small updates

Every time I smack a mosquito or catch a fruit fly in the kitchen, Perry gets it. This morning he got a good serving of live mosquito wigglers, too. And later after dumping kitchen scraps in the outside compost, I brought him a small, fat soldier fly larve, rinsed it off well. Think he's had enough for today! Now when I walk by his tank he gets so excited he is practically doing loops back and forth at the front glass.

My cories are still in the bucket. I tested their water and small nitrite spike. Did another partial wc. It is still better conditions than in the home tank- which has a much higher spike as it (hopefully) finishes off the cycle. I am so ready to put them back in there.

And I guess it is a good thing I didn't get a new fish for the tenner, yet. If Perry turns out to be aggressive to the catfishes, I can use it as an emergency home for them... I'm kind of baffled how to manage this tank, now. It's the only one without fish, and it's the best-looking at the moment. Today tested at over 40ppm nitrates, but there hasn't been any fish food going in, so... ? why haven't the plants used up all the ferts I dosed last week... snails are still looking well, but they aren't cleaning algae off the glass, probably because they seem to like eating the leaf litter better. Almond leaves are decaying fast into a webbing of nothing. I will have to replenish soon.The other types of leaves last longer, for sure.

So today in this tank I did just 30%wc, and no ferts. I'm wondering if I should leave it alone, do bi-weekly 50%wc and fert dosing? or keep up with the weekly wc, but scale back on the ferts. Not at all sure- things really seem to have changed in here. But: the plants look great! I have more rotala rotundifolia stems than I'd realized, among the rotala indica. I keep staring at the buces, they are so lovely. Can't wait to take more cuttings of them. Only thing appearing sickly is the spirodela polyrhiza floaters. I'm tired of seeing the black, moldy-looking algae marks all over them, even though most of the clusters seem to have at least one nice green leaf. I scooped it all out today and replaced with healthier floaters out of Perry's QT. Which still look nice vivid green, although they've dropped all the root hairs. Will they grow back? or just generate new plantlets. Have to see.