different maintenance day

Today worked on the main tank. In the afternoon, to be sure the meds had been in long enough- which felt strange. I'm used to doing it first thing in the morning. Pulled more thread algae out of the rotalas and watersprite, cut out a few val leaves that had tufts of BBA showing- guess that is not all gone yet. Noticed that the hornwort looked great this week- beautiful green color and very little dark algae- the attached ends of the stems tend to start looking thin and/or black with some algae by the time I trim them. Did a third of those this week. I don't know why but the elodea didn't look as good as usual. Wonder if it is because I have been keeping the curtains shut on the window near that end of the tank. Maybe they were benefitting from the extra ambient light?

I did the regular amount of water change- fifty percent- which is more than the packet instructions say to remove the medication. Put some carbon media in the filter box. I've had to service the filter last week and this. The prior time, it wouldn't start up again after I'd turned it off for something (usually I leave it running while doing the wc). I had to take it apart and clean the impeller- white crusty stuff built up on it. It ran again, but was making a slight grinding noise this week. Took it apart again today and scrubbed more thoroughly with a toothbrush. Sucked out the hole the impeller sits in with baster. Now it's running quietly again.

I took two quick pictures today to show the difference with a little trim and moving a few plants-

didn't want to do too much at once but I have been thinking a lot lately about the aponogeton crispus. Now that they are finally healthy they are becoming overwhelming. I still think it's a beautiful plant, though. I could keep it down to size if the new leaves came up small, by just removing outer, older ones. But the bigger it gets, the higher a new leaf arises, so overall just skyrocketing up. Think I should move them into the background- I did that with two of the smallest ones today. Pulled them up very slow and gradual, trimmed the roots and left some behind just in the substrate. I didn't want to make a godawful mess. I shifted a few individual stem plants around to make room- ludwigia, a. reineckii, bacopa- and also planted the dwarf or melon sword, whichever it is, which had been in its pot his whole time.

Thinned out some apono leaves, too- quite a number of them were getting pale and pinkish, or algae on the ends. I noticed my crypt wendtii also had some outer leaves turning that rusty pink hue. Looked at the calendar, it's been five weeks since root tabs so I put some in today. I think that's what they missed.

Also tied a bunch of loose subwassertang down to little stones, and removed subwasser from the driftwood twig, put that on stones as well. I like them better that way,  it's easy to move them around for rearranging stuff, or to take them out and trim. They're not in the second picture yet.

I'm still waiting for the other medication to arrive- it's probably going to be here monday. Meanwhile, Snaky Fish continues to move around a bit more, not so lethargic. Upcoming post on the zucchini feeding frenzy.