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  1. L

    Pangio cuneovirgata

    I couldn't agree more! they are really great, for anyone reading this there seems to be a guy called Keith there who is the one to talk to. Really helpful and knowledgeable. Wooki how have you found the cuneovirgata? do they seem to socialise with the alternans? These are great pictures.
  2. L

    Pangio cuneovirgata

    I did. I have seven of these now all from wildwoods. They're really cool fish, I haven't kept regular kuhlis for comparison but as far as I can tell these ones are more or less identical in terms of behaviour just significantly smaller. They're quite shy and tend to spend most of the day in...
  3. L

    rams horn snails

    What am I missing here? I would say ramshorns are the very last thing you would want to introduce to a tank to deal with mulm. 90+% of all the mulm in my tanks is probably from ramshorn snails that produce far larger poo than any of my fish. They're good for green fuzz algae on the glass in my...
  4. L

    mini pellia reappearance (after years)

    I've had this happen often with various mosses and liverworts - and exactly the same experience with fissidens fontanus regrowing from wood that was dried and in the dark for at least a year. I think in the case of the riccardia and some others tiny fragments can settle in some dark corner of...
  5. L

    How soft is TOO soft?

    This very soft water is what they bred in and fry raised to maturity in it seem fine but if I knew they would do better in harder water I would definitely want to amend it.
  6. L

    How soft is TOO soft?

    This has been my experience too. With the well water I was always battling multiple kinds of algae, it didn't take much to tip a tank from 'a bit of algae' to a full blown outbreak and I was constantly dealing with BGA. In the very soft water from belmore the only algae I encounter is some kind...
  7. L

    How soft is TOO soft?

    I used to live in an area where we had well water that was essentially liquid rock, I would run about 5L at a time through a distiller for the misting system on my emersed setups and even from that little water a thick mineral gunk was left behind after all the water had evaporated. I kept...
  8. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    At 18c you should find that they are slower growing but live longer and become larger. I have a friend that cultures moina and we occasionally swap starters when a culture crashes or there's some other disaster like when I spilled my entire 15L culture all over a carpet floor. He keeps them...
  9. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    These are coming on nicely. What's that flat light green moss at the back next to the blue bead?
  10. L

    Aquatic Frogs?

    Actually here's where you can buy both adult and tadpole Xenopus tropicalis in the UK Xenopus resource Could be cool to raise one or two from tadpoles.
  11. L

    Aquatic Frogs?

    There's also Xenopus/Silurana tropicalis which is a little larger and more robust than african dwarf frogs but much smaller than Xenopus laevis and can be kept safely with fish that are too large to fit in its mouth. 28mm - 55mm snout to vent with females being larger than the males. I don't...
  12. L

    white spot? or some other parasite?

    There's a lot of pretty contradictory information out there about whitespot too with some sources saying that it's always present at background levels in a tank and only becomes a problem when fish are stressed or their immune systems compromised and others saying the opposite. Also a lot of...
  13. L

    white spot? or some other parasite?

    This species is too small and fast moving for the only camera I have available to me right now to focus on them, I just get blurry flashes of blue. But the second white dot has also gone this morning. I'm wondering if this is actually some kind of copepod that's attacking the fish, or rarely...
  14. L

    white spot? or some other parasite?

    About a month ago I finally got ahold of some sundanio axelrodi that I had been after for a while, I posted about them because one of them was in extremely poor health when I got them and died very quickly. It was a male and appeared to have some kind of parasite and/or fungal infection that...
  15. L

    Aquatic Frogs?

    If you don't absolutely have your heart set on fish then you might also consider Bombina orientalis and Occidozyga lima. You'd want to have lower water levels though in both cases which would mean more of a riparian scape with floating plants and emergent pieces of driftwood for the frogs to...
  16. L

    DIY tank ideas !!

