the tenner

This one is finally looking like what I wanted.

I love seeing the small fishes move in and out under the broad anubias leaves, Oliver like a black flag leisurely swimming around. The aquarium sits near my desk and its light is on in the evening hours, so I can glance over and watch them when I need a rest from the computer screen.

It's maintenance day again. On my ten-gallon tank now things are simple and minimal work, which I like. I changed out 2 gallons today, still with gravel vac as I don't have any trumpet snails in there now. Careful to wash and rinse hands well, rinsed the gravel vac and hose with very hot water too. Did this one first so I wouldn't risk carrying over disease from the 20gal. Wiped some alage off the glass, plastic plants, brushed some off the largest anubias leaves. Removed a few anubias leaves that had gone yellow, the rest seem healthy- they are sending down fat shoots that look like roots.

I've put a sheet of paper across the short end of the tank that faces the window, to cut out sunlight. It only falls direct on one corner of the tank for a few hours, but that's enough to be a problem. The foliage on that end was getting more hairy algae on it.

The java fern is growing well, tethered to its stones.  Have almost doubled their amount of leaves.

I've cut out more of the java moss- decided I don't like how it accumulates so much debris- and am growing more bits of it in jars of water, just for the fun of that. Fishes in here are all doing well! Oliver eats the variety I offer him, no longer so picky. He particularly likes going after bits of smashed green peas.

Look! This was a portrait of Oliver ↑ but in the middle you can see the kuhli loach peeking out from behind the driftwood. I also found a small trumpet snail in here- darker color than those in the bigger aquarium. I didn't think there were any babies in here, and have only seen the one so far (top of the skull eye socket) ↓