comment on the top 4 layouts.

Mr. Amano’s Comment: The creator of this layout tried to capture the beauty of Mt. Donha. The selection of plants for this layout is perfect giving its a green monotone. The rock used in this layout has a very unique color and texture. Even this layout uses a lot of moss.  The cardinal tetras swimming in huge 3 m tank matches the composition of this tank very well.

Mr. Amano’s Comment: This layout made use of unique slender pieces of wood which were arranged dynamically. The use of  Eleocharis vivipara in the background balances the layout. The use of moss in this layout shows the creators expertise. Aquascapers who use moss properly in their layout will rule the aquascaping contests.

Mr. Amano’s Comment:This layout represents a view resembling a pine tree. The use moss to depict a pine tree is unique. The angle and placement of driftwood shows the highly skillful layout technique of the creator.

Mr. Amano’s Comment:The dynamic placement of the driftwood and stone in this layout is exquisite. The use of open space in this layout is very effective. The creator has been successful in creating a great sense of depth. The only flaw of this layout was it had not matured when the photograph was taken.

After introducing the prize winning entries at the IAPLC 2008 Mr. Amano proceeded to describe some deficiencies in the layouts which could not be ranked higher because of some subtle mistakes in the placement of hardscape or certain plants. The next part of Mr. Amano’s presentation included  a step-by-step to setting a couple of Nature Aquarium Layouts. He did a iwagumi layout as well as a layout with driftwood as the main hardscape. This was a very interesting presentation as we got some great tips from Mr. Amano regarding his hardscape layout technique as well as his planting technique. Mr. Amano also spoke about two of his landscape photos from Sado Island, Japan which were presented during the G8 Working Lunch Sessions at Hakkaido Tokyo Summit in July, 2008. The photos were of the pristine cedar forests on the Sado Island taken using a 8×20 inches large format camera and presented on a 4mx1.5m panel.

The Nature Aquarium Society of Houston group picture with Mr. Takashi Amano after his presentation. After this me , Luis and Kevin slipped out of the conference room with Mr. Yoshinori to start preparing the plants, rocks and driftwood Mr. Amano was going to use for his demonstration later.

The next speaker in the line up was Mr.Jeff  Senske from Aquarium Design Group, Houston. Jeff’s presentation was on ” Effective Design”. I missed most of Jeff’s presentation but I gathered a few great points from it later when I watched it on the AGA Convention 2008 DVD . Jeff’s presentation dealt mostly with the Nature Aquarium Style layouts but he also presented a few layouts where he illustrated how even simple layout consisting of only driftwood and no plants can make a visual impact in someones living room. Jeff’s presentation dealt mostly with the actual maintenance  of planted tanks over a period of time and how selection of certain plants and design can help in its long term survival. Jeff stressed a lot on philosophy behind setting a aquarium weather its a lush planted tank  or a simple bare driftwood layout. This I think is a difference between those thickly planted jungle tanks which we just look at and pass over versus the immaculate and interesting planted tanks we like to drool over again and again.

Mr. Amano’s demonstration started at 3:00 PM. The conference room was full to capacity. Mr. Amano had selected a ADA 90P Cube Garden tank for his demonstration. We had already prepared some rocks and driftwood covered with moss for the demo. Mr. Amano stressed a lot on tying the moss very tightly to the rock or driftwood. Mr. Amano did a detailed explanation on substrate layout and how each additive and component used in the substrate works. For this particular layout he also used decorative sand demonstrating the substrate partition technique. The moss covered rock was then placed along the Aquasoil II and Bright Sand partition. The layout was going to be a concave layout and accordingly the Aquasoil II was divided in a 2:3 ratio. Mr. Amano then started the placement of the driftwood. The driftwood was placed over Aquasoil for this particular layout but its not unusual for him to place driftwood along the substrate partition using it to hide the partitioning border. He next demonstrated the plant tying technique used for tying epiphytes like Anubias and Microsorum to rocks and driftwood using ADA Woodtight. The next step was placement of Anubias barteri ‘nana’ and Microsorum pteropus ‘narrow’.  Mr. Amano was clearly building his aquascape from front to back.

