Aquadoc

Breeding Betta Macrostoma

2009-11-10T21:57:00.005+07:00

Betta Macrostoma is one of the most beautiful betta. Because of its small geographical(Malaysia and Brunei) habitat. Wild specimen is rare and command a very high price. On the other hand, because the fish is very sensitive, keeping it alife is a challange, let a lone breeding it.

I had tried keeping Betta macrostoma twice before and failed. This is my third time trying and I finnally able to keep it alife. And manage to breed it. Yes!!!!!!!!!!

Since the wild betta is getting rare. I hope this post will help others in breeding this species and keep the strains going on.

Colorful Male

Macrostoma prefer soft and acidic water. pH 5 is what I aim for. Higher pH will lead to skin infection and often fatal. I lost two fishes because of that. Peat filter medium is good way to reduce pH. Alternatively you can use ADA Amazonia II soil. The fish prefer lower temperature. I used to keep them in room(28-30C) temperature, they survive but never thrive. I am now living in a service apartment with 24 hour aircondition. The temperature is kept at 25C with a heater.

Colorless Female

Most of the report on the web tell you that Macrostoma need space to breed. On contrary, mine breed in very small space. Because of space constrain in Hong Kong(which I am currently posted in temporary), I only have a 24"x14"x8" tank. To make it worse, I divide the tank into two with a divider and keeps a pair on each side. The tank has ADA amazonia II as substrate and is heavily planted. The current is slow with small powerhead filter.

Courting pair

I got these two pair from Andrew(my Malaysian friend). The fish settled in quikily and almost instanting court. Within a couple of weeks, the fishes spawn, both of them. The first two spawn was like a practice round. The male incubate the eggs in thier mouth only for a few days then swallowed all of them.

Courting dance

Subsequently the male learned how to brood the eggs properly. During this period, if you feed the fishes, the male might try to eat and I suspect while doing it, some eggs are accidentally swallowed. Learning that, I seperate the pair when the male is brooding. Oh. The female do help carries the eggs when it is a large spawn. But I never manage to get the female to complete the brooding because I feed them after the laid eggs.

Brooding male. Its color turned pale.

Not all fries mature at teh same time. After about 3 -4 weeks, the male release the fires in batches. Only free swiming fries are released. Once I tried harvesting the fries by plying open the mouth and found that they are at different developmental stage. Some free swimming and some still carries thier yolksac.

Each brood yield about 20-30 fries. Plying actually harvest more, I suspect I lost some fries to the filter in the natural method.

Fries

The fries is able to survive in the heavily planted aquarium without feeding. I suppose there is plenty of macro-organism in the tank. For those that I harvested, they accept newly hatch brineshrimp readily. Once they accepted brineshrimp, they readily accept frozen brineshrimp/dapnia and dried food.

? Bullosa

2008-12-14T22:06:00.004+07:00

Got this crypt from an aquarium owner today. The crypt is growing very well in his display tank(Summerged). Asked him what crypt it is and he had no idea. He thought it was the affinis I passed to him earlier. I have doubt as that affinis was growing next to it has different leaf color. Spotted a plantlet and asked him to sell me. He gave me for free instead. Yahoo!!!!!!!!!.

Very bullated leafs. Olive green color on the top and bottom. Although it is a plantlet, the leafs are about 3 cm long. The mother plants has more then 10 leafs and each leaf are bout 5 cm long. Imagine how beautiful it is.

Substrate used is:

ADA Amazonia II: 20%

ADA Malayan: 20%

Baked Clay: 20%

Coco Fibre: 20%

ADA Power Sand: 5%

Pelite: 5%

H5 lights x2

Temperature 27-28C

Humidity >90%.

4cm deep water.

Emerse grow

Looking at the shape ad color of the leaf plusthe heavy bullation, I suspect it is a bullosa. If it is a bullosa, I might not be able to confirm it as this strain is extremely disfficult to keep and flower.

Purpurea Nothovar purpurea Tasek Bera

2008-11-11T22:57:00.005+07:00

Collected this specimen in Tasek Bera two months ago. We have to paddle a boat to collect this specimen. With black water and high water level, we wouldn't have found the plants without the help of orang asli(Aborigin). Even with help, I only able to collect a few specimens. I planted the few plants in different substrates. The plant proved to be tough, surviving all type of substrate I tried. Even more amazing is in less then 2 months, this plant grew 3 new leafs and spathed.

