tanks update

The good first- crypt moehlmanii I moved a little while ago, has done just fine. I took some photos of it unfurling the leaf a few days in succession,

now it's fully open and sprouting another one!

Not much else to say about this tank, except that there's more white cloud minnow fry! I've counted six or seven, but they're still so small hard to see. Fed the last of the guppy fry in the 10g to my angelfish tank yesterday- I think Foxface ate it. The two adult females that are holding the QT cycled look well, a lot more relaxed, too- I think being in the large tank the only small fish with a big predator made them nervous. 

Front corner of that tank now has a loose clump of moss that came with the new angels- and most of the subwassertang that's gotten inadvertently pulled out with water changes, I've dropped into a windowsill jar with a single tiny snail. Again. Don't even remember noting when I took the last one down.

My two new golden angels look well-settled into the 55- in fact, last night Shirley and Precious were both cleaning leaves on the crypt balansae, and the airlift tube. Precious was particularly energetic about it, this time. And she looks a tad plump, and her breeding tube is more prominent. 

But the tank is having heater issues, which is aggravating. Yesterday I plugged in the new replacement heater, but left the older one that was faltering, and the spare, in place, in case I needed to still use them. Good thing I did.

(Foxface liked resting between them, against the wall)

New heater doesn't seem to be working. Indicator light never came on. Temp in the tank started dropping again. I worried because yesterday two of the fish had white on their lips- it could be the start of a mouth fungus, due to the unstable temperatures. I did a partial water change and they seem better- these photos are from the next day, which I took to compare if it keeps improving or gets worse again. Shirley had a white blob on her upper lip twice this size when I first saw it:

and Foxface had the entire upper lip was white before-

But can also see that the thing on Foxface's chin hasn't gone away, it got bigger again. Sigh.

So I unplugged the new heater, and plugged back in the old one and the spare. Temp went back up to normal- 78° is where I have it set now. Then an hour later, I suddenly heard a noise in the tank, like extra air running. Saw a stream of bubbles, much stronger than from a broken leaf. It was coming from the older, failing heater. I promptly unplugged it and pulled it out. Seam cracked on the bottom of it. So that one's done for. Got out my other spare heater and put that one in the tank. I have no more heaters. These two small ones are okay for emergency use but I really do need a larger one for long-term in here!

Went back and read the instruction leaflet, read some on forums about heater malfunctions. Supposedly this heater brand is known to have problems with the indicator light. Argh. Also it's supposed to be left set to run for a whole twenty-four hours before adjusting the temperature knob. Well, I decided to try that before driving to the store for replacement. Maybe it's not calibrated properly and will kick on at a lower temp and then I just have to adjust it up higher than you'd think, to hold the temp where I want it.

Plugged back in the new heater, unplugged the two spares. Set my house thermostat to let the room get warmer, 74-75°, so at least if the heater fails to kick on, the fish won't die outright from cold. It made sleeping uncomfortable, so I woke up middle of night to check on them! It's only fallen to 76° so far. I'm giving it another few hours then I'll try adjusting then I'll start making some complaints. 

On another note, I bought new frozen food, with the younger angels in mind. Haven't used frozen foods in a long time and I remember why now. It's messy! but the fishes do love it. Also tried feeding dried seaweed (nori with no added salt or preservatives or anything) for more greens. Guppies, minnows, shrimps and kuhlis loved it. In the large tank I was giving it for the festivums, but I think only Rascal actually ate it. The young angels were game to try and spit it out (no surprise). Frozen foods I got were beef heart, brine shrimp and a mysis shrimp mix with greens in it (spirulina, romaine, etc). I really wanted to get daphnia that's supposed to be better than peas for giving fish a source of fiber, but haven't ever seen any for sale.