shrimp bowl rearranged

Twice again now. First I redid it like this:

The centerpiece rock with buce was sitting on top of two pieces of sponge. Elodea- started to grow out of stem bits I had dropped in to feed the shrimps, so I stuck them in the substrate.

Still had some pieces of mermaid weed and parrot's feather (faltering):

Rotalas more visible now-

Buce 'selena' on the rock looks better in here than in my other tanks

Week or so ago I trimmed back the lower part of arrowhead stems - they've been living in a jar of water for a long time- and cut a hole in a strip of plastic, and put it over the shrimp jar.

Then today I rearranged stuff again. Prepped ten pounds of safe-t-sorb to refresh substrates; after I used it in the aquariums the small amount left over went in here. I lifted out everything, caught the shrimps put them in a glass box with their sponges and leaf litter and loose things, scattered in the substrate, replanted a few stems, resituated everything and returned the shrimps.

I mostly wanted to put the buce rock on top of a few other rocks, instead of on the sponges. It stays higher in the jar, and makes a little cave space underneath. I think the shrimps appreciate- they were fighting over the cave soon as I returned them to the jar! At least, I saw two go under, then a flurry of little shrimp legs in the shadow, then one scurried out and crept under a leaf. I've taken out the parrot's feather but there are still a few pieces of mermaid weed doing okay:

I can see my shrimps better now! The substrate was lower than the upper curve of the base before, so usually walking around on the bottom they were kinda hidden. Now the substrate is a bit higher, just at the curve, so I can see them poking around-

Although my camera tends to focus on the glass surface instead

or I get reflections from the room-

My kid came in and saw the tray of stuff I hadn't put away yet, and I showed her the new rock cave in the shrimp jar. She said "nooo, the shrimps need their spongie! You have to give them back their spongies! It's so funny to see them crawl on it floating and fall down." I laughed and shrugged and showed her how they can still cling to duckweed or stem bits at surface and float down- they do that a lot with the smaller pieces of elodea still floating.