ready!

Window tank finished cycling this morning. I don't know why it always makes me so giddy-happy to see the pale blue in that little test tube. It's ready! So this morning I did a big water change- probably 90%- siphoned out down to an inch above the substrate. Not because of sky-high nitrates, they were only about 50ppm, but because I wanted to get out all that disgusting fuzzy white mold from the food remains.

These pictures really don't do the tank justice. It looks somewhat pretty with the ambient light through the haze of hornwort needles, but I can't get a decent photo unless I put a backdrop on. Oh well. Closest equivalent.

Windelov fern seems pretty content in here. I haven't seen any foliage die off, and if you look close can see a young leaf and a tiny new fiddlehead near the center. It's growing!

I found in my tenner this week a little scrap of java fern leaf floating around with two tiny new plants sprouting on it, and a small bit of windelov rhizome. Put both into this tank.

Although they are all shorter from being trimmed at bases, I nearly doubled the number of anchored hornwort stems in here this week. Most of them seem to be done transitioning, I cleaned out all the shed needles and decaying stems, kept only healthy growth which got divided up, new budding ends tethered onto more chips of granite.

Some are so small they lie rather flat when dropped in the tank, so I propped them up against the front glass.

Still have two stems of pruned aponogeton crispus and half a dozen of the capuronii in here. As expected, the crispus leaves are quickly decaying- I'm taking those out tomorrow. To my surprise the capuronii trimmings have held up really well- they've been in here a week and although I cut off a quarter inch of the cut end of the petioles and retied it, haven't felt the need to throw them out yet. They really add something to the tank and I am going to probably add more, see how long they hold up before need to be composted.

Pothos cuttings have grown roots. There's a bit of new stem sprouting too. I haven't kept pothos cuttings like this since I had bettas in bowls four years ago...

I had to rig up my prefilter sponge with a bit of fishing line and rubber band to stay in place (because the fittings got ruined that hold this onto the intake tube).

I'm picking up the adopted fishes tomorrow. Dropped in more sinking food to keep the cycle going meanwhile. Trumpet snails immediately converged.