As Mr. Amano proceeded he was simultaneously answering a bunch of questions from the curious  plant enthusiasts. Luis had arranged for a variety of stem plants which we had prepared by trimming them to equal lengths. Mr. Amano planted three stems of a particular specie at a time. He stressed during planting background plants that, its very important to vary the shape and color of leaves. This plays a very important role in creating the final aquascape. Another point to be noted was how thickly the tank was planted when it was finished.

The aquarium was finally filled after all the plants were planted. The lighting used on this aquarium was ADA Grand Solar which was installed on the ADA Grand Solar Stand after the layout was completed. An ADA Super Jet Filter ES-600 Series was used for filtration. This filter is built completely of stainless steel and is a monster.   Just to give you an idea how thickly this layout was planted here is a picture from the back.

Mr. Amano’s presentation went beyond the scheduled time but I am sure no one was complaining. After Mr. Amano’s inspiring demonstration we proceeded to the Banquet Hall for the Banquet.

The AGA Aquascaping Contest 2008 winners were announced during the banquet by Mr. EriK Olson and Ms. Karen Randall. Mr. Takashi Amano was also a judge for this contest and provided his valuable comments on some of the winning aquascape. We had a winner at our banquet table. Jason Baliban won the 2nd price in the ‘ Large Aquarium’ category for his aquascape ‘ Meander‘. The last presentation of the night was by Ms. Karen Randall on ” Collecting in Thailand”. Ms. Randall did a great job presenting  some great pictures of  biotopes and actual collections from Thailand. I found her experience of collecting Cryptocoryne albida very useful. The different pictures she presented of the locales C.albida grew in gave a idea how variable their habitat can be. The night ended with a few drinks later with some friends at the hospitality suite.

The third day started drooling over all the great plants that were up for auction. There were 4 long tables approximately 20 feet long which were full of bagged plants. The highlight of the auction were a single Echinodorus ‘Midifleur’ plant  and the newly launched Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Florida Sunset’ which went for 150 $ each. We left the auction at about 1:00 pm starting our long drive back to Houston. The ride back was uneventful and we reach Houston safely. This was a great convention and I am already planning for the next one.

Aquatic Gardeners Association Convention 2008 – Day 1

After a long time my wish to attend one of the AGA conventions finally came true. I along with a bunch of friends from Nature Aquarium Society of Houston (NASH) decided to make this trip as a club event. NASH was represented at the AGA convention by me, Luis, Kevin, Thanh and Trung. This years speakers line up was pretty impressive with likes of Mr. Takashi Amano, Mr. Jeffrey Senske, Dr. Benito Tan, Greg Morin, Dr. Michael Kane and Ms. Karen Randall. The biggest inspiration for me to attend the convention was to get a glimpse of Mr. Takashi Amano and to see him do a presentation and a demonstration on Nature Aquariums. My wish not only came true but I got more than I expected. I will talk more on this later. This years AGA convention was held in Atlanta, Georgia from 14^th Nov- 16^th Nov 2008. Me, Kevin and Thanh decided to drive all the way to Atlanta while Luis and Trung were going to fly there. The drive through the night went smooth and we reached Atlanta on Friday morning. The convention venue was Sheraton Hotel, Atlanta.

The AGA had arranged for a Georgia Aquarium Field trip which was scheduled for 9:00 am on Friday morning. We missed that trip as we were too tired after a night of driving. So after a quick nap we decided to check out the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) at the Georgia Aquarium on our own. This is one of the only three places in the world where you can see the whale shark in captivity.

Georgia Aquarium is considered the largest in the world with 8.1 million US gallons of holding capacity. Other notable specimens at the aquarium are the three Beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) and a manta ray (Manta birostris). Watching these beauties cannot be explained in words. The exhibit which housed the whale shark and the manta ray is called the “Ocean Voyager”. After a quick jaunt through the aquarium we headed back to the hotel for the official registration and to the start of the convention at 2:00 pm.

The convention started with the opening of the vendor room and the registration. The vendor room was dotted with stalls from The Aquatic Gardener Association, Seachem, Aqua Design Amano, Invertz Factory and a aquarium store (whose name I cannot recollect). The AGA registration table was quiet tempting with a lot of goodies for the planted tank enthusiast. The table had a lot of back issues of The Aquatic Gardener (TAG) and Planted Aquaria for sale. I could finally pick up the last missing TAG issue from April 2007 for completing my collection of TAG from 2002-2008. They also had all the 2001-2007 Convention DVD’s for sale.

The Aquarium Plant book from Oriental Aquarium,Singapore was also available for sale along with Ms. Diana Walstad’s book “The Ecology of Planted Aquarium”. After spending quiet a bit of cash at the AGA table we moved on to the Invertz Factory stall. They had a bunch for rare Neritina sp. and Tylomelania sp. for sale.

Aqua Design Amano (ADA) stall this year launched their Do!Aqua brand of product for the planted tank beginners. This line of Nature Aquarium products is going to be slightly cheaper than the regular ADA brand products. Mr. Yoshinori Kondo (ADA Marketing and International Marketing Department Section Manager) was kind enough to answer my question about some of the Do!Aqua products on display.

Seachem stall had their entire product on display including the ones for cichlid aquariums. I was rather impressed by their representatives (read beautiful girls) who were pretty helpful in enlightening me how Seachem Flourish fertilizers can help my planted tanks. As I strolled around the vendor room Kevin and Thanh rushed to the airport to pick up Luis.

The AGA convention was officially kicked off at 4:00 pm with a presentation from Seachem CEO Dr. Greg Morin. “Foliar vs. root-zone uptake for ferric and ferrous iron” was the subject for this interesting presentation.

Dr. Greg Morin

Greg did a great explaining the mechanism for iron (Fe) uptake in different types of plants. He explained how plants like to obtain their iron in ferrous (Fe⁺²) state and when it is offered to them in ferric (Fe⁺³) state it requires additional energy from the plants to convert these to usable ferrous form. He also explained how Seachem has performed laboratory experiments on different plants like Cryptocoryne wendtii, Egeria densa (Anachris) and Echinodorus bleheri to determine the best form of iron fertilization.

They used ferrous gluconate fertilization in water column as well as in the substrate to determine which was received well by different plants. Foliar fertilization was found advantageous for stem plants while the root uptake of iron was considerable for heavy root feeders like Cryptocoryne and Echinodorus. The presentation finally concluded with a note from Greg explaining how this area is still undergoing research to better understand the aquatic plant needs.

The next presentation in the line up was “Tissue Culture for Aquarists” by Dr. Michael Kane from University of Florida. This was a pretty interesting talk as Dr. Kane specifically focused on educating the people attending the lecture on tricks to tissue culture aquatic plants at home DIY style.

Dr. Michael Kane

Tisssue culture is widely used by aquatic plant nurseries though out the world for propagating plants in large quantities in short time. As per Dr. Kane the biggest challenge for an everyday aquatic gardener is to find a sterile source plant for propagation. He explained some easy ways to do it using ethanol, water and bleach. After this first hurdle has been passed the next step is to obtain a growing medium for the isolated plant cell. Commercially pre-mixed media can be used for this purpose but is expensive.

Dr. Kane also gave tips on some great websites like Kitchen Culture Kits, Inc which can be a source of tissue culture material for the everyday hobbyist. This particular presentation was the second most popular during the convention following Mr. Amano’s presentation and demonstration.

Dr. Kane used an example of Cryptocoryne wendtii to explain the various stages of tissue culture with some pretty impressive slides.

The most awaited event of the evening was the Iron Aquascaper Contest which began at 8:30 pm. The Iron Aquascaper Contest was generously sponsored by Aquarium Design Group (ADG), Houston.

Jeff Senske did a great job of hosting this event. The competitors were Jason Baliban of Project Aquarium and John Ciotti of ADG. This event was judged by my good friend Luis Navarro. The other judges were Ghazanfar Ghori, Phil Edward and Takashi Amano.

John and Jason

After a rather exhaustive hour John Ciotti’s aquascape was judged as the winner. Mr. Amano specifically pointed out the use of 2:3 ratios in John’s aquascape. Jason’s aquascape was also good but the judges pointed out the lack of open spaces in this scape for point deduction.

Jason's Aquascape

John's Aquascape

The first day at the convention ended spending a couple of hours at the Hospitality Suite getting to know other enthusiasts from around the country.