black gold

I've been getting antsy to harvest the vermicompost. After three weeks away it looked like most of the bedding was consumed and there's very little room left, so I left the worms unfed for another week in preparation to move them into the empty bin. Have been shredding cardboard in the meantime. Soaked it overnight in bucket of fish water. Turns out I needn't have bothered. When I started really digging into the bin and turning things over, found a lot of carboard bedding still there. I was too far into the project at that point to quit, so kept going.

It was funny to see all the leggy seedlings that sprouted in the bin (from discarded hamster food):

There are two tiny baby worms on my finger on the right. I've found some even smaller.

I tried to use this method of making hills to let the worms sort themselves: they move down away from the light. But they weren't moving down much, every time I lifted the top handful off (after an hour at the longest wait) I ended up with clumps of worms. It was a bit overcast so I waited for the sun to come out- then they moved down into the piles, but it also got above 86° which can kill them. So then I was working quickly, to get done before the heat got worse. After trying a few different ways to sort the worms and lumps out, found it was easiest to work my hands through the pile on the ground, sorting clumps of unfinished compost and bedding by feel, then pick the worms out. In the end I sifted it all by hand. It was very tedious, but also kind of satisfying to hold loose handfuls of worms and feel their liveliness turning and tickling on my skin. Found tons of small worms and babies- tried to save every one but later when using the stuff rescued a few more. Didn't bother saving the eggs, that seemed pointless. They will surely make more.

When I put the worms and unfinished stuff back into the bin, fluffed up with the new prepared bedding, it was nearly full again! The amount of compost I got out filled about a third of the old bin.

I've already applied it, top-dressing all the plants (except those that will be repotted very soon). I hope they like the stuff and will reward me with health and new, vibrant growth! Seems like I need to wait longer before trying to harvest again, or give them more time to process everything (maybe leaving unfed a whole month?) I wouldn't mind if I only get one harvest a year, this amount was more than I needed for all my houseplants and tiny balcony garden. But I'd like to manage things so that it occurs in springtime, when the plants naturally have a growth spurt.

I helped my daughter repot and top-dress some of her plants too (future post) and the rest of this will go to my boyfriend's garden to give his hostas a boost.

new green

I'm happy to report the Oregano is growing back strongly now. In fact, I'm going to have to move the pot and find space for it at the balcony's edge. The little stems are all leaning forwards to reach the light.

coleus

I've moved this plant outside. Most people seem to grow it in yards anyways, although I doubt it would survive the winter here. But it likes strong light and I've run out of space on my windowsills. It's already getting stronger color from being out there two days, though I worry it could catch an infestation of whitefly or spider mites from the other balcony plants...

I've got cuttings of it in a windowsill jar in the kitchen; if it does get a bad case of bugs, I can always just start over with the cuttings.

nerite

I finally got a better picture of the new Snail.

And the other day when picked up meds for the main tank, got another Nerite for the 10gal. This one seems much more active already- it was climbing the side of floating baggie long before being let out into the tank. Photos of this one came out better.

I miss the ramshorn, but never see those for sale.

fish notes

Positives today: I took the chance of moving Flash into the 10gal. It was either watch him pine away and die from a poor environment, or move him into the good home and perhaps he will die from the stress. So I moved him.

Bought a bigger air pump for the tank, the one I had was for 5gal and wanted to be assured I had enough water circulation in there. He is improving a bit- eating more, moving around more alert, color much better too. Looks interested in things again, even tries to follow the barbs around sometimes, not sure if this is aggression or just curiosity. It looks tiring- he doesn't seem able to use his tail much, holds his body stiff and bent, but propels his pectoral fins constantly. Still has clamped fins- not sure if he's going to recover fully.

The two little barbs in here are funny. I've noticed that the male acts like my biggest cherry male Sangre in the 20gal now- he follows the female about, wiggling his fins at her in a twitchy way. I think it's some kind of display. They fairly zip about when he's chasing her. I guess he's the dominant fish now, at least among those two.

I put a slice of zucchini in the larger tank yesterday. First the cherry barbs swarmed over to look at it, tried to nibble, I couldn't tell if they were actually getting anything. Then the siamese algae eaters discovered it, and they were on that vegetable constantly until I pulled it several hours later. Even the oto Tilda came over and scraped on it for a bit, and Pinkie swam down with his leisurely turns to see what all the other fish were doing I guess. I finally able to get a few good pics of the siamese fish. My nine-year-old named them Caleb and Noodle.

Bad news is I think there's ich in the 20gal. Several days ago saw two white spots on Caleb's tail, although hard to tell because his fins are clear. The next day one spot, next day none. But occasionally both siamese fish glance or flash, twisting a jerky motion against objects as if to scrape something from their skin. Pinkie has been awfully skittish lately as well, and I thought I saw him glancing too- dashing around the tank almost bouncing off objects, then suddenly calm normal movements again. I've picked up some meds, but the fish man (pet store guy who unlike most seems very experienced and knowledgeable, he told me lots of stuff -has been keeping fish since he was a kid and you can tell) told me with a mild case a steady high temperature for a week should kill the ich. (Salt works but will damage or kill my plants and harm the snail). So over the past few days I have inched the temperature up from 76° to 86°. Higher temperature means less oxygen available in the water, I've removed the baffle and lowered the water level. (My Danios are bigger now, they don't seem to risk getting stuck to the filter again). So far no one is gasping at the surface, although the oto and siamese algae eaters dart up now and then for an extra breath. Also am doing a small (20%) water change each day to keep it very clean, although this is a setback to my latest realization (I keep learning things!)

