glory fish

Tucker has eaten nearly all the snails in his tank. A few trumpet snails escape him because they burrow during the day- but now a lot of plants are getting too much algae on them. I've put up background again. Makes it easier to take photos, so I tried for a few good ones of Tucker- but he moves so quickly it's difficult as ever!

He's grown a lot. Tip of anal fin reaches half the length of his tail!

I've started feeding him one earthworm (red wiggler) a few times a week- he really likes that.

white cloud fry

The two white cloud fry have quit hanging out at surface in the floating hornwort, are often in the open water column now with the adults. I can even see them from across the room.

Still very small. The younger one is just starting to show red on its tail

Larger fry has its pretty bright blue streak-

Very hard to get a photo of them. Few more of the older fry (though none exactly in focus)

The adults are flirting and showing off to each other- see first pic- I've been watching them spawn in the bolbitis fern. I expect to see more fry soon. Wonder if more will survive as the days warm up.

window tank plants

Some belated pictures. Hygro or whatever-it-is looking golden in the sunlight- recently cut and replanted some of those stems.

I'm glad I moved the moss rock back a bit, put the crypt becketti behind it, and planted a row of buce 'green wavy' in front. It's one of the nicer spots in the tank now.

Fissidens on the rock is finally big enough to get a decent photo-

Anubias 'pangolino' on the other rock-

I just cut out all these brown stems of the parrot's feather, leaving a bit trailing in on top from above, and a short piece sticking out of the substrate on a few, that are already growing out ferny wisps.

Still have some stems of mermaid weed and ludwigia arcuata (on left). Wish there was more of those, but it grows rather slowly.

Buces still do pretty well for me in here:

The dwarf echinodorus continues to look better in this tank, it doesn't seem to mind the chill so far.

window tank overheads

These are my favorite photos from the other day. I took the trouble to clean the glass tops- ugh, the rear pane was particularly dirty with brown algae and scum. Took some overhead shots while I was working there. Among my favorite plants- the crypts becketti:

Here's the grand growth on the younger crypt moehlmanii. Bolbitis thicket behind it, Laddie the paradise fish is in front of course he was looking for handouts. Crinum is front right.

Left front corner of the tank- the small remainders of crypts willisii, anubias newly tied on driftwood in back left corner, older crypt moehlmanii front center, slender leaf of a crypt undulata I moved last week in the center.

The bolbitis thicket! It looks so beautiful from this top angle- that's the rear tank glass on the top edge of the photo. I just wish this one was a bit more in focus:

Likewise the hygro (or is it ludwigia?) stems: they turn to face and touch the rear glass, which looks like the top surface here:

Looking down at the small clump of crypt undulata in the rear. To the left, ludwigia arcuata. Some bolbitis tied on small wood chunks across center- hard to see them. Subwassertang makes a green smudge below it all.

Better view of the ludwigia arcuata. Bolbitis thicket on the left. One piece of mermaid weed center. Sweet potato vine roots reaching down.

Another view of the ludwigia/is-it-hygro stems, up against one of the sponge filters. Can see how thin the windelov ferns are (compared to those in the betta tank!)

I took this photo trying for the elodea stem, but really it shows off Laddie the paradise fish (and some crypt becketti on the right).

Can see in several of those photos above, how washed out and brown the salvinia minima is. I think it just can't compete with other plants for nutrients, especially now that the sweet potato vines have grown tons of roots? maybe I'll have to phase it out and let elodea be the floating plant . . .

ramshorns move

I had all my extra ramshorn snails in plastic tub, with an oak leaf, the fake bridge, and some bits of plants.

Transferred all the largest ramshorns into the window tank, about ten of them. Laddie sure was interested. I let them float long enough he quit trying to bite them through the plastic and moved away. I opened the back half of the tank lid, Laddie was at front looking to see if I'd give food, and I just dropped the snails in the back, straight into the bolbitis thicket where Laddie can't reach. So he won't get them all right away, leave them time to crawl around some.

One was up on the glass shortly after, nomming away on algae already.

