the tenner

Nothing much going on in here this week. I trimmed the subwassertang, accidentally taking off more than I wanted to. The scissors don't cut it easily for some reason, and I end up tearing and too much comes free. I think I need smaller, very sharp scissors for this job. If I want to do precise trims.

Also trimmed some bacopa. It's still not doing as well in this tank as in the main one, but I looked close and realized the stems with most dieoff were close to the big anubias, I bet it shades them. I trimmed the stems at substrate and replanted on the other side. I was going to pull the root ends out but that kicks lots of mulm into the water column, and a few of them do regrow new leaves, so I left them. If they don't regrow, they eventually decay enough to float free and get plucked out. Now it's pretty bare around the anubias, will have to think what else could go there...

Anubias leaves have repositioned themselves and are pretty much horizontal now. Oliver regularly uses them to rest on, I often see him motionless on a big anubais leaf in the corner early mornings. So I'm glad I moved this plant, for his sake if nothing else.

I had a fright with my heater earlier this week. Swear I saw a few bubbles inside it. There was a tiny gleam where I don't usually notice it (center of the pic just above the blue thing). Looked like three small but definite bubbles, bigger than condensation drops. I had just read a bunch of horror stories on the forum about heaters exploding, so I unplugged it. Didn't do anything about it for a while, and found that room temps are warm enough right now the tank stayed at 78º as-is. Today I removed that heater and put in a newer one that I had bought for my QT a while back. The older one doesn't look too bad- there's no blackened glass or cracks, but I'm not taking any chances. I installed the newer one, but haven't plugged it in yet, as there's no need.

Oliver's behavior was a little different today. He wasn't as nervous when I worked in the tank. He was cruising around inspecting things even when I was refilling. I'm glad of it, but a bit puzzled what made the difference.