thirty-eight update

I've added my newest features- dragon stone and buces- to my main tank. Had to do a little rearranging, and took out the largest clay arch as well. Smaller one got moved to the background. Here's one dragon stone I tied buce 'brownie ghost' to. It has a small row of the bacopa caroliniana in front of it- sadly the only stems I have left of that plant. I think it preferred the brighter light on the window end of the tank...

The other main rock has buce 'green' tied on to it, and I put it between the ludwigia stems and the samller crypt becketti petchii.

Side note: one of my close shots of that caught my one named amano shrimp walking across. I don't know why, but this shrimp is different. Its body has a blue hue, and its little pincer hands move twice as fast as the other shrimps'. It's always going super-speed with the pincers. I think of it as Mr. Blue Blast, haha.

I have more buce 'green' on a few smaller rocks tucked under crypt wendtii- hoping the shade will keep them from attracting too much algae.

Third dragon stone is just in front of the other crypt lutea and becketti petchii grouping. I've found I like the appearance of my crypts better when they are set off against a stone or flanked by another plant- as this one is in front of the subwasser bushes.

Took all the bits of java fern 'trident' off that clay shard I removed, and re-fastened them onto the end of this stone. It's hard to see them, still small but finally growing out new leaves. Shrimp is walking between them.

Incidental picture- recently I made yet another change to my ferts dosing schedule. Instead of dosing the micros a few hours after macros, I now dose them a full day later. It really does seem to make a difference. I hadn't noticed my windelov ferns were looking a bit poorly in here, until they suddenly looked better, standing straighter and appearing more green.

The tank layout kind of has two distinctive sides, where the plants are grouped around this rock on the left flanked by ludwigia. (Also, in this pic you can see my new moss shelf, which doesn't have any moss growing out of it yet. A few weeks ago I trimmed all the ledges and clay pieces, and used the trimmings to make this new shelf. The white one got moved into Perry's tank).

and on the right side, where the rock, crypts beckettii petchii and lutea are backed by apono capuronii and bolbitis fern. In the bolbitis there you can see the bumblebee horned nerite on side glass. I put the largest one in here (two smaller went into my tenner, when I picked out thirty or so trumpet snails to send to someone).

Full tank shot. Overall it has a much lighter, natural look with the clay pieces removed or hidden.