    Is that moss what they call "bucephalandra moss"? if so how do you find it does emersed? I have a tiny, tiny piece about the size of a 5p coin that looks like this which I've been trying to grow out for months and I recently switched it to emersed growth hoping to speed things up but it seems to...
  17. L

    Suitable for Dario tigris or something else?

    I don't know much about sparkling gouramis but this is a really nice and natural looking tank. Looks like a perfect slice taken out of a slow flowing river margin and I've always found it easier to make a tank look nice than it is to make a tank look natural and nice.
  18. L

    Who needs a tank for a dark start…. Let’s see.

    It's well worth considering, there was a pretty interesting thread on exactly this recently that covered a lot of angles Aquarium freshwater fish sourced from wild?
  19. L

    Who needs a tank for a dark start…. Let’s see.

    That's really cool actually, I had never heard of an employee ownership trust before. I definitely think you've chosen the right hobby for your retirement! Look forward to seeing your tank once it's ready to go.........and then after that the tanks that will surely follow 👍
  20. L

    Who needs a tank for a dark start…. Let’s see.

    OK, i know you're specifically trying to distract yourself but I'm one of those people that now just has to ask what the old job was?
  21. L

    My first attempt high energy 30L

    Tank looks great, really nice carpet. How are you finding that filter guard? I got the same thing from amazon but I only installed it a couple of days ago, I've seen people complaining that they get blocked up with gunk and particles too quickly and that they rust. I really struggled to deploy...
  22. L

    How to achieve 10 times flow

    Interesting to read this because I've had similar experiences myself where it really seemed like higher flow was causing algae and reducing flow seemed to fix the problem, especially without co2. I can't really think of any reason why this should be the case though.
  23. L

    DIY tank ideas !!

    Absolutely amazing. Can you tell us how you made the dripwall tank? is that fake rock or crushed rock attached to some kind of foam?
  24. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    Just a tip for anyone looking for female dario dario that happens to read this thread - Wildwoods aquatics in enfield told me on the phone today that they have a new supplier that provides them with even numbers of male and female dario dario that are captive bred and readily accepting frozen...
  25. L

    look at my roots

    I don't have american frogbit but I've found that flow has a massive impact on the growth form and root length of water lettuce. With no/minimal flow it grows large rosettes and the roots stretch all the way to the substrate but increasing flow and/or redirecting it across the surface seems to...
  26. L

    Pangio cuneovirgata

    I will be sure to keep you posted if I find some. Found a guy in Scotland who can get fish from aquarium glaser in germany but glaser just informed me they stopped carrying these guys two weeks ago. Kew aquatics don't have them on their indonesian import list either and said the best bet is just...
  27. L

    Pangio cuneovirgata

    can't thank you enough for this!
  28. L

    Pangio cuneovirgata

    Anybody keeping these dwarf kuhli loaches? or ever seen them avialable in the UK? It seems that the wholesaler aquariumglaser sells them, does anybody know of UK suppliers that are able to source fish from them?
  29. L

    Pond lily in aquarium

    I've also grown helvola in an aquarium and it did very well planted in aquasoil. I don't know how necessary a winter dormancy period is because I was only growing it out from a small piece of rhizome before I moved it into an outdoor pond but it thrived for many months in an aquarium. Even these...
  30. L

    Is this survivable?

    Sorry to hear about the fish. It's hard to imagine this damage was done directly by another sprakling gourami though. Is it possible there's something sharp in the aquarium that she rammed into when she was being pursued by a male? I've started sanding down lava rock before I use it in my badis...
  31. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    Food for thought. I should maybe try seeing how mine respond to slightly cooler temps. I do the same thing with my geckos in terms of creating seasonal fluctuations in day length, temps and moisture but I hadn't really considered that the fish might benefit from it too. Can you elaborate at all...
  32. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    Those temperatures are at the lower end of the range I've seen proposed for them right? Do you adjust it to mimic natural seasonal changes or have you found some advantage to keeping them on the cooler end of things? Do you notice their behaviour change much after mating? In my experience pairs...
  33. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    For anyone interested I did a proper inventory of a full batch of fry. From a single mature pair with constant access to various live food at a temperature of 23c in very soft slightly acidic water, 73 fry have matured to a point where their sex can be determined with a high degree of...
  34. L

    Aquarium freshwater fish sourced from wild?

