tenner update

Oliver hides. He seems more nervous than he used to be. The moment I start lifting handfuls of duckweed out for maintenance, he glides down to hide among the stems or more often, in the skull cave. He doesn't come out again until I'm done adding back in the new water and replacing the floaters. I've been wanting to lift the skull out and trim back the threadlike java fern roots- they're becoming quite a tangle under there. But every time I think to do it, the betta is hiding in the cave and I don't want to oust him. Part of his face is loosing color. There's no fuzziness so I don't think it's a fungus, and it doesn't quite look like a scrape or injury- I wonder if he is just getting old? (A few days now after water change, the pale mark looks smaller, so I hope it's healing, whatever it was).

I didn't trim anything in his tank this week. Added that cutting of buce 'emerald green'. I learned recently that buces can be grown in the substrate- I always thought they did better rooted to a rock or wood, but some say otherwise so I'm going to try it and see. I wedged the buce gently down, and when it didn't stay laid a piece of lead plant strip over it to hold. It looks very much like the buce 'selena', colorwise.

Only real thing of note for Oliver's tank is that I've seen these tiny things on the glass. They don't have the right shape for MTS and look like very tiny clear blobs with a dark center- which is a hard bit when I scrape them off w/my finger. I thought maybe just-hatched pond/bladder snails? A few weeks ago I did find another pond snail in here (thought I'd got them all, guess not). I squished it, but maybe it managed to lay eggs first, or I missed another one. I wanted to clean the front glass this week, so picked all these tiny things off with fingernails (tedious job) and put some under the microscope. But I must have crushed them when removing, it's a mess of tissue and a bit of blood and I have no idea what they are. There is a hard, shell part or carapace- I can see bits of it, so must be a snail I think.

(I just looked it up. Most snails' blood is blue. Ramshorns have red hemoglobin. So these could be tiny ramshorns...? or something else).

A few plant pics:

Subwassertang has doubled in size already- I think it likes this corner

I tried taking some low-angle shots of the windelov fern in here. It kind of flattens itself out, holding the widest part of the fronds horizontal. So it's hard to get a good view of it.

I like this pic with the horned nerite framed between the stems of little blue buce. Excuse the awful photoshop job upper corner where I tried to obscure the reflection of an overhead lamp I forgot was on.