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Quest
2003:
7/13/03
7/08/03
6/21/03
6/13/03
5/19/03
5/06/03
4/20/03
3/25/03
3/23/03
2/18/03
1/5/03
2002:
11/11/02
10/11/02
10/03/02
9/1/02
8/10/02
7/14/02
7/2/02
6/4/02
4/6/02
3/14/02
2001:
6/28/01
5/31/01
4/26/01
3/29/01
2000:
11/30/00
10/24/00
9/28/00
8/21/00
7/27/00
6/22/00
5/25/00
4/20/00
3/10/00
2/24/00
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Q U E S T Newsletter of the Madison Aquarium Gardeners Club, 6/21/03
From: John Glaeser 233-5182
NEXT MEETING: THURSDAY EVENING, June 26, 03, 6:30 – 9:00
Science House, 1645 Linden Drive on the UW Campus
Latest News:
Aaron Glass reminds us of November 14-16: Aquatic Gardeners Association Convention in Dallas, TX. Feature speaker is Christel Kasselmann, author of the most recently issued book, "Aquarium Plants". Details: http://www.aquatic-gardeners.org/convention.html > . If you'd like to be informed on the latest AGA updates, sign up for AGA email updates list: http://aga-2k3.aquatic-plants.org>.
David Watson is making good progress on his book The Classroom Aquarium. He has completed the Introduction. Is it splendid! It tells about Nathan's classmates and teacher coming over to the house to check out planted aquariums. You can guess the rest. Through guidance from David and Nathan, the class created a planted aquarium in their classroom, to the delight of students, teachers, administrators and visitors.
Following the Introduction, are chapters titled Basic Principles, Setup Day, The Class Becomes Experts and Measuring Success. There is a chance we might be able to share this story via our web site. It would be nice to see chapters appear as they are completed. Greg Stahl is designing text and photo layouts and David is looking into getting final approval from Mrs. Feeney, Nathan's teacher.
Jerry Weiland has harvested a bunch of "lake weeds". They're in an aquarium with lights and filter, located on the main floor of Science House. With a good reference book in hand, we should be able to be a little more discriminating as to what we call "weeds". Even these have fancy, Latin, tongue twisting names. A little dignity, please.
I'm collaborating with UW Biocore Lab Supervisor Seth McGee to develop care routines for the lab's 55 gallon planted aquarium. The goal is maintaining a diverse collection of aquatic plants from area lakes and streams. This Tuesday we're getting into the Picnic Point bay and see what we can fetch. I'll bring in examples for the meeting, hopefully.
Gerda Harms gave a nice presentation last meeting dealing with filtration methods plus a special examination of nitrifying bacteria.
Nitrosopira and Nitrosomonas convert Ammonia to Nitrite. Nitrospira converts Nitrite to Nitrate. Available nitrifying bacteria cultures hobbyist can buy in stores contain Nitrobacter, as part of part of their formula. Research shows this bacteria is largely ineffective in converting Nitrite to Nitrate, because it is short lived in freshwater aquariums. Seemly, commercial nitrifying bacteria formulas do not include two effective strains, Nitrosopiro and Nitrospira.
Most folks "cycle" their tanks with a handful of substrate gravel from an establish aquarium or some dirty water squeezed from a filter sponge. This will work. Or, as the old timers did, grab some soil from the back yard.
We agreed with Gerda, hobbyist use all kinds of filters and have success. Unless one needs to cleanse the water of medication, avoid activated carbon. It removes valuable plant nutrients. Some systems aim to oxygenate the water by agitating the of water surface. This evacuates CO2, a source of carbon used in cell formation. Under gravel filters work best for tanks having plastic plants. The system doesn't work too well with live rooted plants. It seems plants don't like their roots disturbed through deep substrate probing with a siphon. Oxygenated water flowing through root areas tends to weaken root growth.
Many like submersible pumps with a minimum sponge to prevent the impeller from clogging. A good current coursing through the water column knocks of metabolic waste from leaf tissues and delivers nutrients to the leaves. A while back, Professor Thomas Givnish pointed out, current reduces the "boundary layer" around leaves and makes it easier for them to absorb nutrients. Many aquarium plants get nutrients
through leaves as well as through roots. The more delicate the leaf tissue, the more they need feeding with liquid nutrients. A submersible filter/pump is ideal as a current creator.
This is a detail of a "built in the wall" 180 gallon aquaria in Madison's West High School. During the regular school year I meet with three student, once a week for 1 and 1/2 hours to do water testing and basic maintenance.
See you at the meeting. Bring your stories...............................John
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