    I wish i could like this post more than once. I couldn't agree more.
  35. L

    CO2 supplementation for emersed growing

    Don't get me wrong - my addition of co2 to the emersed setup is totally unecessary and all of the moss was growing without it in a more or less clingiflm sealed environment as you describe here. It may have some value in more rapidly propagating the smaller and much slower growing species though...
  36. L

    CO2 supplementation for emersed growing

    Very true. I grow various orchids and bromeliads in a large vivarium also and I've seen first hand the benefits of additional passive ventilation in terms of minimizing mold just from installing a low wattage solar raptor heat strip beneath the door vent. I have seen a lot of people growaing...
  37. L

    CO2 supplementation for emersed growing

    Correct. None of my moss is in direct contact with the water anyway but rather the ultrasonic fogger creates a layer of dense fog every four hours that keeps it fairly saturated and distributes nutrients that I do add directly to the water as in some aeroponic growing systems for more...
  38. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    By the way if anyone is interested, after a lot of searching I've found a source of high quality ceriodaphnia dubia ephippia. A company called microbiotests in Belgium can supply them to pretty much anywhere in Europe and I can testify that they are comparable to moina in terms of productivity...
  39. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    Eventually I really must branch out into keeping these beauties and I'd really like to get D. hysignon again too. I've also heard that females of D.tigris are easier to come by and several shops when I was looking for female dario told me they'd never seen one but that they could supply pairs of...
  40. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    Exactly as you say - If I'm not going to be culturing moina for a while I just let them produce ephippia by feeding way less. It's very easy to visually differentiate between an adult moina that's carrying embryos and one that's carrying ephippia and you can also see the shed ephippia on the...
  41. L

    CO2 supplementation for emersed growing

    If anyone prefers instead to debate global warming then obviously it goes without saying that things have changed since 2014 and the starting point for that conversation necessarily must be that Trump proved that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by satanic paedos and that he's still in...
  42. L

    CO2 supplementation for emersed growing

    I noticed that there is a very old thread from 2014 which raised this issue and the concensus seemed to be that it made no difference and/or wasn't worth the effort as the 400ppm of atmospheric co2 is more than adequate for emersed growth. That thread quickly devolved into a debate about global...
  43. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    Not the best picture but check out the pectoral fins on this little guy! They're never usually this long and he's not even fully mature yet, I would expect him to colour up more as he grows and has the opportunity to establish his own territory.
  44. L

    Aquarium freshwater fish sourced from wild?

    I suspect that more of our fish are still wild caught than people might like to imagine but it's not as ethically black and white as we might tend to think either. Here's a couple of interesting articles on the topic "Buy a fish, Save a tree" Discover Magazine "Saving the Rainforest, One pet...
  45. L

    Sundanio axelrodi questions. diseased new fish.

    I was finally able to trade some of my scarlet badis for 9 sundanio axelrodi. I got nine sundanio, 6 females and 3 males, but one of the males was clearly diseased and passed away within 24 hours. It was suffering from fin rot on the tail fin and 3 small white masses were evident on its body...
  46. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    This has also been my experience with scarlet badis. Fry and juveniles up to a certain size like to hide in thick moss regardless of depth, and even very close to the surface, but once mature they tend to stay low around the substrate. Adult males seem to love nothing more than caves created by...
  47. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    what's your setup like? are there plants and snails in there and what size of tank are you using? I found a video on youtube recently where someone was reporting that contrary to conventional wisdom they found that daphnia cultures without snails were slightly more productive.
  48. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    I'm still experimenting and fine tuning. There's obviously got to be an optimum ratio of carrot to water that would produce the best results. There may be better vegetables to use too. It was someone in Asia who tipped me off to this and said that they start all their cultures this way, only...
  49. L

    Weird worm

    That's some kind of leech. Although there is a chance they could prey on shrimp or snails I think probably they will be in interesting addition to your kids ecosystems with a lot of scope for additional learning. The fact that some leeches suck blood might be engaging for them and you could...
  50. L

    What it is ?

