Stranger's Kindness

I was on a forum recently, and I asked for some cuttings of Monoselenium Tenerum, which has been mislabelled as "Pellia". A kind stranger has volunteered some cuttings and also handed me some Riccia. Wow! What a find! Now, of course I find myself a little burdened with the maintenance of these cuttings. More to come soon along with some pictures.

Invasion of the Molluscs

Well it's been some time since I've posted. Just this past week I have noticed that I have more than one snail in the vase. Today I counted 5. I wonder if they will multiply. I wanted to add some water to the vase (it's only half full), so I bought some PRIME (Seachem), some extra daylight fluorescent compacts and some extra aquaria accessories. To recap, my snail population is one large critter (7mm & growing), another about 3mm and the rest about.7mm. I did post on a forum requesting help with feeding these guys, and I've received some well intended but not completely useful information. I'm still unsure whether it's algae or rotting food that they need. I'm about to transplant my aponogeton to a more stable nutrient rich water solution. I'll keep you posted.

Snail Rescue

It's just after 1:35 a.m. EST on Sunday morning. I should be catching sleep so I can go to church tomorrow (today) morning. I did install the light for my mini aquaria (4 sided vase). So far it seems fine. I've emptied the contents of the bag (1 plant, 2 leaf remnants of another plant and 1 or 2 tiny snails) into the vase. (See the picture for more detail) The daylight compact flourescent is extremely bright and it hurts to look at. The movement of the snail is quite interesting. I'm hoping there is more than one, but I only see one snail. It streaks across the glass (side to side) in about 10 to 15 seconds. Now this is a supersonic streak to me, since I'm used to apple snails lazily commuting across the bottom of an aquarium. I do hope the snail(s) survive. There's enough algae pieces which came with the aponogeton, and I'm hoping that's enough in terms of food. More to come . . .

A. madagascariensis vs. Anubias b. v. nana

Today is my aunt's birthday and so I bought her a plant. I decided on Anubias barteri var. nana. It's a tough plant and can grow in pretty much all water conditions. My cousins have a 10 gallon tank that has been fishless ever since they decided that untreated tap water would make a good media for a water change. I bought a decent sized driftwood piece. (Who would have thought that a pound and a half of driftwood would cost CAD$9?). I also anchored the anubias to the driftwood with some black cotton thread. When I was removing the anubias from its spongy cup, one of the leaves fell out. Having setup my cousins tank, I brought home Aponogeton madagascariensis, which was an impulse buy. A. madagascariensis is a high maintenance plant with frequently required water changes. In the picture above, I've highlighted the bulb and roots of the African bulb. Floating just above it is a leaf(anubias b. v. nana) - which I brought from my aunt's place. My guess is the anubias leaf, though easy to maintain in plant form will die, while the African bulb will be the one to survive. Time will tell.

Um...This is my first post

Whooosh. That's the feeling I get. A few steps after registration and the blog works. Of course my images and thoughts aren't ready yet. But I hope you enjoy taking this journey with me.