notes on the main tank

It's nice to have a decent school of fish in here again. They seem to have figured out most of their disagreements- I don't see chasing as much anymore, just a few displays now and then- and all the torn fins are growing back. The newer fishes are learning quickly to come to the top corner for food when I tap- and they all look health- nobody sick since the introduction.

The other day I tried feeding crushed shrimp pellet bits to the tetras on one end while I dropped a whole pellet for the kuhlis on the other end. One serpae tetra grabbed the whole pellet and was dashing around trying to hide with everyone chasing it. I was afraid this fish might choke like Pinkie did- his mouth was streched painfully wide with half the pellet sticking out. He was so busy avoiding the other fish didn't see me with a net so I caught him against the glass- that startled him enough to drop the food so I guess it wasn't actually stuck in his mouth. I stuck the food piece under a log where the swarm of kuhlis kept the tetras at bay for a while.

Something is off with my plants- I don't find as much black algae spots on the glass this past week but more is showing up on plant leaves: various crypts, aponogetons, the echinodorus. I have a third aponogeton sending out a flower shoot. But some of the apono leaves and more of the bacopa have holes- looks like decay. I have a suspicion the aponos are finally overwhelming my tank, blocking light and hogging nutrients from the other plants?

I'm considering removing the three largest, or even all of them.... but not sure yet as it will be very hard to get them out w/out making a big mess of my tank... and I am not actually sure if they are the real problem.