The spathe.

It took a week from the time I spotted it to the blossum.

This plant grows well in substrate of

30% baked clay

30% garden soil

30% peat

10% ADA power sand

Love the bright red color limb and orange red throat

Note the incomplete fusion of the tube. This is typical to Tasek Bera variant.

A close up. The limb has rough surface and the throat is smooth.

Potrait of the spathe. The tube is not completely fused close to the limb.

Potrait of the beautiful kettle. The valve is pale yellow in color. The ovary is light brown.

Crypt striolata "Maradong" green

2008-11-02T21:41:00.002+07:00

Recieved this plants six months ago. Planted in both emersed and submerged method. Submerged plant all became fertilizer. Luckily the emersed one are growing very well and finally flowered for me.

This is how it looked like six months ago.

Six months later.. Walah..........................
I have plugged out two plants to exchange with other crypt lover. The remaining two plants are growing well for me. Most of the orginal leaves have been replaced by the new leaves with shorter stem(Looks nicer).

Top view. Very small flower. doesn't have bright color but I am not complaining. Its always exciting when I see my crypt flowering.

The inflorescence has light yellow limb very thin purplish collar.linear purplish red marking. The throat is light yellow in color with linear purple marking.

One day later, the slender tail started bending downward. The inflorescence lasted for 5 days. I still dont have the heard to slice the inflorescence open. May be next time

Cryptocoryne Schulzei "Mersing"

2008-10-12T16:01:00.008+07:00

Cryptocoryne Schulzei "Mersing"

Collected some schulzei on one of the trip. The stream discovered was covered with the C. Sculzei. some of them were flowering. You can imaging how excited I was when I saw these. The specimen here had dark green color leaves with red color tiger like marking.

However, when these plant was brought home. Thier color reversed, the base color became brown red and the righer marking are jade green in color. Impressive change in color.

One of the specimen collected had a spath bud on it. Withing a few days after planting, the bud opened up and the flower blossum. Schulzei flower is one of my favourite because of its bright and contrasting color.

Crypt Schulzei flower has its throat opening perpenticular to its tube. The throat is bright red and the collar has a very nice contrasting yellow color.

The leave color of schulzei vary with location collected and planting condition. Most of them the specimen I have seen have green leaf with minimal or some marking. This is by far one of the more interesting color variant. Can't wait for the new leafs to grow out. Wonder what color will it be.

Yoong

Johor Crypt Hunting Trip

2008-09-15T21:31:00.009+07:00

Didn't make any plan on the Medeka(Independence) day weekend and organised a crypt hunting with a friend at the very last minute. Got delayed by usual wardround and leave KL only by 10pm. After 3 hours drive we reached Panti, a small area near infamous Kota Tinggi Johor. We went to a schulzei site which my friend visited years ago. We were glad to find that the site is still well preserved. The water level was low, the crypts were very healthy and it was flowering.

Crypt schulzei at the bank of small creek. Substrate consist of clay, sand and leaf litters.

Typical schulzei flower, yellow limb with red throat. Didn't realise there was a fresh water crab beside the flower until I review the photo at home.

After a quick lunch at a local mamak store(not tasty at all), we move on to search for new location. My friend was looking for blackwater fishes and I was all geared for crypts. God of luck must be on my side as we found a few new crypt sites. Not much luck(or rather not much time) in fish hunting though.

We found a new site with crypts that looks like crypt graffithis. Unfortunately we didn't find any flower to confirm it. We also found some blue color mini shrimps(adult size about 1cm). Unfortunately I didn't take any picture and Ngiam have all of them. I was too excited collecting crypts.

Crypt biotope. Substrate are loose mud mixed with leaf litter. Very dangerous area. a wrong step and you will sink til hip level and possibly deeper. They are as dangerous as quicksand.

? Crypt Graffithi

A smaller plant have leafs that is brown in color and elongate shape. ? Crypt graffithi

This area also have healthy growth of nepenthes ampullaris. They are everywhere. Never seen so much ampullaris before.

