it's all in buckets again

My 33 gallon tank - sigh -

Because of this:

I'm paranoid I guess. It could be nothing- cosmetic flaw only- and the fact that I haven't seen any sign of leaks yet points to that. BUT- it could be a weakened seam that will slowly give way and bust open several years down the road. And I can't stand worrying about that every time I look at my tank, instead of enjoying it. I'm taking it in for a replacement today. It means all day work teardown and setup again.

The cycle had almost finished- nitrites dropped suddenly from being off-the-chart to less than 0.25ppm yesterday. I was ready and poised to do the big water change, clean up the plants, and introduce the paradise fishes a day later. Now it will be a bit longer. Better safe than sorry, though. It would always be on my mind if I didn't replace it now.

I've done something different with my paradise fish in the basement. Every day I put a few drops of water from each fish tank into the other- so they can get each other's scent and hormones or whatever. I am curious if it would be helpful for the introduction, and it does get a reaction. The female tries even harder to get through the glass and flexes her lips at Perry. The male doesn't extend his mouth, but flares his tail while turning colors pale. I am still wondering if this will work out... . . .

the 45 is ready-

I've been running it for three months now. My youngest, and my husband, keep asking me when I'm going to get the angelfish. I'm pleased with the tangle of pothos roots, the arrangement of sticks (more or less) and how the tank performs with leaf litter- it continues to have only 5-10 nitrates end of each week, and the kuhlis seem to kick up enough mulm out from under the leaf litter when they energetically go searching for food, to keep it picked up by the filters. I would still rather wait for the apple snail to meet its natural end, although aqadvisor tells me I am totally fine with the stocking level.

I've found some nice young 'wild type' silvers at the lfs next town over...

more little houseplants

Last month visited a beautiful public garden with my sister and mom. At the gift shop I dithered a long time but finally bought two small houseplant starts: 'goldfish plant'

the flowers supposedly look like fishes-

and 'lipstick plant' which will have similar flowers, but red.

My small medinilla velvet philodendron is finally showing some growth.

demise

Last week I went through the garden with a trash bag. I pulled up nearly all the borage, all the potato plants, all the bolting lettuce, most of the flowering arugula. They all seem to have this nasty wilt disease, and I got sick of looking at them. Trying to keep my green beans going, but they look worse every day. I'm still not sure if it is a virus spread by insects, or bacterial wilt. If it is wilt, that pathogen is harbored in the soil, and the cure is to cease growing anything susceptible to it for three years. No potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, squashes or melons, borage, lettuce, etc. etc. The list goes on and on.  (My tomatoes and cucumbers seem to be doing fine in their pots, this year).

So far the carrots, beets, chard and most of the herbs seem untouched. Maybe next year I will mostly grow flowers. I'm tired of tearing out plants.

shrimp catch and other stuff

The 20H had not quite been cycled, but I had the fishes back in so I was doing daily wc to remove nitrites, while the amano shrimps were in the betta tank where its safer. 20 stabilized day before yesterday, so I caught the shrimps and moved them back. Except I missed one. Saw it this morning. It has a ton of hiding places in the betta tank, but I found that if I just put a small pellet of food in the net, let it sit on the bottom and wait patiently a few minutes, the shrimp will walk right in.

My serpaes are a little worse for wear with bitten fins they look a bit shabby now. They seem to have rearranged their hierarchy during the disruption- Dot and Truck are now the untouched fish. (Most of them have reached their adult coloring, I have trouble telling Spark apart from Diamond sometimes). I feel bad the plants are so sparse, I might put a few plastic plants in there to give them more sense of security, while the crypts are regrowing. And yeah, the old media is still throughout the tank- now that it's finally cycled I will start removing a portion every other week or so.

I don't have a light on this tank yet, and I haven't fed the plants, either- surprisingly they seem to be doing fine so far. I would not have expected it, but my dwarf sword is the only one not melting and shedding leaves.

mantis

Saw this little predator in the turtlehead the other day. Just twice the size of the last one I spotted (maybe it is the same individual). It was under a leaf (I rotated the image)

which I slowly turned over so I could get a better photo,

before it leaped away from me.

a hummingbird visited my yard

I saw it very briefly- and wondered (like last time) what is that huge hovering insect? then realized it was a hummingbird the moment it flew away. It was at the celosia- which are short, just up to my hip- but still funky and bright.

I finally have tithonia flowers! The plants are just four feet high, though.

My 'autumn joy' sedum are starting to bloom

Not a big show, but the blue hosta are flowering too.

A plant that never flowered for me yet- the miniature geranium. It sure seems healthy this summer, though.

some regrowth

33 is still cycling. Plants are doing better than I expected. The new leaf on crypt cordata was already there when I moved the plant, so I feared it would loose that and start over- but instead the leaf is slowly unfurling. It's adjusted well.

