Category: Plants

New neocardina ‘Blue Velvet’ baby shrimp

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I thought the Blue Velvet neocaridina shrimp had all died off, but then suddenly, babies!  There are at least 5 new little guys in the Shrimphaus.  I have no idea where they came from – there is no sign of their parents.  I gave them some protein flakes and they seem to be enjoying those.  I can only guess there are numbers hiding out in the big pile of rocks somewhere.  The water alkalinity is around 30 ppm CaCO3 equivalents, or a little over 1.5 dKH.  Mostly I am trying to keep the alkalinity down to support the caridina shrimp, but seems good for neocaridinas too. 

The plant weight is holding down some new Tropica Monosolenium tenerum I picked up from Aqua Essentials.  Too early to tell how that is doing yet since it got planted only two weeks ago.  The tenerum is a liverwort, similar to but much larger than the Riccardia growing emersed on the river.

I think the little green sprouts around the protein flakes are submersed form Lilaeopsis Novae-zelandiae which got planted on 22-Feb. but I’m not completely certain about that.  The only other contender would be ‘dwarf sag’ – Sagittaria subulata but pretty sure these spouts came up before the Saggitaria got planted (15-May).

Big aquatic plant trim-back

Posted on by Andy Pierce

The Fireplace Aquarium was looking pretty overgrown and I hadn’t done a water change in a couple of weeks so time to get stuck in for some maintenance.  For me, once I get going on this kind of thing it tends to get a little more vigorous than first anticipated, but it has a way of working out.

Stem plants can grow fast and if they get to the surface they can block a lot of light.  Being exposed to open air can also change leaf characteristics back towards emersed form growth.  You can potentially get a lot of adventitious root formation as well with plants looking to grab on to the surface surroundings.

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Red stems for Shrimphaus

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I recently put some Rotala rotundifolia ‘Blood Red’ into the Fireplace Aquarium and it came in more of a burnt ochre shade of dusky reddish orange than ‘blood red’ as such.  I looked around for the (potentially mythic) ‘Singapore’ (SG) variant of the Rotala which is claimed to be more red under a broader set of conditions.  The SG variant was pretty hard to source but RareAquaPlants on Ebay had some listed, so I picked it up.  A big advantage of smaller Ebay vendors vs. most commercial sources is that aquatic plants from commercial houses tend to be brought in direct from big professional nursery growers like Tropica or Dennerle.  These growers almost without exception supply plants grown emersed (“ebb and flow” hydroponics) rather than submersed, so these plants require a period of adaptation to transition to their new underwater environment.  Ebay vendors are more likely to be selling extra trimmings grown submersed in an aquarium, so already fully adapted to the underwater environment.  These stems arrived in great condition and there were even some bonus red stems thrown in for free – I thought these might be Ludwigia palustris ‘mini Super Red’ (which the vendor subsequently confirmed).

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Planting Rotala rotundifolia ‘Blood Red’

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Having some red in the Fireplace Aquarium gives some nice contrasting colours.  I picked up some AquaFleur Rotala rotundifolio ‘Blood red’ to see how that would do.

Red aquarium plants

There are lots of good choices to provide some red colour in a planted aquarium.  I had very good success previously with Ludwigia palustris mini ‘Super Red’ which grew as an intense dark red but is a fast-growing stem plant that requires a lot of trimming.  Another classic choice are various Alternanthera varieties.  I have tried many including Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rot’, Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’, Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’ and most lately Alternanthera cardinalis variegata.  Unfortunately, amano shrimp think Alternanthera species are delicious, which is problematic for these plants.  I also had a go with Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘flamingo’ which is supposed to be spectacular, but for me was pretty much just dark green.  Cryptocoryne petchii ‘Pink’ also didn’t really pink up at all in my setup.

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Planting Staurogyne repens

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Staurogyne repens is an ‘easy to grow’ and popular aquatic plant.  I have been resisting trying this plant for some reason… too easy, too popular?  Anyway, it has a low growth habit but isn’t a carpeting plant, so seems like it might be right for the Shrimphaus.  I usually prefer potted plants, but at the time could only find S. repens as an in vitro pot, so picked one up from Aquarium Gardens, as grown by Tropica.

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Planting Echinodorus chrileni

Posted on by Andy Pierce
Echinodorus Chrileni not doing well
Echinodorus chrileni v1.0 not doing well

Replanting actually…  I was looking for something that could grow submersed in the back right corner of the Shrimphaus that might be able to break the water surface and grow emersed.  Amazon sword plants (Echinodorus species) are sometimes able to do that and I looked for an intermediate sized one with interesting aspects and came up with Echinodorus chrileni.  I first picked up a pot from Pro-shrimp grown in rockwool by Aquafleur about 8 months ago.  The plant arrived in great shape, but then gradually rotted away over several months, with no evidence of transitioning to the submersed growth form.  This was back when I was using the Asta point-source lighting that was at the exact opposite corner of the tank so the spot for the chrileni was pretty shaded.  When I switched over the Shrimphaus to the more even lighting from a Week Aqua S-400 Pro light, I figured let’s give the chrileni another try.

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Planting Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’

Posted on by Andy Pierce
Anubias Barteri 'Mini Coin'
‘Mini Coin’ on the mountain

It’s been a challenge to find an epiphyte that looks good on the mountain.  I tried Anubias nana ‘Snow White’ which failed to grow, and the similar Anubias nana ‘Pinto’ which grew fine but looked too big for the nanotank.  Also in the mix was Bucephalandra caterina which grew well and kind of resembled a sombrero hat after it really got going, and Anubias barteri nana ‘Pangolino’ which was more rhizome than decorative leaves.  Now I’m having a go with Anubias Barteri ‘Mini Coin’ which I sourced from Java Plants (a new vendor for me).  After the great epiphyte tear-out of last year there was prime epiphyte real estate available on the mountain. Continue reading “Planting Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’” →

Planting Salvinia minima

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I have been considering floating plants for a while, but they always looked kind of big and dangly and nasty to me which has put me off.  Then the Aquatic Plant Society had a get together at Aquarium Gardens and I saw this pretty new (to me) much smaller floating plant from Tropica:  Salvinia minima. I picked up a pot to try it out in the Shrimphaus.

It’s a floating plant, so “planting” Salvinia minima is dead-easy.  Starting with an in vitro pot, you rinse off the media it came with and then I floated it in a bowl of clean water and forked it over into the Shrimphaus.

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Big rescape

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I like the look of the Cryptocoryne nevelli and the Schismatoglottis prietoi as well, but it seemed like they were on the wrong sides of the tank.  The C. nevelli got larger than I thought it would so blocked the view of the Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’ and the recently re-attempted Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’.  (Must… get… Alternanthera… to work!)  Meanwhile the shorter S. Prietoi left a lot of empty vertical space on the right side.

A good amount of the original biOrb ceramic filter media was pulled out by the roots of the plants being extracted.  I replaced the lost volume with aquasoil.  Pulling up major amounts of plant mass like this always releases lots of fine debris and it took several large water changes and repeated cycles with the portable filter to get these particulates cleared up.

Planting Cryptocoryne nurii

Posted on by Andy Pierce
Crypt nurii in vitro plantlets
 in vitro plantlets

Sold by Tropica in a tissue culture cup as ‘Cryptocoryne nurii‘, this small crypt is doing very well in the Fireplace Aquarium.  Unlike the smaller bright green leaves in the tissue culture form, the new growth submersed form leaves are larger and have a very pretty mottled dark green and dusky rose colouration.  Sometimes this plant is sold under the name ‘Rose Maiden’ which does seem suitable.

I was hoping for a cryptocoryne with some red colouration but after the disappointment of pretty much no red at all on Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘flamingo’ , and a prominent striped light and dark green pattern but no actual pink on Cryptocoryne petchii pink confidence was not very high…

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