Nepenthes ampullaris speckle. The grows in bundle on the grow or hang in a bundle. No wonder ampullaris are nick named "Apple".

Nepenthes ampullaris green or "Green Apple" growing on ground.

We then moved on to Mersing area. This seem to be a crypt day. We spotted crypt population repeatedly. Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most likely crypt schulzei. tiny plant that is at the bank of very fast flower stream. They grow between the roots of bag trees. Mud was the main substrate.

Submerged crypt schulzei in fast stream

Another spot with crypts. If you don;t look carefully, you might pass it on as collection of death leaf as the leafs were reddish brown in color.

Most likely schulzei. But some expert think it could still be nurii or affinis. Affinis has never been found this so far south though.

The crypts are huge, up to 2 feet high. They burrowed themself deep into the substrate composed mainly of sand and leaf litters. It was difficult to collect this specimen as we have to dig deep into the sand.

I planted them into by aquarium and notice that they have very beautiful and rare red marking on the leaf. This is first time I see so intense red on crypt.

Just before dusk. We made another stop and found yet another healthy grow of crypt schulzei. Some were flowering.

Although these photos showed green leaf with red marking. when I brought them back home, the leaf are light brown color with jade green tiger marking.

Schulzei flowers

Sp Marup engkelili

2008-06-25T21:34:00.003+07:00

After catching crypt fever and collected crypts for months, one of my crypt flowered. This is my 2nd crypt flower. Saw the flower when I came home for lunch. quickily take some pictures in case I missed it like I missed the crypt lingua's picture the last time

Bought this plant from a East Malaysia collector a few months ago. it was a big plant to start with. As you can see from the old leaves, it was covered with mud. The new leaves are nice and clean but their color are light. wondering whether this is due to lack of nutrient.

The plant was planted in the following substrate.:

Peat 10%

JBL substrate fert 5%

ADA power sand 5%

ADA amazonia 40%

ADA Malaya 40%

It is grow emerse with water of 1 inches deep.

Dark red spade/flower

Flower

Pahang Trip

2008-05-10T17:28:00.008+07:00

26th April 2008,
My wife went oversea for work. Became bachelor for 2 days. Having whole weekend for myself. I quickily call for a field trip. However, only Ngiam, my usual buddy, was able to make it. Probably because I tempted him with a Pahang route that he proposed the last time. Apparently he has done some research on the route and had identified some blackwater swamp that he wanted to try. As for me, I was told that that area has crypts.................

As usual, we met somewhere is PJ and started our journey at about 8am. After two approx two hours drive, we started our hunt. The first stop was in a oil palm plantation with a small ponds. The very first scope Ngiam called out, maculatas. I was happy already because I promised Dom to get him some if we find them. There was plenty of fishes here, scissor tail, maculatas, puntius, panntazona, 3 spots gourami, etc. The first stop itself is promissing already.

Pond in oil palm plantation with plenty of fauna swiming in it.

We drove on near a local town, Spoted a stream running underneath the road and stopped. Found a claer water stream with pandan growing in abundant. There were plenty of pitcher plants(?mirabilis) growing in the region too. Ngiam was happy scooping Herliquine rasboras ans scissortail while I was trying my luck on fishing betta. Following pictures are our catches. we also got some betta ? types. unfortunately no photos taken.

Scissors tails

While Ngiam was happily netting his herliquine rasboras , I decided to try fishing for betta. Using fine line and size 6 hook. I cathed the following fishes. No betta though.

We moved to another place. Ngiam spotted a blackwater river and he was very excited. Well, he was right that we found planty of beautiful fishes here. Puntius pentazona, kissing gouramy, boboras maculatas, pearl gouramy, scisssors tail, etc.

Most beautiful pearl gourami I ever seen. Vibrant color so colorful that even hormone latent pearl gourami in the aquarium shop cannot compare.

Unidentified fishes.

A secret spot that has thousand og maculatas. We also found 3 spots gourami, betta tusyae and betta belica here.

An orang Asli caught channa with his fishing line. He said this is small fish, he caught fish as thick as his thigh here before.

