Aulonocara hansbaenschi, Red Shoulder Peacock in an exhibit that shows exotic fish at the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refugee

Ancistrochilus rothschildianus O'Brien 1907, some cultural notes.

I have grew this species in my house in the forest in Rio Abajo, Puerto Rico.  Here are some notes on the way I cultured it.

Media: Bark, I used fine bark of the finest quality so it would not decay too fast

Potting: I grew it on a four inch deep plastic pot, excellent drainage is a must.

Fertilizing: High nitrogen fertilizer when it was producing new pseudobulbs, after the pseudobulb matured, no fertilizer was given until it started a new growth.

Light: Full morning sun until about 10 am, sunlight filtered through the tree canopy after midday, It gets this regime because it is what is available on the only spot that I had to put this plant.

Temperature: From 95F high during the day in summer to 60F during the night in winter. 

Watering:  Since it usually was growing during the rainy season, no additional water was given to it.  It was not watered at all during the dry season.

I never really repotted this plant in the traditional sense, I would carefully take it aout of the pot, shake the media that looked too decayed and then put the plant back in the same pot with as much fresh media to replace what had decayed.

My plant grew very well and eventually filled the pot where it was growing and started growing down the sides.  I lost this plant after a spell of extremely wet weather late in the year caused it to contract rot.

                      

Neobenthamia gracilis "Arps Snowball"

This unusual looking orchid comes from Africa.  Specifically from the Nguru and Uluguru mountain ranges in Tanzania¹.   I got my plant from the United States, not from a business but from a friend.   I planted this orchid in medium sized bark.  At first sight a group of canes of this orchid looks like a patch grassy growths, not the type of plant form most of us associate with orchids.  The plant started growing well but not particularly fast.  To my puzzlement the plant didn’t develop long canes right away, it spent a few years producing a number of relatively short canes before it produced some that were adult sized.   In this case adult sized means between three and six feet long (90 to 180 cm). 

Because I was unsatisfied by the plant relatively slow growth, I added a top dressing of manure to the pot.  The result was not what I expected.  Rather than producing longer canes, the plant produced several short ones and became an untidy mat of growths.  Happily it did eventually got around to producing large growths, one of them bloomed in August 2013.

My plant is growing in a six inch pot and frankly looks ridiculously underpotted.  The canes are floppy and are growing drapped over some other orchids and the houseplants that are around it.  Some canes hang more than a foot under the shelf that is holding the pot. 

This particular plant comes from a keiki of an awarded clone, Arps Snowball CHM.  This plant can be seen in Ed Merkle’s web site.  Ed’s orchid photography is truly outstanding, I recommend looking through his galleries.   Occasionally you can see plants of this species in local collections.

¹La Croix, I. F.  2008. The new encyclopedia of orchids: 1500 species in cultivation

The female red jewel fish Hemichromis lifalili and her fry

The eggs of the female Hemichromis lifalili about which I wrote in an earlier post hatched during the weekend. The fry are now at the bottom of the cavity where spawning occurred. The fry are full of vibrant activity as they all move their tiny tails incessantly. At this stage of their development they are called fry because they hardly resemble a proper fish. In the image you can see the mass fry but only the yolk sacs can be seen clearly. The yolk sacks are attached to the belly of the fry. The fry are little more than a line of muscle tissue a few millimeters long. Because the fry are vigorously shaking their tiny bodies and are transparent they cannot be seen well in the picture which shows the massed fry. But we can distinguish some black dots above the yolk sacs. These dots give rise to the eyes and nervous system of fishes.
The female defends her fry with impressive ferocity, in the images we can see that it has a bite on the area over the mouth. I do not know which of the fish in the tank bit her but I suspect it was the male with whom she spawned . To my surprise the female was aggressive when the male approached the spawning cave and stopped him from to entering it. She blocked him from entering where the the fry were by arching her body and lifting the scales covering the gills. The male spent most of his time on the other side of the tank with the other fish, his level of aggressiveness was mild compared with that of the female.
The previous spawning that occurred in the tank was the product of the male of this spawning but with a different female. Apparently the male lost interest in that spawning the moment the fry were born and left the female alone to defending their offspring. The female of the previous spawning took the fry from the trunk and hid it in a depression in the material at the bottom of the tank, but she could not defend the fry from the other fish and lost them all.
In a few days the female of this photo also have to move their young to the bottom of the tank to allow them to forage for food. It remains to be seen whether the male will help her defend them. From what I could see the males showed a somewhat ambiguous behavior, he seemed to behave aggressively but at the same time he was obviously eyeing the other females, the latter development does not augur well for the survival of the fry.