it was beautiful

The waxy, surreally-bright pink flowers on my Thanksgiving cactus are finally fading and dropping off. 

So pretty while it lasted! (pics from a week ago)

angel gone

 My second-favorite angelfish, Shirley, died sometime last night. She looked okay yesterday- alert and came eager to eat just like always. But this morning I didn't see her in the tank, had to search. She was on the tank floor behind a filter sponge, not moving. She rests in the garden now. I don't want to keep a large tank running for just one fish, so I am breaking down the 55 and moving Precious into the 20H.

I knew her end was probably coming within the year, I didn't expect it to be so soon. Even though it was half-expected and I've never been quite as fond of the gold angels as I was of Miss Beautiful, I still feel very sad and glum.

fox glimpse

in the yard behind mine

houseplants to note

My plain spider plant is making tons of babies right now. I've already given away half a dozen and there's more new.

Thanksgiving cactus is a little bigger this year, and getting ready to bloom for the holiday!

I have a new-to-me boston fern. I always did miss the last one. This is one somebody was getting rid of, because done with its summer on their porch. I know it will start to dry out and drop lots of leaves and maybe only last me one or two seasons more. 

But for now I'm enjoying tending it- snipping off dead ends, misting and turning daily. Already it's been thinned out twice, but looks the better for it.

countertop rainbow

 

dried cowpeas

Took down the vines the other day. Got a few more dried pods I hadn't noticed before

It was a good amount of cowpeas (black-eyed peas) this year, in spite of my neglect 

My little jar is half filled, enough to make a few decent soups I think I still have yet to try them! 

Always find it amusing to see the tiny, undeveloped beans in a few pods- here with two regular-sized ones.

wasp

found crawling on the windows inside- I let it out

further stevia updates

Not much else going on here. In terms of plants. One of the cuttings under cloche started to mold, I tossed it. Of the others, one dried up, tossed. I planted the remaining three from the intial group started in the kitchen windowsill, into the pot.

Dramatic difference. The cutting started in rooting hormone and regular potting soil, had plenty of roots throughout its little pot confines, and new leaves growing. Success! (It's the one in the middle here). Second cutting, that was in seed starter mix with no rooting hormone, had barely any roots at all and only a few new leaves (background). I stuck it in the pot anyway.

more stevia cuttings

It looks like the one rooted in sand is dying, and the one in seed started mix struggling. Had to trim the parent plant to fit more plants in my space by the window (more coming inside as the weather gets colder) so I started a few more cuttings. These all dipped in rooting hormone, planted in regular potting soil.

I put small jar/bottle cloches over them to hold in some humidity, maybe it's helping their leaves are more upright than others had been.

33 update

Did another water change, pulled more sheets of cyanobacteria nastiness out of the tank, that same spot against the glass. I lifted out the bolbitis fern piece, and vacuumed thoroughly that whole area. Yeah, there was a lot of mulm. Tucker seems to be feeling better now- he's got a bit more color and looks more alert.

He hides when I clean in the tank- behind the rotala thicket or under a sponge filter in the corner. Whereas the white cloud minnows get all excited and dart around where I'm working, nipping at bits of stuff that gets disturbed into the water column. Caught an adult with the siphon accidentally- they just won't stay away from it! I netted him back into the tank, he's got a few scrapes but I think will be okay. 

Keeping background up to block some of the window light for a few more days, then I hope I've got the most of this problem beat. Another fulltank shot- I think this one came out a little better (click to view the whole thing larger)

window tank rescape

I redid some stuff in here, too. Full tank shot (a tad blurry, so hard to get a good photo of this):

On one end, I pulled some crypt moehlmannii that was growing into areas it wouldn't have space (into the anubias thicket, under the log). The original parent plant in center has lost all its leaves, but there's a row of younger plants off runners up against the glass now. Thinned out the vals too- mostly pulling out leaves that had decay. Added a small piece of hardscape with buces and subwassertang on it (just in front of the large anubias there)

Most of the work I did was central- pulling out crypts from the back wall and moving them into the center, shifting smaller crypts from the center to further back, and pulling up most of the dwarf sag (which didn't end up staying tank height after all) moving them to the foreground. They're doing okay after all- I found lots of new baby ones!

Tucker the paradise fish kept getting in the pictures

Also trimmed and replanted more rotalas to make a further wall of them against the rear glass. Which is hard to see as it's backlit from the window-

Moved a few more plants around on this side, too- but mostly noticable is just the addition of another buce clump from the angel tank.

The leaves on my madagascar lace come and go. Never seem to have more than two or three really healthy ones at a time- sigh.

Here's Tucker who kept getting in front of the camera, but never held still of course!

His tail fin has got short again, lost its filaments, and he's been kind of pale lately. So I'm concerned for his health, too. (White clouds look totally fine. In fact, they're still breeding. The first two fry I saw this year are half-grown already, swimming in the open with adults now. There's one smaller fry half their size- probably two months old, and another much smaller fry several weeks old I'm guessing. So at least four!)

Angle shot-

I do like seeing the sun come through the plant leaves, like here- but found it was too much this time. Or my faulty maintenance. Found some cyanobacteria (aka blue-green alage) behind the bolbitis driftwood, against the window side glass. Icky stuff. Dismayed because that means definitely my tank has too much mulm buildup, and I'm afraid it will be hard to get rid of.

I've done another water change, cleaned filter sponge (found the housing of one was cracked, so I did a little repair with fishing line) and temporarily blocked out some of the window light. Tomorrow going to do another water change with thorough gravel vac in that problem area. Felt like I was on my feet nearly all day working on this tank- far longer than I expected to!

So that's my big update for now.

shrimp jars!

Attempting to revive my élan for the tanks. Starting small: rescaped both shrimp jars. One on the left was quite hazy. I scraped algae off the glass and did two water changes after the rescape. Finally now it looks clearer. 

The one on the right I simplified, now it's just mermaid weed and parrot's feather in the center, with buces around the edge.

Trimmed the parrot's feather to multiply the stems- all short temporarily

Jar on the left, I kept most of the plants and tried to make a nicer arrangement. Removed some of the anubias, added baby java ferns (which immediately started growing! so maybe finally I found a place java ferns will be happy. They always die in winter in my window tank, and the leaves stayed small, then died off over and over, in my angel tank). From above:

The bowl still has two small anubias-

one on each side

There's two buces flanking the rock/wood the java ferns are on-

and corkscrew vals opposite side of that.

I'm a bit surprised the twisty vals are not only still here, but appear to be doing just fine! Also surprised that I kind of like them in here (never cared for them in the bigger aquariums).

Both jars also got a new addition- a few pieces of amazon frogbit, from somebody who bought anubias from me. Balance has changed in the jars- all my larger duckweed died off. Only some small duckweed left. Trying frogbit again-

Still have two shrimps in each jar!

my 55

Is faltering. I just don't feel able to keep up with it right now, and fear the angelfishes will suffer. Slacking off on water changes is not at all good for them. Disheartened still since the death of Miss Beautiful, I decided it would be best to rehome the golden sisters and sell this tank. So far have sold some of the plants- anubias and bolbitis that were in here, plus a half dozen hornwort stems. Moved some buces into my window tank. Still hoping the fish will go with the tank, or at least one of them will find a new home. I could keep the other in the 20H, frequent water changes on that would be much easier to do.

My ankle still gets stiff, sore and swollen with any work that requires me to be on my feet for much time, especially if I carry something heavy around (like gallons of water). I've done better of late with performing two five or ten gallon wc's on the tank per week, instead one 20 or 30 gal wc. But it's not enough.

moth

A greenish moth, on a window, seen from underside. Maybe the blackberry looper, I attempted looking up its identity.

remembered plants

Some pics from last year, that reflect this year. I lost one of my pink geraniums (it died) but the two looked so similar, I shrugged it off.

Never grew nasturtiums this year, so I look at this photo with nostalgia.

Right now my bay laurel (which comes indoors on the coldest nights) and basil (fading fast) look just like this. But what strikes me about this picture is the madagascar palm houseplant behind them on the other side of the window. Look how lovely the foliage! It's all dropped. The plant looks like a cactus stick now. It just barely started growing leaves back a week ago, but they're very small. I don't know if it's temperature not right for that plant in my house, or lack of direct sun.

I'm sad about my rosemary, too. It looked pretty good last year (this pic). Now thinner, needles anemic and yellowish. My first thought was: not enough sun, but I also suspect an insect pest might have gotten to it.

Sigh. Another plant I miss is the pretty, diminutive alyssum. I didn't grow any from seed this year- hoping a few might come up of their own accord in the front bed. Nope. Not a single one- or if they did, got choked out by the mock strawberry and sedums. This purple one was from the year before: