Our guest speaker for May was Dorothy Reimer from London, ON, affectionately known as "The Plant Lady". Tom Bridges introduced Dorothy, as a person who just "is" and always has "been" for as long as he can recall...present. Active for many years in the fish community, she has been the president of COAC, she has spoken everywhere on plants, she has most likely given thousands away for plant auctions and she knows her stuff.

Very much at ease with herself and her audience, Dorothy began by telling us about her system which turns out to be pretty simple. It seems there is no real magic to growing plants well. You just have to use common sense and perhaps do things little differently then you have been.

Dorothy pots her plants up in shallow 7" clay bulb sometimes used for tulip bulbs or azaleas. She uses Hillview brand potting soil that contains absolutely no additives. Nothing. She recommends this basic brand only because it has no peat moss and nothing that can harm plants or fish in it. The soil is tamped down gently and then gravel placed on top of the soil to hold it in place. If setting up a new tank, the pots are then set on the bottom of the tank and gravel put around them so the plants look as though they are growing in gravel. Dorothy says her gravel is quite high in the tank and that's fine. She then puts about half the water from another tank into the new one and then fills it up with new water. She keeps her tanks at 72-74ºF and doesn't use heaters. For lights she uses two 48-inch fluorescent tubes, one cool white and one wide spectrum to induce deep color hanging overhead on chains nine - 12 inches from the tanks. I asked Dorothy how many tanks she keeps.

"I have 30 tanks, one 100 gal and one 200 gal and the rest are 55 gallons. The 55s are home made from scrap glass (Loblaws windows) and put together with silicone. I had smaller tanks for breeding fish but have closed them up. I have a runoff from the furnace to heat the fish room so that they stay at room temperature and not requiring heaters. I did keep a discus tank and used a heater to keep the temp at 80ºF or so. My Amazon Swords just maintained and looked good with no reproduction. I also kept Bacopa, Crypts and Java Fern and all did well and grew some."

Her lights are on 12 hours a day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The pH of the water in London is 7.2 and she finds it ideal for plants. A member said ours in Niagara was 7.8 and Dorothy thought that would be okay as well. She also mentioned that she had no algae in her tanks.

Some things may be obvious to those who have been growing aquarium plants for a long time but we're always learning so I'll put in some of the tiny gems Dorothy threw out to us as she answered questions.

Plants with white roots need their roots covered. Plants with black roots don't need to be planted but can be anchored to driftwood or to a rock. Anchoring can be as simple as securing the plant to the object with black or clear fishing line. You'll never see it, or, Dorothy suggested, tie the plant to a stick and bury the stick. Stones will always hold a plant down but don't bury it, always leave the crown or center above the gravel.

She said that plants like water temperature below 78º. Any higher and she has found the just don't grow. They don't die, they just sit there. She recommended water temperature from 74 to 78ºF is best for growing healthy plants that reproduce prolifically as hers do.

For gravel she uses chick grit. It is cheap, it is a nice natural color and it reflects the light, which is good. Bruce Hallet said he buys bags of chick grit locally at Lincoln Feed and Seed. The cost is about $5 for 40 pounds, which is a far cry from the cost of aquarium gravel. Both suggested chick grit be placed in a sieve and washed by running water through it until it runs clear.

She calls Hornwort the "baby saver" for its ability to hide fry among its many small spines. She said to look for tight, light green ends on healthy Hornwort.

And then came the question about Snails. The damage that Snails can do to your plants can be devastating. Dorothy suggested two ways to combat Snails. The first one is to take any Hornwort you may have, it is likely covered with Snail eggs, and immerse it in a pail containing two tablespoons of alum mixed into a gallon of water. Keep it there for about two minutes and then rinse it well. The alum will take the moisture out of the Snail egg sacs and the eggs will never hatch. It also takes the moisture out of any snails. She also suggested asking your green grocer for any left over lettuce leaves...the ones they discard when they clean up the lettuces for display purposes. Cut up or scrunch up the lettuce leaves and right before you turn off the lights on your tanks at night, spread the leaf bits all over the top of the water. When you turn the lights on in the morning, have your net ready and skim off the lettuce leaves. They'll be full of Snails and you can pop them, along with the lettuce bits, into a plastic bag and then into the freezer before discarding the whole thing in the garbage. Dorothy also noted that this is the very best way to get rid of unwanted plants. Freeze them in a plastic bag BEFORE putting them in the garbage. We already have too many unwanted species of plants clogging our waterways and shorelines without adding more. Does Dorothy use filters in her tanks. Yes, corner filters, that's all.

Does she have fish in all of her tanks? "I have green Swords, red Swords, sunset Swords, Swords with black tails and black fins, Mickey Mouse Platies, common Platies, plume tailed Platies, Brichardi, bristle-nosed Plecos, Pocillia perogias and Mystery Snails."

As Dorothy answered questions she talked about the plants she brought with her.

A few plant tips from Dorothy:

Take the corms off Amazon swords about every six to eight months. They'll grow them back but just keep taking them off. They'll grow and reproduce much better if you do. Why?

"The Amazon swords grow corms when they are ready to "go into hibernation", she said, "and the leaves die off and the plant will die. Some people at the meeting asked why they die. It is a storage root and in the wild I imagine they will come to life again but in our tanks they don't but if you remove the corm they come back and look very nice again. Before planting again remove all the ugly leaves. Plant only the roots and don't cover the crown." Dorothy presently has 89 varieties of plants under her care and she shared maybe 30 with us through the auction including Crypt cordata, Crypt griffithii, Crypt willisii, Crypt pondetofolia, Anubius nana (the tiny one), Anubius nana nana, Echinodorius blerhi (Amazon Sword), Brazilian Sword, Elodea, Najas, Hornwort, Java Fern (common) (low light), Java Fern (long leaf) (low light), Java Fern Windlov (low light), tall, medium and short Saggitarius, Wisteria, Limbodium Spongia, Water Sprite and Aponogetons as well as some lovely red Swords and a pair of Pocillia perogia, smart looking silver fish with interesting fins from the Molly family which are livebearers and prolific producers.

"I brought my plants in open plastic bags with a tablespoon of water in each and I just folded over the end so that I could get them out easily. They travel very well that way. For the auction they look nicer if you put some air in them and close with an elastic, she said."

Her presentation was low-key, laid back and very interesting. The fact that everything she showed us was given to the club to be sold at the mini-auction had some of us actually salivating.