The area was full of nephentes(Pitcher plants) wsn't very interested in them and hence didn't take much photos.

Ericaulon species?

Crypt Keei Jambusan red

2008-04-13T12:21:00.004+07:00

Send to me as C. Keei Jambusan red. However, it does look very red to me. Some leaves are green. wonder so call red is because of strong light in its natural habitat. Nice bulalted leaves though.

Have quite a number of them and hence have to cramp them in a pot. Will transfer them once my new tank is ready.

Nice red bullated leaves. Beautiful specimen.

Growing submerged. Some leaves are green in color.

Crypt striolata maradong green

2008-04-13T12:08:00.003+07:00

Another beautiful crypt from East Malaysia. Plant received are very healthy with minima melt of the leaves. Leaves are olive green color with red veins. Love the pattern. This is not an easy crypt to keep, lets hope they will grow well.

Have a few nice specimens. Due to lack of space, I have to pot three of them in a single pot. Will have to expand my crypt tank soon. Check out one of the leaf and left lower corner, it is slightly bullated.

Young leaves have light green color base with red vein. beautiful pattern.

Sumerge grow. Olive green leaves with red veins.

Soil use is my usual mix of:

Peat moss: 20%

JBL base substrate: 5%

ADA power sand: 5%

ADA amazona II : 35%

ADA Malaya: 35%

Crypt bullosa Maradong

2008-04-13T11:37:00.004+07:00

Recently get to know a crypt collector from east Malaysia and manage to acquire quite some crypts from him. WIll post some of them to share.

Crypt bullosa is one of my favorite crypt. I just love the bullated leaves. Have a few of them. a couple of them have 2 foot long leaves and it is impossible to keep them emerse, and hence I planted them in my 5 foot tank(Sorry, no photos at the moment). Following photos are one of the emerse C. bullosa Maradong.

Nice healthy speciment planted in 3" pots.

Soil used:
Peat moss: 20%
JBL base substrate: 5%
ADA Power sand: 5%
ADA AmazonII: 35%
ADA Malayan: 35%

Check out the crimson colored bullated leave. Simply beautiful.

63Seaworld Seoul

2008-03-28T22:34:00.005+07:00

Just visited Seoul, Korea. Visited two public aquarium in Seoul; 63 Seaworld and COEX Aquarium.

Seaworld is a bit small. However, the highlight of the show is the underwater synchronise dance by the national team.

The Entrance

Huge preserved specimen of ?Hering. This fish is about 10 foot long

Beautiful shrimp. However, I still prefer to see it while I am diving. Seen them before while I dive in Bali. shockingly beautiful.

Interesting eel

Ugly Toad

Huge Python

Lazy iguana

Underwater dance. Pretty girl, swift and graceful move. Well worth a visit. I wish I was the fish.

To be continue..............................

Crypt griffithi

2008-02-22T18:30:00.004+07:00

Two variant of Cryptocoryne graffithi that I ahve collected so far recently. Both of them are given by friends(Thanks).

Cryptocoryne griffithi "Singapore"

Crypt. graffithi "singapore was given by a Singpaorean crypt lover. It was send through another crypt friend from penang. Despite traveling long distances over days, the plant still have fresh healthy root.

bottom side of the leafs.

Top side of the leafs

Potted plant

Substrate: 10% peat, 5% JBL base fertilizer, 5% ADA powersand. 40%ADA Amazona aquasoil, 40% ADA Malayan aquasoil. 10% ADA biosoil

Crytocoryne griffithi "Pekan"

Another Cryptocoryne graffithi was given by a friend whom I know through guppy keeping. This guy is not a crypt lover, he went for wild betta collection and saw this, collected a few of these crypts but catched no betta(Thank god, hahaha). Nice healthy plant

Potted plant
Substrate: 10% peat, 5% JBL base fertilizer, 5% ADA powersand. 40%ADA Amazona aquasoil, 40% ADA Malayan aquasoil. 10% ADA biosoil

Bottom side of the leaf. Thick juice leaf but yet permit some light to pass through. purplish red bottom.