The smaller ramshorns- a good dozen more- I put into square glass container on my kitchen windowsill, with the plant bits- elodea, baby java ferns sprouting off a leaf, windelov fern tied onto wood pieces. Give the plants time to grow out some. Found three little jelly-like blobs of ramshorn eggs on the walls of the bin when I cleaned it out- so they must have been content in there- I gently scraped them off with fingernail and dropped in here. Not sure if I damaged them or not.

Here's one up on the glass already. (There was a blob of snail poo under it, I didn't want that in the picture so I nudged it to fall away, but that disturbed the snail it started to pull back into the shell here)

Next to it on the sill, is my other glass box with the subwassertang and a few more, smaller ramshorns. It was in a gelato container before, this has more volume.

I like to see the subwassertang floating, and the light shining through it.

There was one snail in the plastic tub I suspected wasn't alive, but it didn't stink. The snail body was pulled far back into the shell; I hadn't seen it move in a day. I figured the shrimps would tell me- I dropped it into their jar. Immediately one claimed it and was busy picking, picking to eat. (Distortion from the glass)

guppies . . . .

So um, now I have a few guppies. It was not planned. At fish club, the container of snails I received had four plain ordinary guppies in it. Nobody was interested so I shrugged: I'll feed to my angel or paradise fish. At home first I put them in a temporary container with fresh water.

They're so small. I would usually empty the transport water and fish into a small bucket, then net out the fish to go into the tank. But they came in a (clean!) urine sample cup, so the amount of water would not have let the guppies swim in the bottom of the bucket. I scooped them out in a medicine dose cup. The fish are so tiny, all four of them were in this.

There are three females and one smaller male. The larger female, with a squared-off abdomen, probably holding fry, I put into the shrimp jar. Temporarily. I didn't want to give her the stress of being chased by a predator right away, hoping to see her drop fry at least once?

She's the same size as a shrimp. She was hiding so still among the plants at first, the shrimps walked up and tried to grab her. Incidentally, I only have five shrimps now. One must have died and been eaten by the others, when I was on vacation recently.

She looked quite stressed yesterday, so I was kind of surprised to see her alive this morning. I don't usually feed the shrimp jar more than twice a week, but I sprinkled a bit of 'bug bites' in there, and saw her eat some.

Meanwhile, the other three guppies went into the window tank. I fully expected them to be a meal for Laddie. The paradise fish chased them immediately- in quick sharp rushes but couldn't catch them. One dived into the bolbitis fern thicket, others hid in low corners- this one under edge of a driftwood chunk.

Later then ventured out. They're good at staying unnoticed up at the surface among the sweet potato roots and salvinia:

Here's a backlit photo with guppies, top left. Paradise fish, mid right.

I'm surprised Laddie seems to be ignoring them now. Maybe he realizes he can't catch them? If they start to breed I expect he'll eat the fry. Or maybe he's full of snails and not hungry enough to try again.

swollen nodes?

Where my paradise fish Laddie had fungus on his fin, the fuzz is all gone now and it's starting to grow back. But I'm concerned because there's small lumps or swollen spots on his fin rays, largest right where the fungus was. Looking close I think there are also lumps where the fin joins the body. I'm not sure how to treat this- thinking of isolating him in a small QT and dosing anti-fungal meds, but could well be something else and the fungus was secondary. He is still spry, alert, eager for food- whereas Perry next door looks mororse or ill. (Separation would also let me see if Perry's behavior changes without a competitor next door). Here's photo of Laddie's bad fin:

Good one for comparison-

I'm asking advice on the forum . . .

the newer tank ones

One buce in the angelfish tank came loose from its hold- I stuck it in the shrimp bowl, wedged the roots between sponge and a rock-

Mermaid weed in the angel tank is starting to look more upright-

the bits of it I planted in the window tank are still alive- there's one in the background here- can just see the tothy leaf margin under the crypts in the center-

two others are behind the rock on Laddie's side- they're rather yellowish but a day after this photo, starting to show some new tender green on the tops so I hope they adjust and grow