October 2016 Meeting
If you missed the October GWAPA meeting than you missed a good one. Pittsburgh native and PAPAS member Tim Gross talked about mosses and liverworts commonly grown in the aquarium.
Tim has been keeping aquariums since 1991. He helped found the Pittsburgh Area Planted Aquarium Society, PAPAS. Tim has also been chair of the Aquatic Horticulture Award Program with the Greater Pittsburgh Aquarium Society Inc. (GPASI).
Tim’s talk started on liverworts, what they are, their life cycle, the anatomy of the two main types, Foliose or leafy liverworts and Thalloid liverworts.
He had slides and talked about the characteristics on the following liverworts: Riccia fluitans, Riccardia sp. (mini pellia), Monosolenium tenerum (pellia), Heteroscyphus zollingeri (rose moss), Plagiochilaceae sp. cameroon (cameroon moss). He touched briefly on a few ferns, their life cycle and a few gametophyte ferns used in aquariums, Loxogramme sp. (wave moss), Lomariopsis cf. lineata (susswassertang).
Lastly Tim spoke on mosses, their life cycle, anatomy, the different types and characteristics to identify such as structure and small scale characteristics seen with the aid of a microscope.
He spoke and had slides on the specific characteristics of many species of moss. The different mosses he showed us are Taxiphyllum barbieri (java moss), T. sp. peacock (peacock moss), T. sp. (flame moss), Isopterygium sp. (mini taiwan moss), Vesicularia dubyana (singapore moss), V. montagnei (xmas moss), V. reticulata (erect moss), V. ferriei (weeping moss), V. sp. (triangle moss), V. sp. (mini xmas moss), V. sp. (creeping moss), Callicostella sp. pancuraji, C. prabaktiana, Hydrogonella gymnostoma (queen moss), Amblystegium serpens (narrow moss), Drepanocladus aduncus (stringy moss), Calliergonella cuspidata (spear moss), and many of the Fissiden species, F. fontanus, F. geppii, F. splachnobryoides, F. zippelianus and F. nobilis.
As if that wasn’t enough he also talked briefly about a few ornamental algae such as redmoss.
After the talk we had our regular mini auction. Tim even brought some rare and interesting mosses for the auction.
Below are some photos taken at the meeting by Gabriel Andrade, enjoy.