    I have no idea what these are but I have a major outbreak of something almost identical in my smallest outdoor pond at the moment. That shape almost like a grain of rice is quite distinctive. There was a deep freeze here and there was several inches of ice across the surface and following the...
  51. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    In theory the opposite is true and moina are supposed to be much more tolerant of poor water conditions than the common daphnia species but there's so many variables to account for in any comparison. I think it's probably easier to maintain a stable daphnia culture because they tend to reproduce...
  52. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    Here's a video of one of the carrot cultures. It's been about four and a half days since I added roughly 20 moina.
  53. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    I've had plenty of copepods in most of my moina cultures as a consequence of using tank water for changes in the moina cultures but they don't seem to ever reach great numbers. I've never been able to culture freshwater copepods in large numbers but there are so many different species that it's...
  54. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    Interesting catching up on the results from people experimenting with this. I've begun experimenting with moina culture again and I'm pursuing some different angles that might be of interest. I was able to get good results with the chlorella but as has been noticed my protocol was fairly...
  55. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    That's really fascinating that you've noticed the same thing with females being marked after pairing in D. tigris and an amazing tank too!
  56. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    Really appreciate the pictures @rixo2010 . I can see why rufulus stands out from the crowd. Based on these pictures I think the "splachnabryoides" I have may not be the same as yours but there's so many variables in terms of light, water chemistry etc. that could be having an effect on the...
  57. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    I think the best answer I can give for D. dario is that If the males are ABLE to effectively defend a territory then they will do so quite aggressively. I think hardscape may play a role as well as stocking density. At high densities the males will still occasionally chase one another a little...
  58. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    I'm not too sure about at exactly what density their aggression becomes significantly 'diluted' but I also have no experience with D.tigris. I have kept a dario species that was sold to me as D. hysignon 'melon red badis' and it was much more aggressive in general than I have experienced D...
  59. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    Just a point of clarification on the term 'sub dominant males' too - I use this term myself out of habit but it's probably not really accurate. I have maybe 50+ males right now and not one of them is grey or totally lacking in colour like we tend to see in the shops. This is either a consequence...
  60. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    The first one looks female to me but that second picture looks like it could turn out to be a male. If you have males then one of the surest ways to tell would be to put it in a small tank with a male for temporary observation. Females will intermittently flash dark stripes when the males are...
  61. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    If you do bring some Opheodrys vernalis and Lepidobatrachus llanensis with you and we can do a swap! You have access to so many cool species that we can't get over here.
  62. L

    Living waters croydon?

    Just wanted to add to this thread that I travelled all the way down from Edinburgh just to visit this shop when it was open and it was absolutely worth it. These guys were legends and I hope they are enjoying their retirement.
  63. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    Let me just reiterate as well that I have confirmed pairs available for trade or enitrely free of charge if anyone is willing to collect them in person or meet me at helensburgh train station.
  64. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    I can tell you that with large numbers of them in the same tank the males behaviour is quite different. They largely abandon efforts to establish and defend a territory and pester the females far more than they do other males. The opposite was true when I've put only two males in a tank. They...
  65. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    I've observed a fairly even distribution of males and females in the batches of fry I've raised. If anything there's probably slightly more females than males. One thing I did notice was that you can tell the sexes apart earlier than I expected and males will begin to show colour when they're...
  66. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    I eventually managed to find a single female in a fresh batch of imports and have since had a lot of success breeding these - I'm literally giving them away for free so consider moving to Scotland. Here's a video of some of mine just for reference in your hunt for females. It's useful to see...
  67. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    No rush but I really would love to see some pictures. I got some Mallorca and Miroshaki from @Wookii just before christmas and both have attached to lava stone and produced new growth very quickly in an emersed setup with an ultrasonic humidifier. Their growth rate seems to be just slightly...
  68. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    Would kill for pictures! I'd be especially interested in seeing you F. splachnabryoides to see if what I have is the same. Do you have a favorite among all these? any that stand out for faster growth/better adaptation to sumbersed growth? Any tips from a fissidens grand master would be much...
  69. L

