Here’s a look at a fantastic emersed culture riparium featuring some beautiful Cryptocoryne specimens. Ripariums are a growing branch of the planted aquarium hobby that we’ll be following closely here at Aquascaperz in which aquatic/marginal plants are kept in an aquarium with circulating water that covers just their roots and the substrate in which they are planted, while their stems, leaves, and flowers are allowed to grow in an emersed state requiring relatively minimal lighting. They provide nearly perfect conditions for emersed culture of Cryptocoryne spp. and other aquatic plants and the circulating water supply also allows for the addition of fish and diverse aquatic life. As you can see in the video, these Crypts and various other species are in absolutely spectacular condition and display extremely robust, lustrous emersed foliage and inflorescences. Thanks go to Simon Check (aka Supasi at www.supasi.wordpress.com, www.fishkeepers.co.nz) for the incredible video of his setup.

While Fluval isn’t about to rest and sit on its laurels, they aren’t a stranger to releasing new products with the impending release of their new G series filter. However, you might have forgotten about the Fluval Edge Aquarium that was released a few months ago that has started to drop to local fish stores in the United States. The aquarium kit can either be used for freshwater or saltwater and although the vast majority of these new aquariums would be used for freshwater there isn’t any reason to think that you can’t do saltwater either. These retail for around $150 and only seem to be available at local fish stores at the moment as we haven’t found them to be at any online retailer.

We don’t pay much attention to new strains of the common guppy but we very excited about being simultaneously introduced to 4 new strains of a different guppy species, Micropoeacilia parae. German freshwater fish specialist Aquarium Glaser recently received a bacth of M. parae from an Asian breeder who has developed the four new color strains of this species which has been considered challenging to sustain in captivity over the long term. Three of the strains are color variations of a dark edged, horizoantally banded pattern on the flank which comes in blue, yellow and red/orange. The fourth strain has a dark spot on the caudal peduncle and a series of dark vertical stripes with a reddish background color. Like the endlers and the pictas before it, females of M. parae are mostly bland in color. No word on these fish hitting US shores yet but we’ll be keeping our otoliths close to the ground in case we are within a fedex shot of getting some Micropoecilia parae ourselves. Do yourself a favor and follow the break for large detailed images of all four strains.

They are not from Romania, they don’t suck blood from your neck or turn to stone in daylight, but they do seem to be just as rare as vampires. Only coming from one remote area in Northern Burma between Mogaung and Tanai you’re not likely to see these fish often. Although Aquascaperz has spotted some in Malaysian and Southern Californian fish markets, so that might mean we are about to see more of this fish in the near future. Sharing some similarities to the Count, these little fish are packing a nice set of fangs but are lacking the ability to spawn bat wings and live like an immortal, we still think Ichthyologist Dr Ralf Britz got it right when naming them. Also a close relative to its cousin the Zebra Danio (Brachydanio rerio), but its body is 44 bones shy and mostly made up of cartilage. With the Dracula Danio being only a little larger than a half inch fully grown I think we can all sleep soundly despite its scary name.

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Deadline:

January 31, 2010

Tonina Style planted aquariums is a new style of aquatic gardening which we have been studying for a little while now. The concept of “Tonina Style” is sort of a “Super Dutch” approach to growing certain aquatic plants, especially the Eriocaulon, Tonina and Syngonanthus species which are collectively known as Star Plants or Hoshi-kusa (Japanese for “star plant”). The video above displays an ideal Tonina Style freshwater aquarium using many plants with fine leaves: You’ll find very few plants that have otherwise “normal” leaves such as Ludwigia, Hygrophyla or Rotala, these are mostly absent. Tonina style and star plants can grow under a range of conditions but they truly look their best when cultured under stong light and CO2, good water flow, regular dosing and especially soft water with low general and carbonate hardnesses. Aquascaperz will be keeping Tonina Style planted tanks as a major component of our coverage of the planted aquarium community, continue reading to learn more about the aquarium above.

Tank: 24″ x 24″ x 20″ high, working volume of 37 gallons after substrate

Substrate: Medium sized powersand special, with Aquasoil Amazonia regular type

Filter: Marineland Canister, mid-size

Flow: Vortech MP10, reef crest mode, removed for the video

Light: 150 watt double ended ADA metal halide lamp

CO2: 4 bubbles per second into a DIY reactor fashioned from an Aquarium Pharmaceuticals tap water purifier.

Dosing: All nutrients are provided by the Seachem FLourish line of additives and added daily; 5ml Flourish Trace, 20ml Flourish Excel, 25ml Phosphate, 20ml Potassium, 10ml Nitrate, 15ml of Iron.

So if you hadn’t seen these yet on the USA ADA site or in AquaJournal we highly suggest you take a look, or if you had maybe take a closer one and consider a glass (yes we said glass) cabinet for you next aquarium stand. As always Amano’s team at NAG are producing new and innovative products that frankly, sometimes just blow our minds. With all the copy cat ADA companies on the market we think they are going to have a tough time mimicking this original. Also we hear that these may be available some time soon from www.ADGshop.com so give them an email if your itching for a stand that will probably look better then your current aquarium. Check out the detailed images of the available sizes (Mini S, Mini M and 60cm) after the page break.

Tonina fluviatilis “lotus blossom” on the left and T. fluviatilis “narrow leaf” on the right.

If you’ve been trying to read your plants to determine what kind of nutrients your plants need, Aquatic Plant Central member Zapins has put together a diagram that will make leaf divining that much easier. There is a small suite of nutrients that are crucial to sustained plant health and when a deficiency manifests itself, the appearance of aquatic plant leaves will reflect what kind of nutrient(s) is lacking. Senior APC member has taken the time to sketch out a very detailed, easy to follow diagram which will make it that much easier to get the hang of dosing your planted aquarium. Big thanks to Zapins for making this diagram available. The original APC thread can be seen here, follow the break for the full plant deficiency diagram.

Bucephalandra motleyana is a gorgeous species of aquatic plant from the rivers and streams of Borneo. Bucephalandra are rheophytes that are especially well adapted to live in flowing water. Bucephalandra is one of the rarest plants in the aquarium plant hobby and still very few people have ever even heard of this plant. When people first look at a Bucephalandra plant they immediately compare it either to Cryptocoryne, Anubias or both: The slender olive green leaves make it look like a crypt but the creeping rhizome and holdfast roots are more like Anubias. There are only three described species of Bucephalandra, B. gigantea, B. motleyana and B. catherineae, but there over a dozen distinguishable varieties, some of which may represent new and undescribed species. One of my favorite strains is B. motleyana “kedagang”. Granted Kedagang is the only variety of Bucephalandra we have ever seen or grown but after poring over images of all the Bucephalandra varieties we could find we are convinced that Bucephalandra “kedagang” is one of the most desirable. Bucephalandra “kedagang” has tapering leaves with a ruffled side edge, “sparkles” on the surface and a rhizome that is usually red to pinkish. It has taken quite a while to grow our first three leaflets into a sizable plant but now that the leaves have become more mature, the plant has begun to sprout leaves at an appreciable rate and the larger leaves are really start to show off some nice sparkling on the surface. Hit the read link for several more pictures of this awesome new aquatic plant.

The images below of Bucephalandra motleyana “kedagang” are from the website aquatomsr.exblog.jp which is written by a fellow Bucephalandra enthusiast.