Over the past few years, a number of plants from the Syngonanthus genus have become quite popular in the hobby. One of these is Syngonanthus sp. “Madeira”, a beautiful green stem plant from the Eriocaulaceae family. S. sp. “Madeira” is a delicate plant in mass, but doesn’t seem to be terribly difficult to grow given the proper conditions.

Photo Credit: Jake Adams, editor of ReefBuilders.com

For me, the proper conditions seem to be medium to high light with CO2 and water-column fertilization. Without sufficient iron, this plant tends to appear more pale than when it is in prime health. One of the beautiful things about S. sp. ‘Madeira’ is the shear number of leafs that come out of its crown. Usually it takes a couple months for the plant to adjust to your aquarium, but once it does it’s a pretty faster grower, and bushes out readily after trimming.

I’ve also grown this plant in my emersed setup, throwing a bunch of stems in and allowing them to float on the surface. About a week later, a few of the plants sent up flower stalks!

When you see the flowers, it’s easy to understand how Syngonanthus is in the Eriocaulaceae family, as the flowers are hat-pin type, just like their cousins in the Eriocaulon genus. The flower stalks are slightly pubescent (hairy), with the bud being indented in the middle.

I’m hopeful that these flowers will help us identify the true species for this plant. It’s somewhat probable that several of the Syngonanthus variants being traded, such as Belem, Lago Grande, and Madeira are all actually the same species, but from different localities. Nevertheless, all of these are wonderful aquarium plants that I recommend trying.

While out in Vancouver, we were able to take a short trip north to Lynn Canyon, a wonderful municipal park known for their suspension bridge.

Vancouver is blessed with a warm Pacific stream which makes the weather much more mild than other places around the globe at the same latitude. The Northwest has a number of temperate rain-forests, with Lynn Canyon being a second-growth forest, but still very much influenced by the weather.

The first thing you notice is that everything is absolutely covered with several different types of moss. Some trees are 100% covered from the base all the way to the top. It’s pretty incredible!

Besides the moss, ferns are prominent throughout the forest there. We were hiking with a couple of locals from Vancouver, and they said that this was the greenest they’d ever seen the ferns. Of course, it was pouring down rain while we were out walking about. (Our friends told us that if we let the rain stop us from doing things in Vancouver, we’d never see or do anything.)

We followed a trail up above the canyon, about 3-4 stories up from the water, for awhile before heading down toward the river.

As I mentioned, it was raining pretty hard that day, so the water was very high and very rapid. Large rocks lined the sides of the water, leading to some breaks with sandy and peddle bars near the still areas.

Moss even covered the rocks by the river, despite getting more sunlight than under the tree cover. It made for some very pretty scenes, that reminded me of Riccia fluitans stones used in an aquarium.

We spent some time exploring the various nooks and crannies along the river, and at times hit sections that were impassable. In several instances, we had to climb 4 flights of stairs up the side of the canyon in order to continue following the water.

The folks in Vancouver are really lucky to have such a nice public forest so close to them in North Vancouver. If we had more time, I could have spent several days exploring the trails throughout this park.

Of course, that’s just reason to come back another time!

I haven’t posted in almost two weeks, as I was vactioning in Vancouver for the Olympics. The Olympic experience was fantastic, but during my trip I also wanted to follow our tradition of visiting the public aquarium of whatever city we traveled to. The Vancouver Aquarium resides in a beautiful area of Vancouver called Stanley Park, which is full of walkways, huge trees, sea walls, and much more. The area around the aquarium is very nicely landscaped, and easy to navigate.

One of the first areas that we toured inside the aquarium was a series of biotope aquariums from around British Columbia. They really did a fantastic job showcasing the different habitats throughout the province, providing excellent signage and information plates throughout. As someone who really appreciates native North American habitats and fishes, this may have been my favorite section of the aquarium.

One of the natives that I enjoying watching was this sculpin (below). Since sculpin don’t have swim bladders, they lay prone on the ground and dart around. To me, this tends to give them a little bit of personality, and this particular fish seemed to be posing for the camera.

