CharlesD

@Ender97 my bad Ender, i really disconnected for a long time, and never noticed this message, im not from New Mexico, i live in Mexico, Baja California. Just south of the border from San Diego. I really have no idea were you could find some near you, but you should look around, maybe you'd be surprised at what you find, specially on streams that are flowing year round. Also be careful, even though i took such a small sample, somehow, i took in snails, fly larvae's, other insects larvae's, and even what i thought was a parasite. all in one single scoop. So really id recommend placing the plants in a separate/quarantine tank to observe for any hitchhikers. in my case i took samples from what i had and moved them through another container, where i let them grow again, and then i added them into my main tank. Also i made a massive mistake, many months later, i decided to make a maintenance session and placed all the floaters i had in a separate container, topperware, and for whatever reason i thought i could leave them there for 2 days as i left the city, when i left i closed the topperware hoping this would keep the container from loosing too much water from evaporation as well as i didnt want mosquitos to lay any eggs on them, as i for whatever reason placed this topperware outside in the sun..... when i came back just 2 days later, all the plants were basically dead, anywhere from 70-80%, most of them died to some fungus that ran rampant in the intense humidty of the topperware. Sadly what i had left was a few from 3 different species of floaters, and simply what was left of these azollas got out grown by the other floaters, duckwheat mostly, little by little i lost the azollas, until i had no more. i should've placed them in a separate container all by themselves, trying to keep a sample colony or whatever. Last azollas i saw in my tanks was about a month and a half ago, i tried to keep up on them to rescue the plant, and even though i thought of separating them since back then i opted to leaving them in the tanks cause the water there is much richer in nutrients than just any other container... sadly like i said it didnt work, and now i have learned my lesson, i plan on going to pick another sample, but i havent had the chance to go again, as it is some 2 hrs away from where i live. Sooo yeah recaping, be carefull with what you take from the local waters, quarantine the samples, and be carefull with closed containers that can affect the floaters with too much humidity. Good luck!

I've been wanting to post again for a while, but work has me occupied all day long. So anyone that was interested in the follow up sorry for taking so long. As Brandy so quickly pointed out, the plant is an Azolla variety, could be an Azolla Filicloides, or a Azolla Caroliniana as Daniel pointed out, or Azolla Cristata as ive been reading, and to me it seems to be that variety, either way its in the Azolla family. Following I'm sharing some amazing pictures of its super fast reproduction, as I have taken pictures almost daily and now am stupefied at the speed of its carpeting. This is a picture I had shared before, it's the earliest picture I took of its top view and it is 5 days after I collected the sample 06-January-2021. This is the root system it had again 5 days after the sample was taken. Picture taken the 06-January-2021 To accurately understand its rapid growth found and pointed out in the literature, as its described as a very invasive species, I decided to start making a count, now the count is not perfect, but it gives a general idea of the overall numbers. This count amounted to just over 110 plants. Mind you this was 5 days after my sample was taken and I'm certain it had already grown in number, thus why I started taking pictures from above to use computer programs to help me out in the count ( I used illustrator to put markers over the ones I counted as I marked the count on a notebook). Just three days later it looked so different. Picture taken the 09-January 2021. The root system began to show new growth as you can see in the top of the picture, new roots are growing To my surprise my count was just over 110 plants again, but the total surface cover was easily doubled. It should be noted most of these plants already showed to be getting ready to split into 2 or 3 parts, probably the ones making that new root growth. And three days later on the 12-January-2021, the Azolla had effectively carpeted the container. The root growth was impressive to say the least, and it was already difficult to see through the contained as before. At this point the total count was impossible to truly define do to its overlapping leaves. but I used the darker areas as a pointer of the middle of each plant and made my count that way. The total count amounted to just over 180 plants. In just six days the Azolla had grown 50% of its total population, that was impressive. I have many more things to share about this, because of microorganisms in the water sample, specifically having noticed mosquito larvae in the water I decided to plug the top with wrapping paper, since I cant keep an eye on it 24/7, and I didn't want to wake up one day with a room full of mosquitos or come back from work to a similar scenario. Besides wanting to share the microorganisms i found i want to share some issues I've stumbled on. Now what I hadn't thought of was their original environment and the environment I was exposing the plants to, do to direct sunlight and the top being enclosed humidity was building up every day, even if I unplugged it under supervision every day for multiple hours, it was spending most of the day enclosed ever since I started working again this week. Now the plants where found as I said before in a creek made of a underground spring, on a very dry terrain, so the plants must be used to having a dry air around it. And this seems too be causing me some trouble I will share on my next post, probably later today, since my lunch break is about over. 🙂 Have a nice day people. ❤️

That's a great idea of mixing the colors to write things or simply make imagery, and they stand still soo well since they carpet the whole surface and hold each other in place.

