tank notes with no pictures

Did tanks maintenance today because treating the 38 gal w/levamisole which means today it got a 50% water change and tomorrow a 75%. That feels like a lot of work. Also wrapped in black plastic for darkness. And noted on the calendar to repeat in three weeks. Today I moved one of those unidentified crypts in the front corner- to the back of the grouping- so that bolbitis fern that is slowly growing out more visible. I want to see it. Also trimmed off a few of the longer leaves, just to clear the view. I was a bit surprised to find there was very little algae, very few dying-back leaves to trim off, hornwort mostly looked healthy with longer, strong needles and even watersprite is improved. Usually I take a few of the lower leaves off each watersprite bunch, that is browning. This week- none.

I'm wondering if the difference is the lighter fish load (since cherry barbs all moved out). Because I mistakenly thought I had the bigger filter, I had plugged into aqadvisor and it was telling me more fish okay. I did think the tank looked too busy, a bit crowded; I hadn't pushed it to the limits of the stocking calculator's suggestion, but it was close. Now that I realize I'm a size smaller w/my canister know that I can only put four more serpae tetras in there, to hit the limit. Which is fine with me!

It also might be a factor of feeding more live and fresh foods recently. I do see a slight film on the water surface when looking up from below- like fine dust- it doesn't bother me too much- I think it's from fine debris even though I rinse the bugs and whatnot, or from hairs off their bodies? (for example, the tiny moths are furry) Not sure. I thought the film meant the live food made the water a bit dirtier, but it's not actually disintegrating into dissolved mess like some of the flakes and pellets do...

Irritating was to find a freshwater limpet on the glass. I noticed earlier in the week there were two small, very fine scratches- on the inside- that hadn't been there before. The week before I had cleaned the glass inside w/algae scrubber. I bet I got a tiny limpet caught in the scrubber- and scratched the glass with it. Must have transferred some over here accidentally from the betta tank. Gah.~
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In the window tank, it does seem I was right guessing why the swordtails had been laying low again. Now that the filter has more sponge media stuffed into it and the flow rate is slowed down, they are moving about as normal again. Still not as quick chasing food as the cherry barbs, but they are in the midst and do get some.

The tank has been getting some diatoms, it looks like- pale brown haze on the glass, mostly on the back wall against the window, and some on front right corner. It's easy to wipe it off just with my finger- in fact, easier than using algae scrubber because I can rub it off the silicone in the corner as well without damaging anything.

I took the aponogeton capuronii trimmings of long leaves out of that tank and put it in the male cherry barbs' tenner. Instead of hornwort, which was shedding needles all over and melting into a scattered mess. I had been cleaning up most of it each week and tossing in new trimmings, but getting tired of that. To keep a bit of floating cover in there, I tried putting these long capuronii leaves draped across the surface, and the handful of s polyrhiza culls from the betta tank. I know those will probably die just as quickly- there's simply not enough ambient light in this location- but maybe not as much of a pain to clean up each week.

All the cherry barbs' tails are over halfway grown back, now. Some of the females they almost look complete in form, just the new fin tissue is clear. I've seen a few of them grow back from nips and tears in the past, and eventually the new fin part colored up again, so curious to see if these all do as well.
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My betta tank continues to slowly improve. I moved some rotala stems from the front corner (now crypt is mostly focal point of that spot) to space across the back. Bacopa still kind of faltering, more dying stems than thriving. I'm considering taking that plant out of here entirely. Have started slowly pulling out the dying marislea hirsuta. Only one clump today, because things were already a bit disturbed. (Not as if the fish cared. Samblu was so close to my hand while working, I didn't see him and accidentally he got sucked into the cup I was using to scoop out floaters- by the pressure of backwash. I noticed when he thrashed in the still-partly-submerged cup) Because of moving the rotalas, there was more mulm kicking into the water column than I could get out with my tiny siphon, and some of it settled back on the foliage afterwards, but I know what was the cause this time and still think it's doing better since I started vacuuming more thoroughly. One nice thing about how gentle the tiny vacuum is, I can put it right over a clump of fissidens and get fine debris out without dislodging the moss.