I also thought the change would be a bit hard on my aponogeton capuronii. Yes, a lot of the leaves are turning brown and melting, but a good number have kept their green, and there is a tiny new spear of leaf in the center. You cannot see it, but behind the capruonii near the substrate I have wedged the last piece of moss shelf I tried to make. It all died in the old 38, and most of it died in the 20H after the changes. There are just a few strands left on one plastic mesh shelf, which I moved in here for the heck of it. But I don't want to look at the plastic part, so I hid it.

Crinum has a new leaf emerging!

Crypt becketti is doing great

Crypt willisii holding on

Crypt undulata had the worst melt, it's also in a spot hard to get a photo of. But even that one has some new leaf growth.

Vals had such severe melt for a few days it was just a mess of brown yuck. Now springing back!

I thought ludwigia were doing fine, but new leaves on top of the stems are much brighter, showing me they had some adjustment to go through as well.

Awkward side view of that

Hornwort was so lovely, now it looks sparse.

Salvinia minima doing great, though.

Not sure why most of it seems clustered in the same corner as the filter.

New roots busting out on sweet potato vine all across the back of the tank.

I haven't cleaned up any dying plant mess because I figure the decay is feeding the cycle. It's sure feeding the snails (along with the bit of fish food I drop in each day). Ramshorns are multiplying. Well, if they start to decrease in numbers when the paradise fish go in, I'll know for sure they're getting eaten.

paradise fish update

The female's head is healed. She is very interested in Perry- emphatically tries to swim at him through the glass, so much I worry she may break her face. I can't tell if she's just eager to be with him, or wants to attack.

He alternates between calmly eyeing her

and flaring his gorgeous tail

Of the two he certainly seems less aggressive, but I will have a divider and a net handy, and keep the 10 cycled and running, in case I do need to separate them (which would be such a shame, after all the effort). Their intended home, the 33 long, is still cycling- high on nitrites. Plants are growing back, though!

plants plants

A few of them. I've moved my zebrina into a larger pot, taken cuttings and planted them. It's thriving. (Other things are not: I've once again killed an ivy plant. And my mimosa continues to drop yellowed, lower leaves even though I changed its location and watering).

I've also potted up all the creeping charlie cuttings into one, larger container. They're doing really well this time around. I've learned (from experience) that zebrina cuttings seem to take better if I plant them as soon as a bit of root is showing, and then keep the soil damp. Charlie plants on the other hand, do better if I leave them in the jar of water until it is tangled with white roots, and plant them much later.

My purple-edged african violet is in full bloom!

orange-lime coleus now situated under the window tank seems happy enough (its coloring very different from the same plant outside)

Here on the edge of the garden is the 'gay's delight' coleus- doing really well with all the recent rain.

Its scion indoors still looks good, too.

'watermelon' coleus also on the edge of the garden- has grown so large I've started pinching.

The one coleus I am not happy with this year, is the one similar to 'watermelon' but with white centers- it just does not grow well for me. The indoor pot of it I have, the leaf edges keep drying and curling under. I still have a few in the back garden I forgot to ever dig into the soil.

Looking over this spot- a lot of things have failed. Rubarb is struggling again, looks decimated by slugs. I've got the mealy bug under control that was attacking my echinacea and black-eyed susan.  Here on the side, nicotiana is finally getting larger, but I don't know if they will flower for me this year.

I showed my fishes to each other

I thought it might help them get acquainted through the glass. I moved Perry's bin downstairs to sit next to the females' ten gallon QT. Since the salvinia minima is starting to look poorly, and it would have even less light downstairs, I took all the floaters out of the bin and put them in the cycling tank. And because I had removed so much of Perry's plants, I put into his bin a small reserve sponge filter out of the 45, on a splitter from the same air pump that runs the QT. It was a bit of disruption for Perry, he hid behind the old filter media panel in his bin, so I kept a cardboard panel between the tanks, and left them alone for half the day.

Late afternoon, Perry was acting perky again, coming up to the bin sides looking interested, when a person approached. I slid the cardboard panel out to see how they'd react. They noticed each other right away. The female colored up- red tail and stripes showing! My photos are poor due to the low light and semi-translucent sides of the bin but here's what I got- female:

Perry displayed too, stunning fish. They swam up and down the sides eyeing each other and flaring, instensely interested.

I tried to get a few photos of them looking at each other through the sides, that was difficult to catch.

The female was curving her body towards him, and sometimes waggling her tail. I don't know what that body language means, but at some point they both just sort of stopped- each lying near the bottom on their side, facing each other, not moving. I wondered if Perry was feeling overwhelmed, or tired from the excitement? When I put the partition up again, the female soon relaxed, dulled her colors and swam around her tank again, kept coming back to the side where she'd last seen Perry, as if wondering where he went.

Perry remained very still on the bottom for much longer. Then he went and hid behind the old media panel again. I don't know if any of this indicates they will get along or not, but I'm giving them a good break for now and will see how they react again later. It's probably going to be several more days before the cycle in the new tank finishes; if they can get used to the sight of each other in the meantime, then I hope things will go smoother when I actually introduce them into the same tank.