C. griffithii 'Singapore' again

Over the weekend, I was passing by the fringe of the central catchment area in Singapore where I located another area with what I believed should be C. griffithii.

The area was wet but with rather hard sandy ground. I did not bring any pH measuring kit with me but I expected that ithe pH should be around 4.5 to 5.0. Blyxa aubertii could be found growing in this area too along with the cryptocorynes.

Both submersed and emersed cryptocorynes could be found at this location.

The leaves had white central main vein with black markings and were light green in colour. The underside of the leaves are reddish as expected of the C. griffithii found in Singapore.

The flooding + guppies technique

It is inevitable that some melting of plants will occur using this biological warfare technique......

More troubles, woolly aphids this time?!?!?!?

There are more troubles brewing in one of my cultivated tanks. What I thought initially was nothing more than some white fungus growth due to my use of BE-1 organic fertiliser (it was written on the packaging that "useful" white fungus growth would be expected) turned out to be some sort of pest attack again under scrutiny.    

Could these be woolly aphids? I was very tempted to use Provado Ultimate Bug Killer but I suspect that the cryptocorynes would not be able to take the pesticide. My mum recently used it on her plants which were hanging over my submersed cultivation tank and I suspected that that was the cause of a sudden cryptocoryne melt in that tank.

I guess I am left with no choice but to rely on the flooding + guppies technique again...

Someone managed to bloom C. cf. cordata var. grabowskii 'Lundu'!

Remembered the C. cf. cordata var. grabowskii we found along the way to Lundu in Sarawak? See below for some photographs to remind you of it. I collected an unopened spathe back.

Unfortunately, the limb melted but I was able to observe that it should had been yellow in colour. Also, the long tip of the limb looked similar to that of C. cordata var. grabowskii as featured in the photographs shown in the crypts pages. Therefore, we suspected that it should at least belong to the C. cordata group.

I also managed to take some photographs of the interior of the kettle showing that the upper interior kettle wall was spotted with purple dots.

Below is a photograph of how my pot of specimen looked like currently.

I recently searched and found on the Internet that someone in Japan managed to bloom a similar specimen which was obtained from my friend. Click on this link to see the photographs of the blooming spathe. Apprantly, the limb was actually sort of reddish in colour and had a thick yellow collar. The edge line of the limb was almost black in colour.

It was stated in the crypts pages that "the difference is that C. cordata var. grabowskii has a rough limb of the spathe, while C. cordata var. cordata always has a smooth limb of the spathe". From the photograph of the blooming spathe, was the limb rough? Was our guess of comparing it to C. cordata var. grabowskii accurate?

A large scale outdoor cryptocoryne cultivation set-up

My friend decided to set up a large scale outdoor cryptocoryne cultivation facility instead of just relying on the fish tank type of set ups like many of us are using (including me :-p).

He is partially relying on fish tanks, but all the fish tanks have piped connections to connect to a large pond of water to allow continuous exchange of water. Water is pumped into pipes along the top of the tanks, allowing a jet of water to be sprayed onto a brick placed in each tank (to break the jet of water and spread the water droplets). Each tank has over flow pipe fixed at the base to control the level of the water, allowing the water which is constantly topped up to over flow back into the reservoir pond.

On top of the reservoir pond, my friend placed a few large fibre-glass tanks elevated using bricks. The same concept applies where water is sprayed into the tanks from the top and drained back into the reservoir pond through over flow pipes installed at the base of the tanks.

The results of such cultivation set up seemed rather positive after a few weeks of trial. The water temperature is low due to the large shaded reservoir pond. Coupled with the constant flow of water, the set up contained some rather difficult species which seemed to be growing well. My friend is using a mixture of lawn sand and used activated charcoal as substrate mix.

Nearby, there is a small "fish hotel" set up by my friend's friend who is targeting to rent out large fish tanks (see below) to hobbyists who do not have the space at home for such large fish tanks or who are planning to go for holiday and need some place to temporary "deposit" their fishes. Interested parties can ask me for the contact details of this "fish hotel".

Cryptocoryne Striolata 'Sungai Assan' Blooming

My C. striolata 'Sungai Assan' bloomed for a few times consecutively recently. The substrate mix used consisted of ADA Amazonia, SUDO Crystal Orange Sand, BE-1 organic fertiliser and Ocean Free Super Pro-Peat Granules.  

Cryptocoryne sp. 'Lingga 14' spathe bloomed

The spathe of this specimen is typical of cryptocoryne found on Lingga Island. The limb is wide, upright and filled with protuberances. The colour of this spathe is pinkish red in colour. The throat is lightly coloured in red too.

There are 6 numbers of styles which are rather long. The centre olfactory bodies which are yellow in colour could be clearly seen too.

The specimen is planted in ADA amazonia, Ocean Free Super Pro-Peat granule and BE1 organic fertiliser.

End of Singkep / Lingga Trip No. 2

We decided to call it a day after viewing so many different cryptocorynes and ate some instant noodle at a shop as late lunch.

Thereafter, we went to the waterfall area again to relax and I took a few photographs of the mushrooms which I found there. They were of various colour ranging from white to luminous yellow to brownish yellow.

We had to take a boat ride back to Pancur town again where we had decided to stay over for this trip. Below are some photographs taken during the boat trip.

Below are a few sunset shots of the majestic Lingga Mountain across the sea from our hotel courtyard.

We had dinner just below our hotel again, consisting of BBQ stingray and squid, stir-fried vegetable and fried noodles.

We woke up early the next morning to catch the 0715hrs ferry back to Tanjong Pinang in Bintan and then change another ferry back to Singapore. A weekend later, it was on the news that a ferry carrying over 200 passengers sank in Riau Province during a storm killing at least 29 people, and forcing the authorities to halt the ferry services there. Thousands of passengers were left stranded on the various islands until the ferry services resumed. Luckily we came back earlier or we could had been affect by this.

These are some photographs of the villages along the coast of the various islands of Riau Archipelago which we passed by along the way back.