forty final setup

In my newer aquarium the plants are adjusting as well- the anubias has browning leaves but also a brand-new shoot so I'm waiting to see what it does.

The watersprite had lots of older foliage dying, I plucked that all off and what remains is bright, healthy green. The leaves are wider than I've seen before and spread themselves out- for the first time I see how nice a floating plant this can make.

It's hard to get a good picture from below. They have lots of fine root hairs growing like mad as well- feeding from the water column I believe (yesterday was the first time I dosed the tank with dry ferts, before only had what was availble from the fertilized substrate).

But the biggest news I have is that yesterday I moved the inhabitants from my twenty gallon aquarium at the apartment, into the forty here in the new house. It's quite an undertaking to move fish! I transported the plants and fishes in my clean fish buckets (five-gallon size but each only held about four gallons, so it wouldn't slosh over too much. Even so I drove very slowly to avoid jostling them too much)

The aponogeton here were in the gallon pitcher I use for refilling tanks.

Planting the tank was actually kind of fun. I took a few photos of it in progress- here I've got some rotala in the back, aponos front and center, vallisneria on one side behind the root piece, floating mass of crypts ready to go. I hadn't realized how big many of my plants had become until now seeing them spread out into their own space. Elbow room to grow, so to speak.

I put the crypts around the base of the fake root piece, and on the far right edging the space.

I planted in all the rotala root halves (trimming roots of all plants to encourage new growth) then put the tops in. Then trimmed all the taller ones down to the same height, so they can grow uniformly. Also trimming promotes growth and branching as well.

Largest aponogeton is already a centerpiece (even though its kind of shabby right now).

Crypts seen from the short end of the tank.

more crypts flanking the root piece

I moved the fishes first then last, then first, then last again. They went into their bucket first with the cleanest water, and I kept the sponge filter running on it the entire time I was removing the plants and gravel, then moved everything else out to the car, fishes went into the car last so they would be unfiltered for the shortest amount of time. Once at the house I took them in first of all, plugged in the airline, and let them sit in the bubbling bucket while I planted everything else. Let the tank filter and settle a bit before finally moving the fishes in.

I also kept a bit of gravel bed in the bottom of their bucket, and all the cut rotala stems floating on top, for some familiarity and sense of security and shelter. I think this was helpful- in spite of the hours (yes, hours!) they spent in a five-gallon bucket, they came through just fine (so far). I did notice in the middle of planting they were starting to look stressed- realized the bucket water had gone colder so I floated them in baggies in th tank to warm up to same temperature.

They don't look stressed as fishes have before when I moved them- did I do it all properly this time, or do they know everything around them is the same, even if in a much bigger space? surely they can smell that this is their old familiar plants and logs and substrate...? Regardless, they did not dart off to hide in corners as I expected, but just started swimming about picking at things. The kuhlis were palest of all (most stressed from the amount of time it took to catch them probably) but even they were wiggling up and down the sides, climbing among plants and up the fake root piece almost immediately. Here I got a quick pic of Moe and Sid together under a crypt in the front corner,

then moving off again

Trumpet snails crawling about doing their thing

I think it's so cute to see their little feelers sticking out

One of the larger, mature adults here

Water is still a bit cloudy and lights are off for the rest of the day; I will take more pictures soon when the lights are on- already so happy with how this looks can't wait to see it brighter. Hope I can get it right this time (my twenty was failing fast still all yellowed with algae I'm still not sure what I did wrong with it that past month. Too many adjustments in the wrong direction probably).