alanmin4304

Zev, yours obviously is riccia but is it the same as the first pic or do I need new glasses?

It is a sword plant (Echinodorus sp.) but I don't know which one. Put a little peice of lead around the flower stem to keep the plant down in the water and save it from getting damaged in the lights and let it grow a couple of more leaves. by then you should be able to bend the plant gently back towards the mother plant and it should come lose and away from the stalk. You may find it it will grow more plantlets at that point. If you cut it then of course it can't. As a complete aside, does the leaves on the mother plant look as though they are dented with a hammer. If so I will tell you what it is if you sell me the plantlet (with a few more leaves)

Congratulations its a boy. Compare it to the pic on plantgeek.

I have paid $50 for angels 30 years ago and $15 guppies can be cheap. It is all relative to how big they are, how good the quality is and how much you want them. If they obviously have genetics that you have been chasing for a long time they might be worth a lot to you. Rubbish is always not worth much (except to the greenies)

Polypanel would be great. If H1 is OK in a shower compartment it would be OK in a fish room if the internal sheathing was installed correctly. I built a 12ft x 8 ft fish room which was approved by Maf, Local and Regional Authorities as well as parliament (listed in the gazette as you do) and it was built from H1 framing with batts and sisalation then lined with flat colour steel sheets with the joints sealed with RTV and painted with mould resistant paint approved for use in freezing works--worked a treat. Polypanel would do the same thing and be a hell of a lot easier.

Doesn't look like Riccia fluitans to me. Have a look under Aquatic plants and alanmin what is this? It is the background plant.

If it was constructed properly you would only need H1 framing as it is protected from damp and weather. If the water is on the studs you should be taking the builder for a big refund. H4 is ground treated--fence posts and piles. Seratone type linings would be good. Poly is good for culturing mould and the Maf would get pretty excited. Hardly a smooth impervious lining.

Both female--large ovaries and no stamens. I thought I had some pics but I can't find them.

There are pics on the plantgeek site under Sagittaria subulata. They are female flowers

The male has the stamens and the female the central ovaries. They can produce both but not normally at the same time so that they get fertilized by another plant

If you are serious about importing I would suggest you work with Maf to be sure you meet their requirements as they are pretty tough and have seen a lot of people decide to give up importing recently. You should also make sure that the building consent application is for a facility to quarantine as well as breed fish (so that it can comply with the District and Regional plans). This will save you a lot of hassle in the future as it becomes a permitted or consented use. Also, you can employ a builder who will use and be responsible for his own subcontractors (sparkie, plumber, drainlayer, roofer etc) or you can employ the subbies and be responsible for them if it goes pear shaped.

I use a growlux type (20000k) and a cool white (4000k), Others use daylight (6500k). The choice is yours. Growlux is dearer and can be bought through a pet shop or cheaper from a lighting wholesaler. The others can be bought from bunnings/mitre10 etc and are cheaper. Once the ends of the tube go darker the light emitted is not as good and it pays to change the tubes. At that time you might as well get a new starter as they only cost about $1 and a bad starter shortens the life of the tube. Plants need plenty of blue and red light, that is what the growlux type tubes are made for and why they look purple. Blue makes plants compact and red makes them scrawny--both makes them healthy. What is right is what works best for you.

I don't know what crystalwort is. Do you have a picture?

If the newer one is the growlux it might pay to get a new cool white--cheap as chips

And now for the big prize you need to work out if you have male or female flowers.

How long are the lights on each day and how old are the tubes? Red Hygro is not an hygrophila, it is alternanthera reineckii roseafolia and is one of the few red plants which grows OK in moderate light. I think your plants should grow well if your tubes are not too old and they are on long enough each day.

Boys croak

How high is the water level, how high are the lights above the water and how long do you have them going each day? For example, I have a tank which is 1150mm long and 500mm of water depth with the lights about 100mm above the water. The lights are on 17 hours/day and they are like yours 2 x 3ft flouros (about 60watts). Everyone has there own ideas but I use one growlux type tube and one cool white tube and this setup grows and propagates a number of sword plants including: uraquayensis, red special, barthii, leopard, ozelot, martii, rose, red rubin and parviflorus. All of these plants require reasonable light. There is also three types of Crypts, lace java fern and a small sagittaria. Not much room for fish, but there are a few.

They lay out of the water in about a foot of damp sand usually. Do you have a male?

perhaps?

They are keen on aphids when they are about. Not the grey hairy ones on your cabbages but the green or browm ones.

How did the landscaping supp;ier get it legally--from am Ausie beach?

My guess is that the buckets are made from PVC and the smell is a plasticizer used in its manufacture---Dimethyl phthalate or dimp which we used to rub on exposed bits of skin when in areas heavily infested with sandflies. Should keep away the mossies.

Tubifex. Used to be worth $1 / lb, now probably worth more than gold. Thankyou enviromentalists for cleaning up the discharges to the rivers. I had fish that had lived on very little else for many generations.

I think they hid them in China during the olympics but there should be some around again now