Speaking of swim bladders, we got invited into a classroom area by a couple of interns to watch them dissect a salmon. All the while, they pointed out the various prominent parts of the fish anatomy, including the swim bladder, heart, liver, testes, gills, etc… They also talked about how the aquarium tracks various fishes in the wild using embedded transmitters that they surgically implant into the animal so that they can monitor their life cycles.

Like most aquariums these days, they had a nice jellyfish exhibit, back-lit with the intense blue lighting.

One of the things I was most impressed with throughout the aquarium was the aquascaping ability of the maintainers for these tanks. In some public aquariums, they do a fine job showcasing the inhabitants of the tank, but in Vancouver, it was obvious that they were equally concerned with making the habitat equally as attractive without making it look artificial. A fine example of that is this reef “clownfish” aquarium where they used a combination of macro-algae, rocks, and anemones to really make a nice display tank. Well done!

Like the aquarium in Baltimore, the Vancouver Aquarium also has nice tropical exhibit which includes a rain forest area. The rain forest had a series of parrots, butterflies, and other animals from the Amazon on display.

They had a rather large aquarium showcasing one of my favorite South American beasts, the Arapaima, an air-breathing fish that can survive very low oxygen levels. They can grow to over 400lbs, and are very prehistoric looking creatures. I very much enjoy everytime I’m able to see one.

The Aquarium also has a nice amphibian exhibit, including a whole set of terrariums featuring frogs from around the world. I thought that this particular terrarium was another nice example of putting together an attractive layout, while still showcasing the tiny frogs therein.

It wasn’t just the small colorful frogs that were on display, however. They also included a few others, such as bullfrogs, which are an invasive species in this part of the country, which were originally introduced as a food source. (frog legs)

Outside, there were several much larger pools containing dolphins, whales, turtles, and other large sea creatures. While you could view all of the pools from above, each pool was also available to be viewed underground via a series of rooms that included more information and more views into the tanks. One area that was particularly interesting was an arctic fishes exhibit, showing fish and other animals that thrive in sub-zero waters.

Having been to several public aquariums throughout the U.S., I always hope that each new one will offer something different from the rest. The Vancouver Aquarium did that with theor B.C. set of exhibits, and their superior attention to presenting nicely aquascaped aquariums throughout. They also had an equally as impressive 4D theater which featured a short Planet Earth “Shallow Seas” film in 3D with water sprays, seat rumbles, and bubbles in the air during the show. It was a nice value-add to an otherwise exceptional experience. I highly recommend visiting the Vancouver Aquarium.

Since there’s multiple feet of snow outside, I’ve been sitting inside trying to come up with creative things to occupy my time. Today, I pulled out our old video camera and headed into the fishroom. I lucked upon some interesting activity going on in my 50G with the colony of Apistogramma baenschi ‘Inka 50′ . First, I have a video of a female in full bright yellow coloration guarding a little patch of territory she’s carved out underneath some Blyxa japonica stems.

Next, I caught two males displaying to each other, with the largest, most dominate one eventually chasing the other away. This happens all of the time, and doesn’t usually end up with anyone getting injured. It’s interesting to me how in both of these videos, the Apistogramma only cares about other cichlids. They never chase away the other tetras. (This would change if they were actually protecting fry.)

Finally, after the male-to-male domination display earlier, his female approaches him doing a kind of odd-looking dance to indicate that she’s not a threat. Recognizing this, he lets her go into their patch of Blyxa that he’s protecting.

The behaviors of these cichlids provide unending fascination to me as I enjoy my aquariums during a  cold wintry day. Comments welcome!

I live in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., which was just hit with record snowfall. I figured it would be fun to provide a little perspective for those not from the area. Normally, during the spring, my raised brick pond in the backyard looks something like this:

This morning, I took a quick picture with my phone. Where’s the pond? For a frame of reference, the fence is a six foot fence. Keep in mind that I did shovel a little bit of snow onto that area to make a designated “doggie bathroom” area in the yard, since even our labs aren’t tall enough to wade through 3 feet of snow, but still, it’s incredible.

