window tank: new stand!

My cories were spawning again yesterday. Later I saw an egg stuck to the glass- but it was exposed for over half an hour to air so I don't know if its dead or not. It was a bad day for them to spawn! However I am pretty sure they are going to keep doing it, so no loss... That day I put my custom stand under the tank. It took a good amount of time. Emptied the tank- plants and some hardscape in one clean bucket- fishes, leaf litter, more plants and the running filter in another.

I got the stand in place and leveled, but a bit worried because it turns out the top surface is not perfectly even- the tank rim only rests solid on one corner and the middle of the span of long sides. I am not sure if this is safe to avoid the glass cracking, even though it's a fairly small tank... quick photo of it next to my thirty-eight, and the white bucket off to the side: that's where my fishes are right now. The cories look okay- although one of them is pale with stress- they were all sitting perfectly still on the leaf litter until I dropped in one shrimp pellet and then they started cruising around the bucket animatedly, looking for the food.

I was going to trim the roots back of all the stems in the lid, but decided not to in case it temporarily decreases their uptake of ammonia- definitely want them to do that job right now. I'm testing tank waters to see when ammonia goes back down- it got a spike from all the disturbance. Trumpet snails are a good indicator- they have been crawling up the walls of the tank since changes. Yesterday after setting everything back up, ammonia in the tank was at 1.0- this morning some snails are crawling around on the bottom going for plant debris like usual- and test shows ammonia 0.5- so probably after one more day the spike will have subsided (and snails will be under the gravel again)

Cories in the bucket now just have the leaf litter, loose subwassertang and cover of hornwort stems- all the other plants and hardscape back in the tank. It's replanted in a bit of a different arrangement- I decided to quit keeping hornwort pegged down, all as floaters now. I have a few more elodea stems- they grow a lot slower but stay in place much better than the hornwort- and when a few windelov pieces came loose from their stones, I fastened them to the wall of the tank with suction cups. Yeah, I know I tried this before with hornwort and didn't like the look of it. Maybe different with this other plant. Trying to get some height of greenery in the tank. There's also vallisneria I introduced, and some crypt retrospiralis, in the back corner where it gets most of the window light. Going to get a picture when the light is better.

There was a round bit of filter sponge just sitting on the bottom in Perry's QT. I took that out and put it on a sponge filter fitting, ran it in the bucket alongside the window tank's filter while I was working on teardown. As soon as I had the tank back up, moved the corner filter back in, to help clear the water- leaving the cories with the little sponge. I tested the bucket's ammonia levels this morning to make sure they're okay and it is slightly below 0.5 (still way better that their home tank right now). Partial wc for them in the meantime.