Ben Z

These tips are fantastic! I tried reverse respiration using beer, and in my tests, EVERY BEER outperformed carbonated water! There must be something magical about the chemistry of mixing ethanol, co2 and good old hops. Yum yum

as long as you can remember the names of the chateaus ~

youre absolutely right in fact. i agree with everything you said. it's just that we live in an imperfect world. species misidentification happens more often than we'd like... and sometimes common names are more useful than Latin names in a non-science context, because those dont change much. not that they dont have their problems... as for accuracy, i was going off on a philosophical tangent. on sometimes species identification.. it sometimes requires more than having a live specimen. the writeup in the following link illustrates this very well: https://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/fish-archives/lebiasina-cf-multimaculata-2/ and yea , let's not hijack the thread anymore; cheers n happy fishkeeping =)

OP... something I forgot to add. Sometimes they can die from the root up (start to yellow). Too many possible causes to list... but I've lived with these plants for decades, and it seems that the yellowing happens most often in aquariums if the plants are damaged when ppl roughly stuff them into the substrate n damage the node. Also, use a bit of wax on exposed plant tissue when propagating them - a tip from the gardeners of my grandmother's era. Throw out any plants that show signs of yellowing- can't be saved and oftentimes it spreads

As a nerd, I fully agree. I love reading up on this stuff. But there are times when taxonomy, as a discipline, has gone a bit crazy. that aside, what I think is counter-productive is to rely on scientific names when BUYING plants/fish/what-have-you. how many merchants have that level of knowledge? Even a professional botanist, say, might specialise only in one very particular type of plants and know nuts about others. Not to mention the problem of the flu workaround - hahahaha. And... I like to drool over fish profiles on the aquariumglaser website, and many of their posts have caveats saying that they are not 100% sure of the species of the fish they're featuring. (Like the one in December featuring auriglobus - "in all probability they are...") if anyone is interested, basically they said there are five species of auriglobus, not one as previously thought, but all five are "darn similar". Well, I have three avocado puffers in quarantine in a smallish tank now, and there's no way I can be sure if they're modestus or not without cutting them up (and maybe not even then...) In cases like this, the common name might be more "accurate" than the Latin. Think of it this way, it can be said that "avocado puffers (or golden puffers or whatnot) are defined by the aquarium trade to be puffers of a certain appearance and behaviour, and belonging to one of five species in the auriglobus genus."

the PhDs need something to do right? Honestly... the taxonomical debates get too picky sometimes. For the non-scientist, honestly, who cares? The mother-in-law's tongue my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother planted is basically the same plant i have in my yard now. Imagine if u go to the doctor and u say, doc, I caught the flu, and he says: the flu doesn't exist anymore. It was never a formal medical term to begin with. It's the common name for an umbrella of respiratory tract symptoms that can be caused by any number of pathogens or environmental causes. Now, let's see... hmmm... I can't determine exactly what you have without ordering twenty-nine swabs and a series of PCRs. Uh. Let's just say you have non-specific URTI, kay? It's what people commonly call the flu.

Heh heh my first post. OP.. in my part of the world (right on the equator) these plants are very common as decorations during certain festivals. Ppl plonk them into vases of tap water and 99% of the time they do just fine. Taxonomical ambiguity isn't an issue IMO if u got yours commercially, there are only so many (few!) horticultural species/varieties profitable enuf to be sold. So yes they will grow as long as temperature, humidity and such arent too low. Only time I had them die on me was when an AC unit was blasting away at its leaves PS: sometimes when I'm setting up a new tank, I donk a bunch of these into the water, but then I get busy with work and leave them for WEEKS just floating around. They live and grow. Benign neglect. I've even thrown some whole into vermicompost piles and found them growing happily couple of months later.