Nevertheless, I’ve spent a good deal of time this weekend shoveling snow. I’m incredibly thankful that we have not yet lost power (knock on wood), as some other local hobbyists have and are very worried about the temperature of their aquariums falling far enough to threaten the lives of their inhabitants. Now that we’ve beat the modern snowfall record, I’m ready for spring, and gardening, and all the other niceties that come with warm weather!

Two weekends ago, GWAPA hosted its first meeting for the year at our member Ghazanfar’s house. Ghazanfar is an accomplished aquascaper, and had a fantastic aquascape on display in his ADA 90P aquarium. He also has an extensive emersed setup, with several racks of 40G breeder tanks filled with various Cryptocoryne and similar plants. In the past I’ve always marveled at his huge 210G in-wall aquarium, with automatic water changes, metal halides, and a nice aquascape, but this meeting everyone was glued to his 90P.

Ghazanfar's 90P - Photo By Jim Michaels

The actual topic of the meeting was about growing aquatic plants in tissue culture. Ghazanfar showed us some jars of various Cryptocoryne that he has started to produce via tissue culture techniques. Doing this allows you to preserve and propagate large quantities of genetically identical plants, which could otherwise take much more time and space using traditional growing methods. We ended our meeting, as always, with an auction full of aquatic plants.

I just wanted to share a couple photos of the new inhabitants in my 75G aquarium. After finding a good home for my Blue Spotted Sunfish, I decided that I would like to keep Angelfish again. This time, rather than just getting the various commercially bred color variations, I wanted to get ones with the wild coloration. I feel the natural coloration with the vertical black bars are the most elegant looking Angelfish of all. I was fortunate to have another GWAPA member turn me onto a breeder.

The breeder imports and breeds wild Peruvian angelfish to keep the gene pool healthy for their other various color variations. They also sell of some of the offspring from their live imports. Finding this out, I bought 7 first generation (F1) domestically bred wild angelfish. The breeder sent 8 fish, and they all looked fantastic, even in the bag.

At first in the tank, the fish hid every time I came into the room, but after a week of feeding them, they have really warmed up to me, and are starting to follow me up and down the tank when I’m working in my fish room. Right now, the Angelfish are the only mid-level swimming fish that I have in this aquarium. I still have my Nannacara, red-lizard catfish, and L279 bristlenosed plecos, so the bottom level is covered. I’m having a hard time settling on a small schooling fish to act as attractive dithers for the Angelfish. Suggestions welcome!

While I have compiled a reference on getting rid of Algae in the Planted Aquarium, I did not talk extensively about spot treatment techniques to get rid of individual sections of algae where you just can’t seem to get rid of it. Fortunately, there are a number of tools available to target your attack:

Syringe Treatment:

This method uses a cooking syringe like you would use to inject marinade into a turkey, but for the marinade, you use either Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) or Seachem Excel. First, it is very important that you temporarily turn off all of the flow in your aquarium. While circulation is incredibly important to maintain an algae-free aquarium, when you are spot-treating a specific area of the aquarium, you do not want H2O2 or Excel to disperse throughout the tank. Generally, I like to do spot treatments when I’m doing water changes, simply turning off the flow for the duration of the water change. Load the syringe full, and squirt the troublesome areas of your aquariums. I usually try to limit my spot treatments to a single syringe dose once every 2-3 days. Use caution, particularly with Seachem Excel, as prolonged exposure to over-dosing of these chemicals can injure or possibly kill your fish and invertebrates. I like to do a spot treatment to weaken the algae, and then let natural algae eaters like Amano Shrimp finish the job for me. Combined with water changes, proper CO2/nutrient levels/circulation, and an algae-fighting-crew, you’ll eliminate your troublesome algae in no time.

Old Toothbrush/Wire Brush:

Sometimes algae such as Black Brush Algae (BBA) completely covers hardscape items, making the syringe treatment seem excessive to fully rid yourself of the infestation. In these cases, it is often effective to vigorously brush the algae from the rock/wood with an old toothbrush. For large patches, it may be worth removing the hardscape item entirely, and scrubing it with a wire brush in a 5G bucket of water.