Top side of the leaf. check out the nice purplish pattern

C. Affinis "Selangor"

2008-02-17T09:26:00.007+07:00

Free this weekend. Was suppose to have a field trip to explore new site. However, my buddy pulled out last minutes. Was too geared up for a trip but cannot explore new place due to safety reason. Hence I revisited the old Cryptocoryne affinis "Selangor" site, hoping to see the plant flower as it hasn't been raining for a while. Unfortunately, although the water level was lower, the plant are still mainly submerged.

The plant are in more abundant this time. Healthier looking and larger in size. Have very nice bullated pattern on the leafs. There are evident of more pollution in the reiver but so far the crypts still survive well.

The stalk and root or the plant are deeply burried in the sandy river bed. Check the stalk color change from white to purple, the white part were mostly burried in the sand.

Leafs are clearly bullated. The underneath of the leafs are deep red in color.

The top site of the leaf have beautiful olive green color. The sizes of leafs are large(compare with the hand.

You often read that C. affinis prefer neutral to alkali environment. However, the site water are or weak acidic nature.

I potted a few of the C. affinis for emerse culture. It substrate are as follow.

5 % ADA power sand and JBL Ferropol base fertilizer.
10% peat moss
80% ADA Amazona aquasoil
5 % ADA Biosoil

Planted some of them in my planted aquarium. The last time I tried this, most of the leaf melted. Lets hope this time my tank is more stable and able to keep the leaf alife.

Will add some trip picture later................................

Guppy-Albino Full Red

2008-02-03T17:16:00.000+07:00

Guppy breeding is one of my hobbies. There is a saying "Start with guppy, end with guppy". Guppies are often a starter fish for aquarist because they are beautiful, cheap, easily available, and hardy. With time, the aquarist then divert thier attention to other fishes like goldfish, betta, angel, chichlid, tetra, arowana, etc etc. However, as years go by, as one notice complexity of guppy breeding, he/she will be addicted to the fish again.

The beauty of guppy breeding is the complexity in its genetic. The genetic coding of guppy is so complex that no one can or will ever claim he knows it all. Why guppy breeding is so interesting for me is, not only I can improve a quality of my guppy by various breeding method, I can also create a new strain of guppy.

These photos show one of my albino full red guppy that I am trying to improve. Although this albino full red guppy has smaller tail and smaller tail angle then my the other line, its larger size and active trait is what I like and will like to cross with my the other line.

Crypt Purpurea

2008-02-02T23:16:00.000+07:00

Also from Taiwan. There is a few variant of purpurea that I am confused. Do not know the place of origin of this plant and hence have no idea which purpurea it is. The only sure way to tell is to identify it when it flower.

The crypt is planted it in a 3" pot with the following combinations:
-20% peat
-5% JBL Ferrapoll fertilizer
-5% ADA powersand
-30% ADA Aquasoil Malayan
-30% ADA Aquasoil Amazon
-10% ADA Biosoil

Crypt bullosa "Rajang"

2008-02-02T22:45:00.000+07:00

Received this crypt today from a veteran Taiwanese hobbies. It is a cultured specimen. Have small leafs but good roots. Cryptocoryne bullosa is knowed to be difficult to culture, especially in emerse form. Crypt bullosa is known to have dark colored bullated leaf , However the specimen that I received is green in color. Can't wait to see how it turn out when the leafs are fully grown.

Read in Aquatic Plant Center forum that some hobbies succeed in culturing it in near neutral pH, I decided to put less peat in the substrate. The plant is cultured it in a 3" pot with the following combinations:

-10% peat

-5% JBL Ferrapoll fertilizer

-5% ADA powersand

-30% ADA Aquasoil Malayan

-40% ADA Aquasoil Amazon

-10% ADA Biosoil

Tanjong Malim Trip

2008-01-21T20:55:00.000+07:00

Tanjong Malim is situated in Perak state of Malaysia. Decided to pay a visit on the 19th of January 2008. Together with my field trip buddy, Ngiam, I took a hour scenic drive up to perak to visit this area that make up of combination of oil palm plantation, rubber estate and peat forest. Crystal clear water creeks run through the plantations and black water creeks run through peat forrest. We explored these creeks and happy to find some local fauna and flora.

On this trip, we managed to collect some Crytocoryne minima and some aquatic faunas.

