balance

Every morning now I get into the tanks with tweezers to replant the ones that have been unmoored. I kind of expected to have carpeting plants float loose easily- the staurogyne repens and monte carlo. More frustrated that creeping jenny keeps coming loose- its lower foliage quickly melting, new tiny leaves emerging at tips but not enough hold yet. I want that one to hold. (Not a single rotala stem has dislodged- their little roots strong enough!) Yesterday it was at the point that whatever I found floating was pretty much too decayed to try and put back. So picking out plant debris to discard. Meanwhile took a few pics of other stuff that's doing better.

Such as the anubias barteri unfurling its newest leaf.

Oliver came over to see what I was doing

Put himself right in the middle of things.

I like how it looks in ambient lighting.

Java fern busting out some real growth.

Windelov fingers translucent to the light. You can see the leaf veins.

My thirty-eight on the other hand, still needs adjustments. Once again I foolishly thought: Oh, things are doing better, I can extend the light a bit- and last week I bumped the photoperiod up half an hour. So it was running six and a half hours. This was after I'd already done a few changes in the weeks prior: tinkering with ferts, dimming the light source and reducing its distance. Suddenly today I noticed something I saw just before my old 20L came down- things look yellowish. Not the nice green anymore. (I think back then in error I had bumped the photoperiod half an hour more, too). Put it back to six right away.

It might be because all the hornwort is floating now, and blocking light. But the hornwort itself is getting brownish from algae as well- maybe it's getting too much light now all up on the surface? Or my ferts could be off again, it's possible I dosed too much nitrates... Gotta figure it out. I was so pleased last week and now I don't even want to take a picture.