Hi all. I was a member of the NGA way back in the early 1980's or 90's, but that was before Forum's existed. I know it was before I started with AOL! I still have some of the paperback booklet Vegetable guides published back then-and might still be in print. I have not checked.

I have been gardening since High School. First was vegetable gardening. I was a big aquarium hobbyist back then and even then bought and grew aquatic plants. I especially love Cryptocoryne plants. I have a 3 gallon Nano tank that is growing an emersed Crypt. wendtii. I get flowers from time to time. Here is a photo taken May 4, 2023 when the plant was growing in a one gallon round jar before I started the Nano tank.


My main interests now are Carnivorous Plants I can overwinter in cold conditions: mainly Sarracenia and VFT. I have a pot of Utricularia gibba under lights that right now has a bloom. Cacti and Succulents divided into three winter categories: winter warmth under lights, cold and dry outdoors in my garage down to neg 10F, near freezing and dry in an unheated greenhouse.

I have three obligatory African Violets that date back to one of my children's Kindergarten class where I provided leaves for the teacher to get her students to grow them. That could be over 30 years ago by now. I forget which child it was.

I'm retired now.

Jerry Smith
Bloomingdale, NJ

Welcome back Jerry!

Welcome (back), Jerry. I see our interests in plants overlap. Looking forward to seeing more pictures of your plants in the C&S forum.

back!!

Thanks guys. Do I really consider myself "coming back" to this site? Not really, if I think about it. But, I did subscribe to the magazine back then for many years. And I remember seeing a college professor of mine offering seeds in the seed swap after I graduated. I probably participated in it, although I don't remember for sure. I was a listed member of the SSE back then too. I offered my garlic and parsnip seeds. Is the magazine still published?

pepper23: My wife and I were out at Fort Leavenworth in March for my sons promotion to Major in the Army. He'll be out there till he graduates in June and then goes back to Seattle, WA. We really liked Leavenworth. I know I didn't expect the rolling hills. I was expecting flat prairie. The museum on the Fort is worth seeing if you haven't seen it yet. You need to call the Welcome Center in advance to get onto the Fort. Easily done.

Jerry, congrats to your son! Is that for Command and Staff.

Congrats to him from me as well!! Kansas has plenty of rolling hills there, just have to know where to look and to not expect Ozark style hills.

crawgarden said: Jerry, congrats to your son! Is that for Command and Staff.

Yes and thanks, he's getting working on a Masters Degree at the Command and General Staff College and he's getting a second Masters in Logistics from my alma mater, Florida Institute of Technology.

pepper23 said: Congrats to him from me as well!! Kansas has plenty of rolling hills there, just have to know where to look and to not expect Ozark style hills.

Thanks to you too. I've never been to the Ozark's.

Here is a photo from 2013 of the plants I grew at my work. My boss was very happy with me being happy! There are cacti, Carnivorous Plants, emersed growing Cryptocorynes on that power transformer with a light hanging over it. I got 80F in the jars when the room was in the low 60's. This doesn't even count the aquarium in my boss's office and the ones in mine.

Jerry, I only ever grew Cryptocorynes in my aquariums, guessing if the humidity was high enough they would not have to be submerged.

crawgarden said: Jerry, I only ever grew Cryptocorynes in my aquariums, guessing if the humidity was high enough they would not have to be submerged.

Cryptocoryne grow in areas where monsoon rains will flood them part of the year. The other part is low water when they can grow in the air as long as the roots are very moist. This is when they bloom. They often have an entirely different leaf shape when growing emersed compared to submersed.

So yes, they need close to 100% humidity to grow emersed. You can grow them in a Paludarium emersed. Often times they are grown along with reptiles or amphibians.

This is one of the best sources for Crypt information I've seen. It was started by a Dutch botanist, Jan Bastmeijer for his personal records and then grew. It is now archived and maintained since his death in 2022. You have to add in the h as I'm not allowed to post links yet, being so new. [url=ttps://www.cryptocoryneworld.org/index.php]ttps://www.cryptocoryneworld.o...[/url] Click on the "how to" tab for some ideas for growing them. He goes into potting mixes too. Some Crypts are really finicky and require Beech leaf compost. They might be growing at a pH of 4 or less.

I mix up some Seachem Flourite or similar substrate with mineralized soil fortified with a clay mix I make up using clays from pottery supply houses. You can buy dry clay in pound bags. I usually make up a 25 lb batch and sell it to club members for their use. Some Crypts grow in Limestone bedrock areas and do better in hard alkaline water. I grew a lot of Crypts along with Tanganyikan cichlids.

Here's a 38 gallon I had at home with Crypt retrospiralis growing along the back. The substrate was a mixture of Seachem Onyx Sand and an African Cichlid substrate that I sieved to remove the larger particles. I only kept what passed 1/8-3/16" mesh. It provided a very high alkalinity in the water along with the salts and buffer I added to supplement my tap water. The coconut shell was the spawning shell for Neolamprologus leleupi. It was taken March 22, 2007. They spawned on a regular basis and almost never ate their fry. The juveniles did though. That is a juvenile swimming over the shell spawning cave:


Here are some juveniles that I called "vultures", waiting to snag some fry near the spawning cave. This was taken March 22, 2007:


Here's an adult actually eating a fairly large juvenile. Pretty sure my son took this photo. I don't remember taking it. Pretty amazing shot he got. Photo taken sometime in 2007/8:


Here's the female sticking her nose out of the coconut shell with her fry swimming out around her. You can see some of the Crypts are gone near the shell. And I've cleaned the substrate near the shell too. I fed using frozen food for marine fish that had a lot of orange pigments in it. Really made the color of the leleupi pop. Taken Jan 8, 2008: