23 March 2016

kuhlis and subwasser

I saw the other day that most of the vallisneria was starting to float loose from the pot I'd stuck it into. Then saw one of the kuhlis was constantly going in and out through the slats of the pot- they seem to really like digging in there. In this case the kuhlis had dislodged almost all the fine gravel. I lifted it out and had a sudden idea: what if I turned the pot upside down and planted subwassertang on top of it. Then it could be a nice subwasser bush with a kuhli cave underneath.
I liked this idea so much I did it immediately. Gathered some loose bits of subwasser from around the tank and took clumps off the smaller pieces of wood (they weren't working well anchored like that anyway. Those bits seem to work better for holding down hornwort stems.) I laid the subwasser across the top of the base of the upended pot, stretched a bit of pouf mesh over it, held it down with a rubber band while I sewed it on,
then trimmed the pouf edges. Just little bits of subwasser are poking up. I've been told that wrapping a clump of the plant hard against a rock with pouf or mesh material like this will get a nice round form to grown, held down better than what I did with rubber bands prior. It looks kind of funny back in the tank, like some odd mushroom. Already the kuhlis are poking around underneath it.
All the vallisneria that were in that pot I'm just going to sell. Don't want another corner full of vals. If the kuhlis empty the other val pot of gravel, I'll probably make another subwasser cave out of it!

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