aquaverde

Jan’s site is tremendous, but at my level submersed photos would be a lot more useful. That would include pics with growth conditions listed, e.g. tank size, wpg, CO2 injection, substrate composition. So I’m very interested in that suggestion.

The how-to-grow section would be really helpful, also. I’ve done OK with easy crypts, but lost some of the more rare/difficult ones, and also have some that don’t seem to be thriving like they should.

JLudwig

Not really... the process basically goes like this... a few hobbyists go on a collecting trip, they then bag fish and publish in their journal, describing the collection sites. Each site is given a reference, N'Sukka 97-1 for instance might be a collecting trip from 1997, site #1 around the town of N'Sukka... theres no system to the numbers unfortunately. Barry Cooper aparently has made an online version of this, so for instance Fp. gardneri "P-82" is a strain I maintain, I can enter the gardneri P-82 into the website and find out where, when and who collected the initial population... this way, down the road should two populations "affinis" be determined to be separate species down the road the genetics aren't mixed up.

I don't know that we need anything quite so tedious, I think you could let people pick there own codes, but I do think a database tracing back a cultivar to a single source is helpful, even iff that source is "online purchase from Oriential Aquarium Dec 11/3/2004 by Jeff Ludwig"... "Gift from Jan B. at AGA convention 2004".... That way the taxonomy doesn't confuse the issue, as with crypts you're much in the same boat at killiifish guys, chromosomes counts may turn out to be different between two "vars" (and therefore they are species), etc... Visual inspection can be very very difficult.

The Royal Horticultural Society has a similar database for orchids, for an example:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/research/regis...s.asp?ID=91509

This cultivar is called "Lucky Love" , its a cross with "Malibu Amour" and "Lucky Lady" as seed and pollen parent respectively, registered by Jemmco 4/9/1992 . The killie databaes is only open to members so I can't show you a demo of that...

Jeff

HeyPK

Jan Bastmeijer has a notation system for crypts. Here is an example of his entry for C. pygmaea:

Cryptocoryne pygmaea Merrill

Greenhouse entry number----------------------788
Entry date (yymmdd)----------------------------990600
Name----------------------------------------------Bastmeijer
Spathe in alcohol? ______ 2N=?________


Collection:-----Bastmeijer 788-----------May 11, 1999
Country--------Phillipines------------------Patawan
Locality---------E 119° 31' 03" N 10° 46' 17"
S of Taytay. NW of lake Manguao (= lake Danao). Small
stream ca 2 m wide, 0.1m depth. Clear, swift running
water over a clay / sand bottom. Banks clay. 1/2
Shaded.
Growing submersed up to the banks, there emersed.
Very small patches. Not common. No inflorescences.

This is got everything we would want, and many things that we won't be able to get from our store-bought crypts or our "I-got-it-from-Tom" crypts.
For every crypt, we own, we should have our name and a number. We should also include all the information we can get on where it came from.

I have a C. pygmaea plant with the above lineage that Jan Bastmeijer gave me. I also got from Jan a C. usteriana plant and a C. zukalii plant that have similarly detailed pedigrees.

On the other hand, I have one called C. wendtii hybrid that I got from Naomi Mizumoto, and she got it from Albeny Aquarium, which gets most of its plants from Orietal Aquarium.

I also have had some crypts for so long that I can't remember where I got them or when. At least with ones like these, we can give them a name and a number for starters.

I know how to set up a database, but I don't know how to get one on APC, but I bet that Art Giacosa does!.