10 October 2015

hornwort trim

I had to cut this stuff back already. It's shading everything else in the tank. I might remove half as many stems again entirely, but for now just cut some tops off, and removed some short branching horizontals. I took some leading ends off, thinking that new shoots sprouting close to the top, off to one side, would become a new leader. Instead those few stems now flop over in the current, as if the side stem (no matter how small) drags it down... I will have to trim differently next time. But now the other plants are visible again, and they're growing!

Another good thing is while the algae has disappeared from the front/back walls and tubing, there's still enough of it on the short ends were indirect light hits the tank from windows, that the nerites seem to have enough food supply.
I put a more short hornwort cuttings in the QT tank.
Tested water levels and there were traces of ammonia and nitrite so I did a 50% wc on it too. The two fish had been just sitting still in the water- not crashed or pinched exactly, but not happy looking either.
Once the new water started going in, they began to look interested in things and move about again. So far so good, no sign of disease. They still look awful fat but the smaller one seems to be slimming down. I offered flakes yesterday and they weren't interested yet.

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