Indian Almond Leaves...

Catappa leaf

Scientific Name: Terminalia catappa
Common Names: Indian Almond Leaves, Tropical Almond Leaves, Sweet Almond Leaves, Wild Almond Leaves, Sea Almond Leaves, Catappa Leaves, Java Almond Leaves, Ketapang
Leaves.

If you have no idea what this leaf is, check out the link below, especially the first link where it's specially cater for Indian Almond Leaves. After you check out the link...do return here to read on some of my experience with this leaf :D

Almost everything you need to know about this leaves here:
http://www.indianalmondleaves.com/

Here's an article written and published in Aquarticles.com
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Nagendra_Almond_Leaf.html
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I hope you enjoy the links....now my turn to share some brief story of my experience with this leaf :D

"One of the experience I have is when I was keeping Tiger Barbs, Puntius tetrazona. I bought 6 of them from the LFS and they were looking great from day 1. But after a few days, one by one gets white spot disease. I try to salt bath them for few seconds, sounds silly, but its one way of medication. Sadly, all of them died soon after, I guess they couldn't resists the salt bath or maybe I immersed them too long :(

Anyway I went back to the LFS and bought another 6. Also I didn't do any water change in my aquarium. Same thing happen after the new batch of Tiger Barbs was introduce, they were attack by white spot disease. This time, I figured out to try the Indian Almond Leaves. I knew about this leaves long time ago, but it's just that sometimes it never come across my mind...lol! So what happens is...the fishes cured within days, I didn't even quarantine them, just add the leaves into the rearing tank. After that day, not one disease and the 6 of them were healthy as ever :D"

One more story to prove to you the miracle of this leaves :D

"This story is a recent one, it involve wild bettas :D

3 cases here...fin rots, swimming isolated and with eyes getting blurred (not quite sure the exact term for this disease)...this fishes were wild caught and have been travelling around, that have cause them stress.

So what I did, same case lot's and lot's of the Indian Almond Leaves as soon as they arrive home....and they soon recovered :D

Today the wild bettas are in Swiss now :D.....arr, I'm missing them :(

How they ended up in Swiss is because they were not mine, but my Swiss friend who happen to come here for holiday. So he kept the bettas in my house for quarantine and healing before bringing them back to Swiss.....they are doing fine now, according to my friend, so that's good news :D"

So that's about it on Indian Almond Leaves :D

P.S. If you want those leaves, I do sell them, I'll make a new post on this...

How To Grow Glossostigma elatinoides

First of all..."A Merry Christmas 2009 and A Happy New Year 2010" to all my readers :D

I have recently prepared a diagram of how to grow the Glossostigma elatinoides for one of my customers who bought this plants from me. This was hand written and drawn, so I scan it to my pc, and would like to share it with you all...a christmas gift for you!

The diagram illustrate how to grow glosso that comes either in the tall growing form or the low growing form. This should help beginners who are growing this plants for the first time.

The image here has been resized, please click on the image to go to my photo album and download it for better viewing

Click on the picture to go to the album, you can download it for better viewing

I hope you enjoy this scan, and if you have any problems, feel free to post a comment or simply drop me an email.....cheers :D

A Little About Red Ramshorn Snail Behavior...

My sis asked me today..."Why some of the snails float some doesn't"

Well.....this is what I explained to her, base on my observation...

As far as I know the Red Ramshorn Snail is not 100% aquatic snail. What I mean by this is that, these snails, doesn't have gills so they cannot breath underwater. Instead they have a large pulmonary sac for the gaseous exchange. Under bright light, the sac can be seen like a bubble of air trapped inside the shell.

How the snail breath is by going up to the water surface just like dolphin or whale does. Once they collected enough air, they will then return back into the water. It is like a diver's gas tank, and will last them for few moments (how long exactly I'm not sure, never really observed till that extent)...

Sometimes the snails will spend quite a while floating on the water surface breathing, before entering into the water...during this time, at first glance, you may think that the snail is weak and might be dying or maybe even dead :), but actually they are not!

Here's one interesting observation...

A snail that just fill up their air tank cannot sink, the only way for them to go back into the water is to crawl, with their foot acting like a suction cap, so they will remain underwater. But try picking them, and they will float back up.

The opposite for a snail which have an empty air tank...they will sink right to the bottom if you pick them, and try to crawl back up for air.....:D

Anyway, after knowing about the snail breathing air, they are infact aquatic snails afterall...as they cannot survive without water....try placing them out of water, they will eventually die.