Re: Anubias species, was Re:Putting fishroom back together was Re: Problem with Aggie (ridiculously long!)

["David Soares" <apistodave@bendcable.com>]

Hey Eric I'm glad to hear their still "Floating" around those plants were
amazing--they were flowering and some of them were 2 feet tall and blocking
the picture window they were in front of!!!!!
Soft Water Dwarf Cichlids
David Soares & Uwe Romer
14697 S Bluegrass LN
Sisters Or    97759
apistodave@bendcable.com
www.apistogrammaidiots.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Olson" <erik@thekrib.com>
To: <apisto@listbox.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: Anubias species, was Re:Putting fishroom back together was Re:
Problem with Aggie (ridiculously long!)


> On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, David Soares wrote:
>
> > Eric where are the Nubias
>
> OK, it's bordering on "you hadta be there", so I'll push it back to
> something helpful to the group.  Or maybe not...
>
> David sent us a huge box of Anubias sp. a number of years back (early
> '99?).  He'd used them (I seem to recall) as extra filtration, growing on
> lava rock in rain gutters off the back of some of his tanks.  Some folks
> already know this, but semi-aquatic plants make EXCELLENT nutrient removal
> systems for tanks when grown emersed (feet-in-water, but not submerged).
> If you've got a way of circulating the water through a small trough (i.e.
> rain gutter) and back into the tank, the plants grow hydroponically & suck
> the nutrients right out of the water.  The more polluted the tank, in
> fact, the more the plants thrive.
>
> So anyway, Dave redid his fishroom & sent us a bunch of his extra plants.
> Actually, when they arrived, they had a lot of brush algae encrusted on
> them, so I'm guessing they'd been out of the gutters and underwater for a
> while.  I remember hearing something also about "no mixed biotope
> african/south american fish and plants", but I could be wrong.  These
> species of Anubias are the large-growing types that are very touchy
> underwater (azfelli, lanceolata types); one of the popular rumors you hear
> is that they don't really spend much time underwater when in the wild.  A
> lot of our Anubias plants get brush algae on them from time to time too.
> My favorite answer is, PLANT HOSPITAL TANK.
>
> The plant hospital tank is a tank with about 3" of water or less, and a
> tiny pump to circulate the water.  The tank is closed, to keep the
> humidity high, but the leaves are out of the water, so the algae cannot
> survive.  After a few months in the hospital, the dried algae can be
> gently rubbed off & the plants returned to submersed existence for a
> while.  After a year in the hospital, the plants are often thriving and
> out-competing each other (if we've remembered to change the water and
> occasionally fertilize it).  Back in '99 or whenever it was that Dave sent
> the Anubias, our plant hospital tank was this giant 2x2 foot
> cylindrical-shaped tank with a 175 watt metal halide bulb over it, that
> had failed as a good old fish tank because the 175 watt bulb was too darn
> bright for the tank.  So in they went, and out came most of the water.
>
> We kept a couple of killies in there, but generally underutilized the tank
> for fish.  Which kinda sucked, because it was the one tank we actually had
> upstairs for people to see when they came into our house.  After maybe a
> year or so, we added water and fish, turning it back into a fish tank
> again, and went off dealing with what to do with our 2-foot tall Anubias
> species.  Some of the plants we traded or donated, others we kept.  I
> beleive that one of the smaller specimens may be in my high tech tank, and
> it's about due for rehab in the hospital tank.  Except that the new,
> smaller, hospital tank,
>
> http://mystery.thekrib.com/hospital.jpg
>
> seems to be rather crowded at the moment.  I'm going to go out on a limb
> and say that some of those are descendents of the specimens we got from
> Dave.
>
> And now you have...the rest of the story.  Hey, I'll be in San Jose at the
> PCCA this Saturday, trying to madly entertain cichlid people with more
> stuff like this about keeping plants and cichlids together!
>
>   - Eriko
>
> --
> Erik Olson
> erik at thekrib dot com
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This is the apistogramma mailing list, apisto@listbox.com.
> For instructions on how to subscribe or unsubscribe or get help,
> email apisto-request@listbox.com. apisto-digest@listbox.com also
available.
> Web archives at http://lists.thekrib.com/apisto
> Trading at http://blox.dropship.org/mailman/listinfo/apisto_trader
>



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the apistogramma mailing list, apisto@listbox.com.
For instructions on how to subscribe or unsubscribe or get help,
email apisto-request@listbox.com. apisto-digest@listbox.com also available.
Web archives at http://lists.thekrib.com/apisto
Trading at http://blox.dropship.org/mailman/listinfo/apisto_trader