an end

I have sad news. It was actually so upsetting I never sat down to write about this until now. About a month ago, my paradise fish Tucker died. He had been unwell for several weeks already- hanging listless at the water surface, eating a bit and nothing else. Poor color, no interest in anything. Sometimes he didn't even want to eat. Honestly I made no attempt to cure him. I did not know what ailed him, I simply don't have the mental energy now to deal with trying to diagnose, medicate and extra-upkeep a sick fish. He was probably close to six years old, I'd had him for over five. That's a good long life for a fish! and now he rests under a stump in my backyard, on the edge of the flower bed near Miss Beautiful.

I had not taken any photos of the aquarium in some time, but here is a quick full tank shot. I am in the process of dismantling it, re-homing the snails, and selling all the plants, equipment, etc. It's feels kind of dismal that the year when my tank finally feels well-established, and looks like what I had first envisioned so long ago, is when I feel done with it.

Surprise- there was one Amano shrimp still alive in there! After all these years! He hid very well from Tucker. A real survivor. No idea how old this shrimp is, probably six to eight years. He went to live in somebody else's tank of shrimps last night. That was something, to see the little critter scurrying around again.

Bye, little shrimp.

Have a good end of life elsewhere.

shrimp and snail jars

Tidied up my shrimp jar again. Overhead shot. Once again, all my floaters have gradually died off. I really thought the frogbit was going to make it this time around. Nope. Maybe it's something about the substrate I use. Or lack of nutrients, as there's so few shrimps now . . . 

Just two amanos. 

Removed most of the algae-marked anubias leaves.

Mermaid weed was all bare on the lower stems. So I cut them both back and replanted. Quite short now.

It might be my imagination, but I think the twisty vals are doing better.

Ramshorn snail.

Still not thrilled with the other jar. I think if the crypt undulata grows out enough in my 33, I'll transfer some into here. It might give more plant height.

all the jars-

well, the newest one is a vase. This same vase. Now I have it with crypt balansae, which I couldn't bear to throw away when emptied the 20H. Keeping it in here for a few months, hopefully then whatever pathogen killed my angelfishes, will have died off, and if the plants are still alive I might move them into the 33L.

It's so strange to have an empty tank in the room

and houseplants moved into its spot.

But I've still got my jars- this one 

with two shrimps

the anubias need older leaves with algae trimmed off again, but the buces are all nice

I hadn't noticed it until today, but my little patch of corkscrew vals is getting thin. Some of it's been dying off. I think I need to add a few more shrimp to make waste, or put plant food in (haven't done that in a long time)

The mermaid weed is rather small, too. Looks wavy in this picture from the old thick glass

which also blurs out the snail I tried to get a closeup of.

My other jar has less variety of plants- just anubias, crypt beckettii-petchii, 

a few buces. Nothing tall, so it doesn't even start to fill the space

It does look nice from above, though. Only snails live in here, most of them ramshorns.

the smallest ones

I moved my shrimp jar back downstairs, and put the old one (left) next to the new one (right).

First jar is pretty much the same- 

Second one I planted with the corkscrew vals. Funny, I don't really like how these vals look in my main aquarium, but I find them interesting in the small jar. 

Above view:

Each jar now has just two amano shrimp.

Camera had trouble focusing on this one.

In my tenner, the few white cloud minnow fry are getting bigger- enough to look like regular fish, just so small. They're still a tad smaller than a single rotala leaf!

And very hard to get photos of.

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...

tiny minnow fish

Not sure how old it is- been a month since I first spotted the fry in here. This is the larger one, four or five weeks old, but looks to be the same stage as three-week fry last summer when the previous generation hatched.

I'm guessing they're growing slower because of the cold, and because I'm not feeding them as intensely. 

The smaller one is just barely starting to show a smudge of color on the tail, and I can't really make out its dorsal/anal fins yet. No pictures of that guy. There were two smaller ones but one must have died.

I'm also down another male guppy. Now just five blue dwarfs. Not sure what happened to it but I took the lid off and looked through the plants, moving leaves aside with a skewer- didn't find anything. Also didn't find one of the amano shrimp, so guess he was hiding with a nice big meal he secured for himself.

moved the small guys

I put my amano shrimps into tanks- two in the tenner and two in the window tank. Since there's not fish that will eat them (no betta, no paradise fish) right now, I figured they can help clear out the thread/hair algae, I can never get it all by hand. Also, now I can see them and find some amusement watching their busy antics. I dropped a few more snails in the 1.5 gal bowl to keep it going meanwhile...

In the tenner:

A day later there's significantly less algae on the sponge filter already!

Pics of the two in the 33L, among the blue buce 'Selena'

under a crypt

walking over the rock I failed to grow moss on

and through the standard vals (one has finally grown full tank height!)

blending in against the rock behind buce 'green wavy'

creeping back into the sagittaria thicket (growing up steadily!)

bonus pic of the buces in my tenner flowering