Hydroponics update after 1 month

Some updates on the hydroponics experiment, the photograph above was taken 1 month ago while the photograph below is taken today for your ease of comparison (need to rotate the photograph 180 degrees).

Overall 2 out of 16 specimens seemed to have perished, namely C. nurii 'Central Pahang' and C. sp. 'Singkep 1'. C. ferruginea 'Sungei kerait' seemed to be thriving well. The rest of the specimens have partially shed their leaves and melted but are still surviving and adapting. Below are the close up photographs in group of 6 holes. The "dirt" in the water are the partially dissolved a capsule of Ferka Rosetta.

Some specimens (4/16) have white roots growing out from the bottom, namely C. ferruginea 'Sungai Kerait', C. sp. 'Belitong 3', C. longicauda 'Johor' and C. striolata 'Gunung Besar'.

Some specimens (6/16) are starting to develop white roots from the top of the rhizome too, namely C. ferruginea 'Sungai Kerait', C. ideii 'West Kalimantan', C. minima 'Pondok Tanjung', C. sp. 'Pahang River', C. sp. 'Bintan', and C. striolata 'Sungai Assan'.

How long more can these specimens survive in such artificial environment?

Hydroponics?

Fed up with having to deal with algae / fungus / insects / etc as can be seen below in 2 of my tanks, I decided to attempt to end the miseries of some weak specimens of cryptocorynes which I currently have by trying to cultivate them in soil-less environment i.e. hydroponics.

I wanted to design a system which is easy to move around, easy to clean / change plant (since many will probably die :-p) without getting messy, can be used in the existing 2 feet fish tanks which I am maintaining. Therefore, I decided to utilise an expanded plastic board as the base, cut holes in them, insert plastic pots into the holes and use filter sponges to hold the plants in place.

I selected many weak specimens of cryptocorynes of various species to participate in this trial.

After adding distilled water into a translucent container, I added some drops of AZOO brand plant gibberellin and a capsule of Ferka Rosetta before placing the board of 16 pots of plants in too.

I will be going for a week of holiday starting from tomorrow and then followed by another week of overseas training, hopefully the casualty rate will not be too high by the time I come back in Dec 2010.

Revisiting C. sp. 'Sedili X'

I only managed to plan for a 1 day trip this month so I went to Sedili area again with my explorer friend to see if we would have any luck in locating a blooming specimen. There was no luck. Without writing more, I will just share some photographs taken on this trip with you.

C. sp. 'Sedili 6'

C. sp. 'Sedili 3'

That's all!

C. sp. 'Sedili 2'

The forest around Sedili river has many beautiful pandanus.

In one of such forest, my explorer friend found some cryptocorynes and he brought me there recently.

I was distracted for a while with surveying what type of fishes could be caught there.

The bed of the forest were flooded with water.

Below are the photographs of the specimens of cryptocorynes found there. As usual, no flowers could be found to confirm the identity of the species. My explorer friend told me there was more specimens found there previously as compared with our recent visit, where had all the cryptocorynes went to, eaten by wild boars?

The forest bed was flooded with a layer of soft debris. However, I suspected that deeper down under these debris the bed should be sandy as the open area around the forest had sandy base instead. The pH of the water was about 5.5 to 6.0.

Many star plants (eriocaulon) could be found on the sandy base of the open areas around the forest.

There were many pretty tadpoles (which species?) there too, notice the whorl pattern on the underside of the belly.

... as well as a snakehead...

This is a photograph of the beautiful Sedili river.

Dinner was squid omelette, otah (grilled spicy fish paste in cocunut leaf) and fishball noodle in one of the open air coffee shop in Johore Barhu near the causeway.