    Does anybody here speak spanish?

    I did not know you could do this! but i just tried it and the auto translation was hilariously indecipherable
  70. L

    Does anybody here speak spanish?

    Just look at that coconut cave!
  71. L

    Does anybody here speak spanish?

    I found a really interesting youtube video in spanish about cadophora moss balls. The guy has had some incredible results getting moss balls to attach to wood and stone hardscape and even grow across them like moss and he shows some pretty striking and impressive before and after images. I would...
  72. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    Amazing. They're both actually smaller than I imagined from other pictures I'd seen of each. I really wonder what species mallorca actually is.
  73. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    I would really love to see that picture!
  74. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    Once I have enough this will be the first place I share any I promise you. Unfortunately the F. splachnabryoides actually seems to grow more slowly emersed or I would have more by now. It's the hardiest fissidens I've grown by far though, I had some in a tank that got neglected with no water...
  75. L

    Fissidens sp. 'vietnam'

    Is there anybody here growing this species? I am obsessed with fissidens and my most treasured posession is a few small patches of Fissidens splachnabryoides. The reason I like F. splachnabryoides so much is that it's absolutely tiny and one of relatively few fissidens species that seem to truly...
  76. L

    Low-tech foreground plants

    Elatine hydropiper DOES grow fine without co2 but it doesn't do well in very low light. It carpets extremely slowly in low tech but if you hate trimming like I do that can actually be a good thing.
  77. L

    Anyone ever seen this species of riccardia? Riccardia sp. "picometer"

    Really interesting. Seeing the emersed growth it's definately riccardia. Thanks for posting the picture!
  78. L

    Anyone ever seen this species of riccardia? Riccardia sp. "picometer"

    Looks absolutely amazing. I'm not sure it's necessarily riccardia though, looks like it could be some kind of metzgeria to me. I want this so badly I'm considering even trying to order it from Ukraine. https://mobidsplants.com.ua/en/mosses/riccardia/riccardia-picometer
  79. L

    Fissidens splachnabryoides

    I've seen some confusion across various forums about some of the rarer species of fissidens that are used in aquariums but particularly regarding fissidens splachnabryoides. This species was subject to a lot of discussion a few years back when there was more of a craze for aquatic moss and many...
  80. L

    Trying to find Pygmy sunfish

    I spent a good while looking for these not long ago, they were another fish along with female scarlet badis that proved quite hard to find in the UK but which was common in Germany when I was over there. If you manage to find any I'd love to hear about your attempts breeding them. I recently...
  81. L

    Snails or Otocinclus

    You have access to some amazing shops over there in singapore, please drown us in photos if you're ever visiting any of them. I absolutely love the mini fissidens that seem a lot more common over there.
  82. L

    Black tiger badis!

    I've been struggling to get all my scarlet badis fry to accept frozen foods but I've been able to wean them all onto decapsulated brine shrimp eggs which have the convenience of being a dry food while also offering pretty good nutritional value. I'm hoping to now get them transitioned from...
  83. L

    Snails or Otocinclus

    Would be interesting to know more. I've always read that otos are relatively sensitive to water quality that's why I find it so interesting that they'd be the sole survivors of this kind of accident. I still think it's as likely that the bacteria decomposing the excess food also caused the...
  84. L

    Snails or Otocinclus

    This actually is really interesting. I guess it was probably because the otos could breathe air from the surface while the other fish couldn't?
  85. L

    My low budget, low tech tank.