Bleach Treatment:

When you pull items from your tank, you have the opportunity to use harsher chemicals such as a watered-down 1:20 water/bleach solution to kill the algae. Never use bleach in your tank, except for completely empty aquariums — it will kill all of your plants and inhabitants otherwise. Ensure that whatever you bleach is rinsed thoroughly until you can no longer smell bleach on the item.

Spray Bottle:

For hardier plants such as Java Fern, Bolbitis, Anubias, etc you can remove them from the tank and spray them with H2O2 or Seachem Excel. Simply fill a small spray bottle with your solution, and lightly spray the plant. Always do this in a well ventilated area, preferably with a mask to protect yourself from any fumes. With this method, you do not need to inundate the plant, but simply a couple sprays, and then add it back into your aquarium. Alternatively, you can fill a small container with H2O2 and dip the plant for 1-2 minutes.

Conclusion:

Using a combination of these methods, along with the ones I’ve already outlined in my Algae in the Planted Aquarium article, you should be able to defeat any algae that enters your tank.

Last fall, I bought a dozen Vietnamese White Clouds in an auction at a Capital Cichlid Association’s meeting. I have never kept these fish before, but was always tempted by them in the fish stores. The one thing I never realized was how magnificent their fins can be until I put the group in my 20L and the males started displaying. In the stores, the fish just seem to hover in place, but in my tank, the males are constantly chasing each other around.

Supposedly these fish are very easy to breed, but I have not yet seen any eggs or fry in my aquarium. It’s possible that some loaches are taking care of any eggs that might be in the tank. These White Clouds seem to be fantastic fish for the planted aquarium. In addition, they can tolerate slightly cooler temperatures, so you don’t necessarily have to keep a heater in your aquarium. There is also a long-finned version of this fish which is even more impressive.

I’ve often talked about the wonderful benefits of having a place to grow your aquatic plants emersed:

• A place to store plants you don’t want in your aquariums anymore but don’t want to lose
• Ability to see flowers that you wouldn’t otherwise see
• Algae-free!
• Easy to maintain since growth is slower

Overgrown Emersed Setups

While all of these statements are true, this doesn’t mean that you can just setup and forget about an emersed setup. A prime example of what can happen is in the picture below. Look at the setup on the right, and take note of what a tangled mess the plants are in there. Hyptis lorentziana and Pogostemon stellatus var. ‘Broad Leaf’ are the two culprits, taking a little while to establish, but then going absolutely insane in growth over the next few months.

Pogostemon stellatus var. 'Broad Leaf' Flower

I did get a number of Pogostemon flowers, but unfortunately the overgrowth shaded and outcompeted virtually every other plant I had stored in this setup. I surely would have had more plant-mass if I had grown these plants submersed in my aquarium, but I should have done a better job occasionally pruning back the stems as you would a weedy plant in your garden.

Murdannia sp. 'Red'

In the other emersed setup, I’ve had a different problem. I made the mistake of introducing a pot of plants that was in my pond, and I believe the soil contained spider mites. I originally tried a DIY organic spray of vegetable oil and dish soap, but that ended up killing more plants than it did the intruders. I wanted to avoid using pesticides since I am not keen on spraying chemicals inside of the house (or outside for that matter), so I am now in the process of completely emptying out both emersed setups, submerging the plants in a bucket for 48 hours to drown the spider mites, and will then repot and set back up the two setups anew.

Murdannia sp. 'Red' Flower

I will begin this process just as soon as the plant sold in the hobby as Murdannia sp. ‘Red’ finishes flowering. Above is a picture of a flower just before maturation. I’ve hoping that my friend will be able to use the flower to research its true scientific name. The long and short is that emersed setups are still valuable tools to grow and store aquatic plants, but they still require some maintenance. I suppose that if I didn’t keep any stem plants in my setups that the length of time between maintenance could be significantly reduced. Comments/suggestions welcome!