A typical Malaysian rural road

A creek with hidden treasure-Cryptocoryne minima

Crytocoryne minima

Cryptocoryne minima bullated leave

Small crypts growing under the chade, ? Cryptocoryne minima

Betta Livida

Betta Belica

Betta hipposideros

Blackwater creek where you can find many beutiful fauna. Channa, Beta livida, Rasbora Kalochroma, etc

Catfish ? type

Rasbora Kalochroma

Puntius pentazona

Chochalate gourami and betta livida

Wild fruit?

My emerse cryptocoryne tank.

2007-12-19T19:07:00.000+07:00

The beauty of keeping Crytocoryne is they can be kept emerse or submerge and they can look completely different in these conditions. I had kept crypts in submerge condition but recently I decided to setup a emerge crypt aquarium.

The aquarium is small, measuring 14"(d)x10"(L)x12"(H). It is at the bottom of my 4 tiers guppy tank system. The aquarium has an inflow at the top and an outflow at the bottom of tank. The inflow received used water from my guppy tanks and the outflow flow to the drain. This aquariumm was initially designed to culture my guppy food(dipnia and tubifex) but I have decided to use it for my crypts since it has perfect condition for my crypts.

My 4 tier guppy tank system with cyrpt tank at the bottom.( I will write up about my guppy tank system later). Note the tank beside the crypt tank. It is quaranteening Altum angel at the moment but.................................)

The crypt tank. With just a switch of ball valve, the aged and fertilized(guppy waste) water can flow into the the crypt tank. The outflow is covered by the pots. It is located at the bottom of the tank. The water level can be adjusted by adjusting the level of the outflow.

The Crypts.
Crypts that I am carrying are mostly common types. I am at the beggining phase of collecting crypts and hope to expand the collection gradually by either purchasing or exchanging.

Cryptocoryne elliptica - reborn from leaf

2007-12-13T22:15:00.000+07:00

Cryptocoryne elliptica rare crypt that is known to be the only crypt that can grow from its leaf. It was collected by my friend and he send me one of it together with a few leaves. Unfortunately it was in bad condition on arrival(Probably due to hot weather). More then 50% of the plant melt. Only a few leaves and the root survived.

I planted the root into a pot and kept the leaves in different conditions(never keep all eggs in the same basket). The root didn't survive and melted almost straight away. A few of the leaves melted away. I was depressed for a few day thinking that I have lost the chance of keeping elliptica. However, when I recheck them today. Shoot is growing from the stem of the leaves. This made my day, I have a hope to have crypt elliptica again.

Although elliptica is known of its capability to regrow from its leaf. Limited information and picture are found on the internet. Since I had a few leaves, I tried to regrow them in different condition. after a few days, a couple of the leave regrew. I find that a stabalised crypt tank with high moisture is the key to success. The regrowing stem can be emerge or submerge and the end of the leave stem is where my elliptical regrew. Hope this information will help others in selvaging thier elliptica in the future.

Crytocoryne affinis-Bottled

2007-12-06T22:01:00.000+07:00

This is the first blog. Got to start somewhere.

Recently caught cryptocoryne heat and started collecting crypts. After talking to a few friends & hobbiest through the net. Notice that there are various method of keeping crypts. The essence are:
1. They can be kept emerse or submerge.
2. Some crypts are hardy and some very sensitive.
3. A stable environment is very important or else they literally melt away

I have previously collected some Cryptocorynes affinis(Selangor) and Cryptocoryne minima(Kota Damansara). Kept some emerse and some submerge. For affinis,both of the submerse and emerse one melt away but regrewed. As for minima. Most submerged stable but emersed melted. However, the emerse plants grew back and recovered quickly. Whereas the submerged formed remain small and not growing well. I grew my submerge crypts in transparent bottle and hence conclude that they grow well due to high moisture and stable environment.

To prove my hypothesis, I am restarting a new bottle. This time I am using different substrate and added CO2 into the bottle.

Substrate s composed of potmix, peat, riversand and ADA biosiol.

Plantlet of Cryptocoryne affinis

Plantlet planted into the substrate.

CO2 pumped into the bottle and bottle capped.

Only time will tell whether this method works.