    This is very, very nice. I don't know if this style of scape has a name but it's my favorite by far. I really like the deep shadow.
  86. L

    Black tiger badis!

    Very nice. You hoping to breed them then? I bet the males territorial displays will be impressive. Have you found it tricky to get them to accept non live food?
  87. L

    Black tiger badis!

    I'm a huge fan of badis! I've got more than 30 Dario dario at the moment!. Have you got a pair of these?
  88. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    I've got 30+ grown on scarlet badis fry now that are eating all the same foods as the adults but actually they can eat much larger daphnia and moina than I expected even when they are still very small - they just keep chewing them and spitting them back out until they're compressed enough for...
  89. L

    Bloodworm

    I wonder how they harvest them so cleanly en masse for prepacked livefood sales?
  90. L

    Bloodworm

    Here is last nights batch of eggs. They've begun hatching but by this evening that small volume of water will be a seething mass of tiny white larvae.
  91. L

    Bloodworm

    At this time of year you should be able to find eggs too. It can be mutch easier to remove a mass of eggs and let them hatch in some tank water. I'm feeding a ton of mosquito and midge larvae at the moment because each night I go and collect eggs from the garden. The midge eggs round here look...
  92. L

    Great source of free, clean livefood at this time of year.

    Just a heads up for anyone who has a wormery that it's mosquito season. Not everyone is aware of this but mosquitos are INCREDIBLY attracted to the leachate that many wormeries allow you to drain off via a tap. At the moment I have a bucket of it that I leave out next to the wormery and every...
  93. L

    CO2 at start of tank only, dumb idea?

    I've done this before with reasonable results. If you make sure to taper off the co2 supply rather than stop it abruptly and allow floating plants to grow across the surface as you reduce the co2 it can work without many problems. I was only using very slow growing plants that can also cope in...
  94. L

    Staghorn Algae Challenge

    Sometimes I get a little bit of staghorn growing on some pieces of lava rock I have some very slow growing mosses on, but if it's growing on something attached to hardscape that can be moved theres a very easy and effective solution - I just take the rocks out and let them sit exposed to air for...
  95. L

    Amano Shrimp Berried - Can the young survive?

    I recently discovered that the larvae can actually survive for longer than people often think in fresh water but they do seem to eventually need salt water after a max of about a week. They never last more than 24 hours before they're eaten by my fish though. I once saw a very long and pretty...
  96. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    roughly how old do you reckon that one is? would be good to have some sense of how quickly they develop.
  97. L

    Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

    This is the best picture I've been able to get of one of the fry so far but it's becoming easier as they are now free swimming. It's the tiny little thing above the ramshorn at the edge of the wood. The young growth of fissidens fontanus gives you some sense of scale and if you look closely you...
  98. L

    Odd and unusual fish you find in your local fish store

    There used to be a shop in Edinburgh, it's closed down now, that for whatever reason would sometimes have incredibly rare fish without really knowing what they were or how rare they were. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time but they used to get a lot of rare Hisonotus somehow. I would...
  99. L

    Ember Tetra Schooling - comparisons between 5, 10, 15, and 20 fish

    Really interesting thread. I've found with some shoaling fish that there's a sweet spot of flow where they're most active. Boraras seem to like very little flow but are much, much less active when there is no flow at all. I believe this is because they feel much more vulnerable when they are the...
  100. L

    How to: Clean, easy and highly nutritious greenwater culture for Daphnia and Moina.

    Another weird thing about the ceriodaphnia is I have never even once found an intermediate sized ceriodaphnia. They all appear to be either fully adult size or babies smaller even than rotifers. I think that possibly the now huge accumulation of mulm and sort of algae reefs in this culture plays...
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