tank update

Tested the tank water on friday- no ammonia. Nitrates a bit high, so I did not dose KN03, just K2S04 and KH2P04. The small tank is doing very well now with a low dose of micros- I only give it four or five ml. I'd been giving the 38gal 40ml, then dropped it to 30. Thinking to get the ratio the same, this week I only dosed it 15ml of micros. Looks fine with that.

Hornwort grew like crazy this week- usually I only have to trim half of the stems but this time I trimmed them all. Seen here the short ends, floating.

I think in a week or two I may need to start trimming aponogeton- it's getting close to the surface!

Side view of that.

Oto resting in the aponogeton.

Took out two stems of watersprite that had browned- they were so far gone didn't even have any nubbins to grow new 'sprites. But I have plenty of babies floating, and one had gotten big enough I pegged it down with the other rooted stems.

Trimmed and replanted a bit of elodea- I've taken out all the stems with poor-looking growth, and now I rather like the look of this plant.

Biggest crypt is nearly hiding the prefilter now. Got the filter replacement so I put new parts on in place of the cracked pieces, and reassembled it going vertical again. Move a few rotala stems, too.

Took out one dead crypt leaf from a smaller of the green plants. Aponos and crypt wendtii didn't need any attention this week.

Found some tufts of BBA on the bottom of a few bacopa stems, where they had gotten bare of leaves (not as many lower leaves die off in here as in the tenner). I pulled up the first one, trimmed it and replanted. Then noticed it kicked quite a bit of mulm up (although I pulled gentle and slow) so for the others I cut the stems just below the substrate, cut off the lower portions and replanted. Maybe the rooted bits will grow back?

Gave my two subwassertang 'bushes' a severe trim, too. I cut them back to remove a lot of portions that had very fine, short algae growing on them. It almost looks like BBA- grows in little clusters of short tufts- but it is very pale, almost clear. Hard to see so I lifted the fastened subwasser out and put it in a clear container in front of light source, to do the trimming. There's a bit of that algae growing on the driftwood subwasser, too- I'll trim that one next week. One good-sized, clean piece of subwasser I found among the windelov fern I tied down to a stone and put on the opposite front corner of the tank.

I pulled out one vallisneria in the front so can see the buce 'emerald green' better. It's gotten big enough I felt okay to take a cutting for Oliver's tank. I removed and threw away the 'dark godzilla' entirely. It looks dead.

Fissidens in this tank is getting big enough to notice! I cut and removed some rubber bands from the driftwood log, the buces are holding on now.

I also moved my bigger piece of java fern windelov to a different spot- behind the aponos in front of the crypt wendtii baskets. While I had it in hand I took off a few older leaves that were dying, and refastened one rhizome that had come loose. A tiny baby windelov broke off- far too small to fasten to anything. I let it float among the watersprite babies; hopefully it will grow big enough to tie down somewhere.

This plant I thought was beyond notice, maybe not even going to ever thrive for me- it was sent to me as a ludwigia but I still think it might be alternanthera reineckii? (or another hygro species). But it's doing well now, growing a lot. Lowest part of the stems bare; when it gets taller I will trim and replant.

The fishes in here are always curious when I work in the tank- at least, the barbs are. Lone (but apparently content!) oto darts away from my hand or tools, but the barbs come up and nibble on the freckles on my arm. Kuhlis ignore intrusions, but if I uproot a plant or move a stone, they come scurrying over to sift through the exposed mulm or debris.

The smallest red male -only one looking at me in the picture- seems to always get the worst of it when the males compete. He's plenty eager to flirt with females, but I keep finding new notches missing from his tail or dorsal fin. Just a month or two ago I noticed a missing part of his tail had healed and grown in with clear tissue. Now it seems that was all colored up again- but he's got another bite. I am pretty sure it is the bigger males going after him.