halfway

My 33L is about half empty now- 

it's mostly just vals and crypts left. 

and some bolbitis fern- I did always love the bolbitis

The largest one was starting to do poorly in the spare 20H tank- where I had a spotlight on it to show people, but it wasn't getting any indirect sun. 

So I moved it into a bin by the window. Easy enough to move it back into the empty show tank if needed.

Yesterday I sold off the rest of the buces and anubias- including some very tiny ones (buce 'green wavy' on the left here and anubias nana 'pangolino' on the right):

This was one of my prize plants, even though it had some leaves marred with algae- a nice clump of anubias 'pangolino'. I never got it to do that characteristic overlapping scale look with the leaves, but still I thought it an attractive specimen.

And this was one of my tiniest plants- I think it's anubias nana petite- as that's one I originally got as a tissue culture, and this has the clumpy growth habit typical of those.

I did try to look back on my record here and figure out the names of all the plant varieties I had, but lost the mental energy to track them all down. Glad that I found a few local people who like me just wanted to grow pretty or interesting plants in their aquariums, not so hung up on the actual names and rarity or whatnot. So I've had some happy customers, even a few people who came back for more plants, and I hope to move the rest of them within a week or two.

I do have more pictures but that's enough for now.

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.

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.

golden sisters

I didn't write about this before, because it just made me too sad. A few weeks ago, my favorite angelfish Miss Beautiful died. I hadn't even noticed she was unwell but that morning she was hiding low in plants when I fed the tank, didn't come out. I saw her down there looking as if struggling to swim, but going nowhere. Crashed. Looked closer saw her fins were ragged too. I tested the water- nitrates between ten and twenty. Did a partial water change. But that night she died. It happened when we were watching television in the same room. I looked in during a break, and she was unmoving. Lifted her out into a paper towel and buried under a hydrangea. 

I don't think I could have saved her. She'd been unhealthy for so long, these last few weeks of neglect were just the end. Now only the two gold angels in there, and three kuhli loaches still. I'm feeling very despondent about the tank. Some of my plants are doing poorly too (but the hornwort is really thriving!)

I am undecided what to do about the other fishes. In the past three months, my maintenance has slid to water changes once every other week, or once every ten, twelve days at best. It's not enough. I do ask for help but the response is "do we have to do that today?" or "can't it wait until the weekend" and then it ends up being two weeks again. I just got re-evaluated by the doctor and have to take it easy, do physical therapy for the next six weeks, for my ankle. I want to keep up with tank care like my usual standard, but I have a feeling of dread that in spite of best intentions, I simply won't be able to.

The white clouds in my window tank seem to be much tougher- they're even still breeding and there's two half-grown fry, one much smaller a few weeks old now, and several more just little specks with tails in there. I am sure Tucker my paradise fish is suffering from the lack of steady water changes, too- his color is fading again and tail fin lost its filament.

But I feel worse to see the angelfishes suffer. My gold sisters both have missing filments now, too- Shirley has a small fungal patch on her caudal fin and maybe some white showing on the lips. One of them has ragged edges on the pectoral fins- and they both have that ominous flush of inflammation near the spine behind dorsal which makes me think they're ill the same way Miss Beautiful was. (Also makes me think now that Miss Beautiful's broken pectoral fins weren't from crashing into tank walls after all - I've never seen these golden angels dash across the tank in fright like she used to- but probably from bad condition)

I was thinking to just sell the tank and re-home the fishes, hoping someone else can give them better care- but I feel guilty to dump my problem on someone else. Now considering to transfer the two angels in my spare 20H, strip and disinfect the 55. The 20 is a lot smaller, but will be easier for me to keep up on the water changes, maybe I can get them back into good enough health to re-home confidently.

Crazy thing is that, even though they look ill to me, they've finally settled their differences (there was lots of angry rushes at each other lately) and are in breeding mood. Just yesterday Shirley was laying eggs (and Precious eating them immediately). So I tell myself- they can't be doing too badly?

Kuhlis look just fine. Fat and active as ever. And I still think some of the plants are beautiful.

angel relationships

My angelfish attempted breeding again- I say 'attempted' because they're all female, so when two pair off, one lays eggs and the other just protects the area from the third. (My kids think it's hilarious that I have lesbian fish). They usually only do this when food is rich- if I've been giving them flies or frozen mysis shrimp, etc. It's always been Miss Beautiful and the golden Precious before, with Precious laying the eggs. This time I was surprised- after some threats and chasing around the tank (which I didn't pay much attention to) in the previous week, Miss Beautiful paired off with Shirley, and my older angel laid the eggs

on aponogeton bolivianus leaf.

Shirley helped clean the leaf and chase Precious away on the first day. Next day shirked her duties and hung out in the opposite corner,

while Miss Beautiful continued to fan the eggs futilely. A day later they were eaten, of course. It made me sad to watch Miss Beautiful working so hard, with her truncated pectoral fins. (She hasn't run into the walls for a very long time now, but they never grew back completely after the last time were damaged).

I'm curious why they switched pairs, and also why Miss Beautiful was the one to lay this time- but of course I'll never know. Did Miss Beautiful get tired of Precious? Did she decide it wasn't working so time to change partners? Is she dominant in the pairing with Shirley, so she got to lay this time? No idea how they work that out between them, just interesting to think about.