28 July 2018

plants on tanks

I put some sweet potato vine cuttings on the new window tank. It's in second stage of cycle- I have zero ammonia, and nitrite spiking. Food I've been dropping in growing mold or fungus- ugh, I hate that part. But it's progressing, and the snails are chowing down. I had wondered if all the ramshorns I previously put in Perry's tank just hid? or did poorly with conditions. But when I cleaned out the tank to turn it over to serpaes, found plenty of empty ramshorn shells. And now the newly-introduced ramshorns are crawling around steadily with the trumpet snails. So I guess Perry did eat the rams.
He's getting a daily gallon water change on the bin, because I took out his pothos and moved it onto the 45 downstairs (it will do well in the very low light of that hallway). The roots are very long. I managed to work them back through the holes of plastic support strip without breaking many (had to reposition a few).
I also swapped lights- took the kit hood and light off the 45, and put on it LED and glass lid that used to be on the 38. And I took all the plastic plants out, and some bags of media, to make a QT setup. And I took the hornwort out, gave it to the serpae tetra 20H, moved frobits in. Rearranged a few plants, too- and of course the sticks always get shifted around a bit when I do a cleaning. Before:
After. I replenished some leaf litter, too.
With the new light- probably too bright now. Experimenting with plastic layers to see what will get the light level back to where I had it- don't know if I can match that close enough.
However I have a few more plants in here (so much for making this a driftwood/leaf litter only tank). I moved in the buces on dragon stone. Green 'wavy' in the background
and brownie ghost piece in the fore.
My other buces are still doing pretty well, in here.
I am moving my entire kuhli loach gang into this tank now. They certainly can't live with Perry, and I don't want to overcrowd the 20H (although tetras look very happy now they're starting to settle in). Today I introduced to the 45 my three newer black kuhlis, and the striped ones Albert and Tiger. Have a trap set for Sassy and Monty in the 20H- nearly all day has gone by and just now Sassy is starting to creep near the trap. He must be hungry.

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