the shrimp bowl

It's been kinda boring. Nothing tall but that one piece of mermaid weed.

I moved two of the amano shrimps in here a while ago. They seem to do fine so far without an airline. 

Anubias is doing great-

has a new leaf shoot

Small crypts I planted in here are doing well, too

What's not is the bolbitis fern (against my expectations). And I'd rather have more tall, ferny stuff like the mermaid weed. So I pulled out a piece of the bolbitis on wood, and planted in here a few stems of the scraggly parrot's feather, taken out of the 33L. This pic before that- a bit of duckweed stuck in the mermaid weed. Thinking of composting all the greater duckweed and trying frogbit as floaters, instead.

Due a bit of a rescape, maybe- which would just be shifting the rock that has buce on it, to clear out the cave space for the shrimps, and pulling more bolbitis to make room in the center for more parrot's feather or mermaid weed stems. As those aren't doing great in the 33L anyway, and removing them from there will make room for the temple compacta, which is nicely coloring up now, I've been trimming/replanting its tops...

the jar

After the 20H teardown, relocated my 1.5 gallon jar back to the front room. It's much better admired here. From straight side view it looks rather sparse- the bolbitis never filled in-

(but can see the greater duckweed has longer roots! It really does prefer motionless water)

As I usually look down on it at this angle, don't mind much- 

but also hope now it's in better light, the bolbitis might grow more- 

there's a new fiddlehead in center look close

I had to retie the buces which didn't hold well onto the rock- most are with fishing line now. So their profile is lower again

the anubias is doing great- I even had to trim out two leaves

The small crypts I planted in here just to see- they did okay

but there's only one stem of mermaid weed, still small

Plenty of snails in here- mostly ramshorns, lately I've been picking out the few trumpet snails I still find- 

and they're (of course) reproducing- here's a tiny baby

a barely visible line of curl

small tank shuffle

I had to move my shrimp jar. Slept very well one night, and woke up to notice the room was very quiet. The little usb pump quit working. My first thought was to run downstairs and check that the other usb pumps were still running- just fine, sponge filters bubbling away on all the front room tanks. Only this one died. I think it burned out because I had a valve on to throttle most of the airflow and didn't have a bleed on it. So put it on the plant bench next to my 45 and ran it off the large pump that powers the bigger tank, with a splitter. 

Shrimps are just fine. Easy move again- just scooped out three-fourths of the water into a bucket, picked up and carried the jar with all its inhabitants and plants, then poured the water back in over my hand.

Funny to have my smallest tank next to my largest! It's not in a good spot for viewing, though. Not enjoying looking at it, can't really admire the antics of the shrimps. They blend in so well, hard to see when it's in a dim spot.

I want to put it back on the coffee table by the window where the 20H is, but only after that one's done being used for QT/guppy breeding. Only now it has the white clouds in it. See further posts.

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.

shrimps moved

Relocated my shrimp bowl upstairs to the bedroom. Its spot was needed by QT tank, and I kind of  miss having a tank in my room. Easiest tank move ever- I just picked the whole thing up, and carried it. Didn't need to remove any water or livestock!

Upstairs is a few degrees warmer in winter, which will be good for the shrimps too. It's always fun to see them crawling around upsidedown on the duckweed root hairs! I think this jar must be rather old- the glass is thick and a bit hazy.

Not sure how the light exposure here compares to the spot it was in before- it's indirect bright light as well but could be different enough- have to wait and see how the plants do.

For a while it was completely no tech (the miniature sponge filter being used in QT). Everything was still alive, however the shrimps very lethargic. They'd wave a feeler, pick at food- but as if in slow motion. So I put in an airstone, with a valve to keep the flow gentle (and it's quiet enough doesn't disturb my sleep).

Immediately the shrimps became lively and active again. Here's one under an anubias leaf!

Another on the pink buce rock-

Both in the same shot-

Another benefit of moving the shrimp jar- all the other tanks are on the same floor but this one, so I'm less likely to overfeed, more likely to leave them to pick at algae and debris. Which is better overall for the jar, I think.

shrimp bowl rescape

I took the tiny sponge filter out of my shrimp bowl to drop in the tetras' QT which is unfortunately still in mini-cycle. And then while I was at it took all the plants out (dropping the shrimps in a container with all the floaters and some subwassertang meanwhile) and rearranged everything.

My idea was to have the largest plants grouped center on and around rocks, with subwassertang tucked in a ring around the edges, so that which ever way I rotate the bowl (to keep the plants in there from leaning all one direction towards the window) there's something interesting as focal point.

One side has the mermaid weed and parrot's feather

The biggest rock has buce on it-

Some new tiny leaves grew! but look a bit pale. I need to cut off that lower leaf- looks like BBA started to edge

I think the anubias has grown quite a lot-

Replanting the rotala stems made them so short they kinda got lost in the subwassertang-

Final touch was tucking a few leaves in

Topside:

I was a bit concerned how the shrimps would do without a filter running- and they hid for the first few hours after reintroduction so it's hard to tell. But now are out and about again, look just fine. Some of the plants were even pearling.

I feel like the jar has a more wild look to it now

I'm not perfectly happy with it though. I'd rather see the smaller stems more, and I think the extra rock and sponge pieces take up too much space- I kept them in there to avoid loosing bacteria and drop into a cycle. Might rescape again and pull more things out, but I'll wait and see how the parrot's feather and mermaid weed do long term, first . . .