I live in Mexico, after new year my family and I went for an outdoor trail walk ideal activity now a days because of Covid-19. The walk was on a local creek that starts off from a natural underground spring. I didn't expect much since we live in a pretty dry area, most rivers and creeks are dry all year round and when there is creeks they are stationary and have no life other than basic frogs or insects. The creek was thin, shallow and slow moving mostly looked like any other creek I've seen, but Suddenly I spotted it, it almost looked like some algae, but it was a massive floater colony ( if you can call it that) The colors basic green and a hue of red - pink. Upon spotting them I realized this could be a much more special place than I originally thought, along the trail I kept an eye on the creek and that helped me spot movement in the water, there was fish! it was small and it was quick to hide. Before leaving I remembered the floaters and took a sample with my empty plastic water bottle to analyze through observation. Since I got the sample I've been taking pictures and I'm creating a log of photos and video with my camera. From the very first moments of observing it I noticed micro fauna in the water. 10 days have passed and I've noticed Miniature snails and a few fly or mosquito larvae, thus I decided to enclose it every night and whenever I'm not around to look at it, wouldn't want them to morph into mosquitos in my room. The following pictures are from my cellphone, I haven't gone through all the video and pictures in my camera(higher quality) though so I wont post that now. I'm jumping the gun sharing these since I tried really hard to get Cory's attention in today's live stream and was unsuccessful. Since I got them I've done heavy searching for this plant on the internet, and I cant find anything on it. Mind you all I have little to no experience with aquariums but I've been following the YouTube channel for a long time a little under a year and every video I get closer to actually going all out in on the hobby. I'm really interested in aqua scaping maybe its cause I'm an architect and I feel its almost like landscaping duh, lol. But in all reality I'm a noob at this, literally haven't had a fish since I was like 12, I'm 29 now. And because of the sudden discovery that I just couldn't ignore I jumped the gun took the sample and here I am 10 days later, when I really wasn't thinking about investing in a tank etc. until much further, when I know more and am 100% sure this hobby was for me. Luckily when I was a kid I had multiple bettas and I had 3 small spherical aquariums which are perfect for my tests. I used the smallest one I had, and plan on if possible to grow these plants and get enough for all three aquariums and eventually enough for a much larger aquarium in a not so far future. Anyways, I'm sorry for the super long text, I really wanted to fully explain the context of where, when, who and why I'm doing this. And my intent with this is to get help identifying the plant and whether its a good option for an aquarium with fish. And if indeed its an unknown then look for help from local biologist or investigate on how to adequately register and name it to be found online. So far in these 10 days I've seen massive root growth and expansion in the little aquarium which I could post in a follow up post. Enough delay here are the photos. The creek, thin, shallow and steady or still flow. The Floaters in their natural environment!!! Discovery for me at least. 🙂 Floaters close up in my small aquarium. (daytime, direct sunlight) At night with dim lighting the edge lights up almost looking phosphorescent! couldn't really capture what it looks like with my cellphone with that dim light. Upon realizing there was mosquito or fly larvae I enclosed it letting it breath when I'm there to check on it. Roots, most where anchored on to a twig. and the pretty much have only one root per petal, and I saw new root growth soon after setting it in my new container. I did notice root curling in the end, I cant tell if that's just a plant characteristic as in maybe used to anchor on to things as seen in the twig, or if it is the result of a certain deficiency in the water since I took the sample and added about an equal amount of drinking water( water bottle) to have the floaters float off the bottom since the container is much bigger than the small water bottle used to take the sample with. I used drinking water to prevent adding any untested unfiltered tap water which I have no idea of its ph etc ( city water). I hope I did the right thing. If yo are still here reading this, THANK YOU ❤️ I will try to keep up with this thread daily until I get the help I need, Happy New Year to all