thirtyeight update

I have felt a bit glum about my main tank, lately.

Mostly for the fishes. After the dose of levamisole, all my kuhlis are doing well. This is Tiger, looking as if he's gazing out of the window. The other striped one Sassy, is getting some girth and sometimes I hardly recognize that fish anymore, it looks so much better now.

Sometimes they still scare me. I know they like to hang out and drape over plants to relax- in alarmingly still poses- and I've gotten used to that. But this one was hanging completely still with its tail curved up. The only other time I've seen a fish with the body curved in a stiff u like that was a dead one. I watched him a long time and then gently nudged him. Relieved to see him scurry away!

The serpae tetras are fewer in numbers. After Blank died, I lost the one with popeye as well, and another that had got fungus on the mouth. Few days later another tetra in the main showed signs of fungus on the head. I put it in quarantine and that one is still alive. I've treated it with kanaplex, and it survived that but is hiding and won't eat. It looks as if the fungus spots on the head are gone, but the mouth may be deformed- if the fungus ate the mouth away, I may have to euthanize.... I've kept a close eye on the five left in the main tank and they look healthy, although the largest, oldest one seems lethargic- it always comes out last of all to eat... Don't want to get any new ones until I'm sure that none of the others are going to come down with something...

You can see in that last pic of them how my flame moss in front is shorter- I trimmed it and started two new stones.

It does seem to be growing in thicker now.

This bit of hydrocotyle tripartita I moved over from the betta tank has been slowly growing too, but I can't figure out where to put it so I am just letting it float. I thought it would look cool twining around the filter outtake hose, but can't get it to stay in place there.

The anubias afzelii I moved into background is recovering- no more black spots and it has a new leaf growing.

Bolbitis fern is finally becoming somewhat visible- helped by the fact that I removed another few of those unknown crypts in the front (sold). Their longer leaves are becoming dark blue-green now. And the long crypt becketti leaves, with their olive green hue, have grown through the crypt wendtii now and surpassed it in height. Making an interesting cluster there, which I don't yet have a good photo of.

One of my aponogeton crispus sent out a flower stalk again! But I accidentally chopped it in half, shutting the tank lid.