fishes

So there is still nothing to say about plants, but observations of the fish tank. I am crossing my fingers, that things seem slightly improved. Not sure if it is the change in ferts (certainly the fish feel a difference of what is in the water column) or because I bumped up the air flow in sponge filter when pulled a few smaller crypts to sell (the small amount of cash I get for that is enough to buy root tabs for the month). But I've noticed this week that Marvin has moved down into the tank again- for a long while he had been hanging up at the water line, and I thought perhaps he was getting old and might die soon (nerites usually only live a year- I've had mine eight months but no idea how old they were at first).

Also, yesterday I saw a lot of displaying among the cherry barbs. Several females were jerking their anal and pelvic fins open wide in rounded fans, positioning broadside to each other. All three males were doing this constantly, while buffeting water with their tails towards each other and then sparring outright. I'd never seen them actually thrash together like that. Meanwhile several females kept creeping through the watersprite thicket, with one male or another accompanying them. Never saw any actual spawning, though. And even if that's what they were doing, I'm pretty sure the kuhlis would eat any eggs. Buster got a nick in his dorsal fin, from sparring with another male:

Albert and Snakey fish remain thinner and smaller than Sammy and the others. I wonder if they don't get quite enough food. I've started setting bait in the fish trap, hoping the kuhlis will learn to come in here for food away from the competing cherry barbs. Also, if I can manage to get them all in the trap at once, I can take them out for rescaping someday. Yesterday I set the trap with garlic-soaked betta pellets. Only one black loach went in. Today I set it with a bit of spirulina wafer- the black one went in immediately, eventually three others. All but the smallest striped one. The barbs swarmed around the trap, smelling the food but unable to enter. Eventually they give up while Pinkie kept on inspecting the funnel entrance, he even bumped it once with his nose and jostled the whole trap, so that the kuhlis inside scurried around in sudden fright. I released them soon after, not wanting too much stress. Will try again in a few days, hopefully the last kuhli will figure it out soon.

I'm hopeful also about my java ferns. The next-youngest leaf (which was an emerging baby when I last altered the ferts dosage) remains a nice green- and nicer than the ones before. They always had the veins darker than the leaf, which I didn't really notice until I saw this one grew out all the same hue. (It's the leftmost java fern leaf in pics above- center of the photo under Buster's belly) There are more baby leaves emerging now, too- I watch to see how they fill out.