# Houston Plant Fest 2009 some pictures.



## HoustonFishFanatic (Apr 13, 2007)

Houston Plant Fest 2009 was held between April 9th through April 11 and was hosted by Nature Aquarium Society of Houston. Some pics to share from that event.





These pictures were taken at Fish Gallery, a LFS in Houston.


Fissiden fontanus collected at San Marcos river.


San Marcos river biotope.

Check out Houston Plant Fest 2009 -Part1 for more pictures
More picture will follow.
Thanks
Bhushan


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## suebe333 (Feb 17, 2009)

cool pics , I am from Houston ! I miss the awesome fish stores there


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## HoustonFishFanatic (Apr 13, 2007)

Thanks! The there are a couple of new places which are good.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Haha, wow. The one week I'm not in town, people in the hobby come into town. Now I know where all my Riccia and fissidens went off to (for I am the self-proclaimed king and dictator for life of the republic of riccia and fascist government of fissidens in the San Marcos area, soon there shall be giant poker cards with axes coming at your door screaming off with your head). I'm currently a Texas State student and do find myself by the river quite a bit. In fact a lot of the pictures you took in town I can't tell you how many times I've been in those spots. I'm actually in the process of working on a San Marcos River biotope in a wabi-kusa style. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook in some cases) most of the plants there are non-native.

The river has gotten a lot worse over the past couple years, when I started in 2005, the river wasn't nearly as bad as it is now. It used to be quite clear and the current used to be -a lot- stronger. Algae also, has gotten pretty bad - which is more evident if you see the more stagnant areas around town, and the fish hatcheries nearby in front of the J.C. Kellam building (across the street from the San Marcos river). Those koi used to be in the fish hatcheries, not in the river! I think someone released them there (the fish hatchery) 3 or so years ago in 2006, I don't remember seeing them in 2005.

I'm actually going down there to harvest some plants tomorrow! The San Marcos river, if anything is proof positive to never, ever release plants/fish/animals you keep into the wild...there's also a chronic problem with stray cats in the area. I actually thought to have some kind of sadistic humor by making my biotope overrun with water hygro, but I really don't feel like 'publishing' pictures of something that could lead to me being fined way too much money for me to want to deal with!

Maybe someone can help me id the species of plant there that I've seen in a beautiful red near the bridge. I'll have to shoot some photos tomorrow.


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## HoustonFishFanatic (Apr 13, 2007)

Francis Xavier said:


> Haha, wow. The one week I'm not in town, people in the hobby come into town. Now I know where all my Riccia and fissidens went off to (for I am the self-proclaimed king and dictator for life of the republic of riccia and fascist government of fissidens in the San Marcos area, soon there shall be giant poker cards with axes coming at your door screaming off with your head). I'm currently a Texas State student and do find myself by the river quite a bit. In fact a lot of the pictures you took in town I can't tell you how many times I've been in those spots. I'm actually in the process of working on a San Marcos River biotope in a wabi-kusa style. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook in some cases) most of the plants there are non-native.
> 
> The river has gotten a lot worse over the past couple years, when I started in 2005, the river wasn't nearly as bad as it is now. It used to be quite clear and the current used to be -a lot- stronger. Algae also, has gotten pretty bad - which is more evident if you see the more stagnant areas around town, and the fish hatcheries nearby in front of the J.C. Kellam building (across the street from the San Marcos river). Those koi used to be in the fish hatcheries, not in the river! I think someone released them there (the fish hatchery) 3 or so years ago in 2006, I don't remember seeing them in 2005.
> 
> ...


I Know what you are talking about. We did a trip there last summer and there were a lot more plants and not a lot of algae. But things were diffrent this time. If you put up some pics I should be able to ID them. Most probably the red plant is Hygro polysperma. 
You should also check this out. http://bhushandalvi.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/nash-dfwapc-san-marcos-collection-trip/

Thanks
Bhushan


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