This beautiful Cryptocoryne Nurii from Pahang is one of my favourite plant. I love the tiger stripe markings and colors exhibited by this specimen. We also found a variant with extreme pink mutations at this location. More when I get home from my field trips. Have a great weekend.
I just returned home from Kalimantan Barat after going back and forth over the last couple of weeks. The first part of the tour, I covered the west of Kalbar while the second part I visited the eastern part of Kalbar. There are lots of interesting plants and fishes in these areas and I had opportunities to visit their natural habitats.
One of the most remarkable plants for planted tank enthusiast as well as plants hobbyists is the Bucephalandra species. It is an aroid plant and a distant relative of Cryptocoryne. They are rhyzome plants so just tying them to a stone of driftwood should anchor them for submersed or emersed environment. The plant requires low to moderate lighting and can make a nice alternative to Anubias Barteri Var. If keeping them in emersed form, please keep them in high humidity.
There are many forms of Bucephalandra from different locations in Borneo, each pretty in their own ways.
I just got back from exploration trip in Bengkayang, Kalimantan Barat for a couple of days. New set of clothes and today I am off to Sintang, Kalimantan Barat with 3 other buddies. I havent had time to post videos and photos yet but I hope to do so by next week.
Hey guys, sorry for the long web silence. I have been very busy with a number of projects here in BES. All of which is progressing steadily and we will share about them as soon as possible.
Along with photos, I plan to work on short videos here on this blog and the first step is unedited trial upload to see how this will work out. I think it will be exciting to see short clips of video from time to time on fishes, plants, exploration trips, special projects, people and life in Borneo.
In the meantime, I like to share a little about these little reddish catfish from Sumatra. For those of you keeping community tanks, please give them a try as they are easy and non demanding fishes. They are not frequently available as they are not easily sourced. They are from Sumatra but adapts readily to tank with pH around 6.0. They feed on micro pellets readily too.
Just wanted to share a photo of the Cryptocoryne Bullosa's spathe which is short and spots bright red flower with dark ring colar. The plant in photo is under shallow fast flowing water. Cryptocoryne Bullosa was described by Engler in 1879 and can be found in central Sarawak. Depending on the locations where the specimens are collected, they sometimes exhibit slight differences. I once had a friend who mistook Cryptocoryne Uenoi for Bullosa but flowers often is the sure way to tell. The largest species of Cryptocoryne Bullosa is found in Northern Sarawak at one particular river where their dark leaves grows to the length of nearly 1 feet long. Needless to say this variety is in deep water and collecting them in rainy season is near impossible.
Happy New Year and may your 2011 be a good year from all of us at Borneo Echo Streams!
I have not been posting the last few months on this blog as we were hampered by a long stretch of bad weather affecting many villages where we are developing our social enterprise. So in the lean months, we fall back to cultivating and fine horning our husbandry skills with our workers. But thank God for signs of change, so we are now starting to get fishes again.
One of my favorite barbs, the Puntius Rhomboocellatus is now available at BES. The fishes are beginning to show striking colors just after 2 weeks of quarantine and conditioning. These fishes often look so beautiful in contrast to green colors of Echinodorus Quadricostatus or similar foreground plants. I will post some other fish and plant updates soon.
My recent foray into Sumatra took me to various locations of wild fishes and plants through Central Sumatra. We travelled extensively and found that in some old locations, the wild Cryptocoryne Longicauda exposed in open areas in a drying stream due to land clearing for palm oil plantations. I amazed at the form of these plants adapting to such harsh environment. These plants grow best in shadier streams. The pH of the water is around 5.0. The base of the stream is sandy with cool water flowing through some sections.
