window tank cleanup

It had gotten a bit neglected- not in terms of the water changes really, but the other smaller details- there was a lot of green algae accumulating on the back glass, and I hadn't cleaned out dead leaves or excess floaters in a while. Also when I added the substrate from the emptied 20H, maybe I didn't rinse it enough? There was a bit of film on the surface, Perry was flinching sometimes, and Laddie got fungus on a pectoral fin. (You can just see it here- was a white fuzzy blob three times that size, the day before)

I did a mid-week water change yesterday- scraped all the glass clean- wow it looks so much better, I hadn't realized how dim the tank got with that algae on the back wall. Plucked out all the deteriorating floaters and some dead leaves- hornwort just not doing well in here now so I dropped what I found of it into the shrimp vase. An hour after all that, the tank still looked a bit hazy from things being disturbed and the scraped algae got into the water column, so I did another 5 gal wc. Looks very clear now.

I think Laddie's fin has stopped deteriorating- the fuzzy spot is smaller,

but there's a piece missing out of his fin now. I feel bad I didn't see it sooner, but feel pretty certain if I keep up the daily partial wc it will finish healing and grow back.

I'm doing another wc now.

Perry always seems subdued. When Laddie is flitting around his side of the tank looking at things, wriggling at me in anticipation, inspecting the ground, snapping at baby trumpet snails on the surface- Perry just hangs there in one spot. Just doesn't seem as healthy. I have decided not to feed them garden caterpillars or aphids this year. Worry it may have introduced something that made Perry unwell. Maybe I will still do live mosquito larvae, though.

On the other hand- maybe he is always subdued and holding his tail down because acting submissive to Laddie . . . ? They don't bite and flare at each other so much now, but when facing each other across the mesh, Perry usually is positioned tail angled down ans holds his fins closed. I wonder if he is just intimidated. Which makes me feel kinda bad in another way.