Derek

Hi Paul >The dark ring that you spotted on my flower is not a shadow and is very >a distinct feature. I am sure my plant did not have this dark ring. If they are both C. willisii then they may well be different crosses or clones. We will have to do a swap and grow both plants under the same conditions. >I have thought about sending a pic to the crypts pages to ask for ID. Good idea, I'm sure Jan would be more than pleased to give his opinion. There may be a bit of delay as I believe there are several plant and crypt society meetings coming up in Europe shortly that he will be attending.

Hi Paul, Thanks for the offer of some plants. I'm sure I will take you up on that sooner rather than latter. Compared to the flower of C. x willisii (C. wallissii??)that you have pictured mine appeared more of an olive colour and did not have what appears to be the dark throat that yours shows. Unless that is just a shadow. What substrate or substrates are you using when growing your crypts emmersed. Presently I am using a mixture of potting mix with osmocote with some well rotted sheep manure mixed in. I haven't yet tried experimenting with other substrates.

Cees, Definitely agree about the need to keep photos of flowers. It will certainly help to identify plants correctly. The plants should be grouped by proper scientific nomenclature but a search facilty that also allowed common names to be searched would also be benificial.I would group plants at least at a genus level i.e. all the amazon swords under Echinodorus. If you wanted you could group them by family and then by genus but I don't think this is necessary. Below is a link to a catfish site, (It has a very extensive image library of many catfish species, although it is being updated at the moment and many of the images are not presently available). Something along these lines would be good starting point. I think the idea of using the FNZAS plant survey is a very good idea. http://www.planetcatfish.com/ilibrary/c_index.htm [ This message was edited by: Derek on 2001-04-28 05:18 ]

I would be interested in contacting anyone in New Zealand who is actively breeding catfish. My main interest is in Corydoras and members of the Loricariidae family. I am presently trying to breed L134 and a Rhinelricaria spp. as well as getting Parotocinclus spilosoma to rebreed again.

Hi Cees, >- only plants as seen in New Zealand with >images as taken in New Zealand I wouldn't be to strict on this. Any image from any source is better than none. >- more than just a table on a single page Agreed >- links to species identification database >somewhere else on the web Agreed. Some fields that would be usefull in the database could include, Name of grower, Contact details, Plant Name, Growing Conditions, Source of plant, Available for sale/trade, etc. The ability to search by both plant name and/or grower name would also be useful.

Hi Paul, Nice site. I don;t know how I haven't found it before. I completely agree with your sugestion of a plant database. Cees, any chance of hosting something like that on "The New Zealand Fishroom"? I am especially impressed with your collection of crypts. I did not realise that some of those species had even made it into New Zealand. I've have only recently started to build up a few species myself. Most of them I am growing emmersed in an attempt to flower them. Mainly as a means of confirming their identity. Not a lot of success so far, although I have had C.pontederiifolia and C. x willisi flower. I am still not sure of this plants identity. It was sold as C.nevillii but I understand that this plant is extremly rare in the aquarium trade. Unfortunately there is great diversity in the flowers of C. x willisi and I am still not sure of its identity. There is a very good site dedicated to crypts at http://users.bart.nl/~crypts/ if you are not aware of it.