Which is: my plants grew so much while I was gone -the crypt wendtii in particular- because the nitrates built up to 40- good for the plants! So I think I have been cleaning a bit too well, for the benefit of the plants. Maybe need to just siphon off water and not gravel vac as much, although I read that can allow toxic gas to build up in the substrate. A typical solution is malaysian trumpet snails, which aerate the gravel bed, but they can be very invasive... not sure how to balance this but am thinking about it all...

more changes

Because I keep thinking how things could be better, and then I just want to do them. So I moved the driftwood piece with Java Fern back into the 20gal. The fish actually seemed glad, or at least eager to examine it for edibles. Barbs, Siamese A Eaters and Tilda swarmed all over it.

Here you can see both the Siam fish nibbling on the same leaf (with photo bombs by the dashing Cherry Barb!).

It makes the tank look better, too. Not so empty. Now the small dark mass of one Crypt Wendtii on one side is visually balanced by the larger mass of the planted driftwood and second Crypt on the right. I like it.

I still want some Java Fern in the 10gal so I've tried tying a few small rhizomes onto stones.

The leafy plants in the back right corner are plastic. Needed something to fill the space. I'm sure I cleaned them well when they came out of the QT tank before, but did it again just to be sure- an hour soaking in hot diluted bleach water bath, rinsing under running tapwater and two more soaks in hot water triple-dosed with conditioner. Until not the faintest smell of chlorine remains.

Now I'm going to leave it all alone for a good long while. (I think I've said that before).

tickle plant

My daughter brought home a pot sown with seed from summer camp. She says it's called "sensitive plant" and when you touch it, the leaves fold shut. Sounds like (and looks like) a species of Mimosa.

mints!

It seems the Mints outside are okay. Top leaves nice and green. Bare stems all the way down, but I can cut them back later. I think they dropped leaves just out of stress from the move. My cuttings have all sprouted roots

so I stuck them into the main pots today.

I'm especially glad of the Chocolate Mint, can't wait to have that tea again!

aponogeton

I'm making a separate post just about this plant because I love it so much. I really want it to be the main feature of my future tank.

This is my plan: to grow out the Aponogeton while I look for an affordable thirty or even fifty gallon tank. Because the fish I've always wanted are the ones I had in my teens: wild-type Scalare, or Angelfish. But they don't do well in anything smaller than a 30gal (even though I kept mine in a 10gal for about ten years! I didn't know better back then). So I wait. I want them to look lovely against the large ruffled amazon sword, and to have the proper space. Plus I haven't seen the kind I like in the two shops I frequent. They always have veiltails or mottled angels, ones that are all white or even with spots. I like the classic wild-type best. Am patient to find some, even if I have to order them online directly from a breeder.

In the meantime, I have also realized I'm not too fond of the Cherry Barb. They're certainly hardy, and it's amusing when they nibble on the freckle on my arm, if I put my hand in the tank. But I don't really like the look of orange and red fishes in there, against the brown gravel. I love the blues of Pinkie. After more reading and looking at pictures, plus thinking about my basic water pH- very hard, especially since I moved the driftwood out- maybe I should put the piece with Java Fern back in... - I would like to have blue Platyfish. There are blue wag platies and blue mickmouse platies, but they aren't very common and I haven't found any yet. (I've already got someone who will adopt my cherry barbs when I find the platies).

But this isn't about scalare I don't have or platies I might want! It's about my Aponogeton. The two more mature plants, that came to me without many browned leaves, are starting to look really lovely.

Of the smaller ones, most of the browned leaves have melted away by now. New foliage is growing- in this second-biggest one, it's finally got one leaf large enough to have the ruffled edge.

There are five others, but very small- they lost most of their leaves when shipped and have been a lot slower to recover- probably because they didn't have the greenery to feed themselves. The smallest one keeps getting uprooted by the Siamese A Eaters nibbling on it. I had to put some of the largest pebbles around it to hold it down.

the aquarium plants

So now my 20 gal tank looks very sparse again, but I can admire the plants better.

Picture taken without the light; I had an algae bloom during the three weeks' absence (probably because the snail died) and did a three-day lights-out to kill it. Hopefully this didn't set my plants back any.

Quite the opposite, when I compare to older photos I'm amazed at the growth in some of them. The Amazon Sword in particular, one seems to be very happy with its spot. It's grown twice the size of the other in just a few weeks. Second photo you can see them side by side.

I rearranged a few plants after moving the driftwood and Anubias out; the Rotala in two main groupings now, looking nice.

I'm very pleased with the Cryptocoryne Wendtii. Looking at older photos, these plants have filled out amazingly, and all the new growth is broader leaves, close to the substrate. So I think the light source is stronger than I had assumed. One plant also has three baby offshoots growing near its base!

newbies

I went to the pet shop the other day. Intending to just get a new snail, but came home with a bit more than that! I did get a snail- they don't have ramshorns but I got a Nerite. It's smaller than the ramshorn was, a vivid orange color with black spots. I've read that these kind of snails are excellent at cleaning up algae. This is the only good picture I have of him so far. You'd think that with the bright color it would be easy to find this snail all the time, but it digs itself into the gravel sometimes, so I can't always locate it in the tank easily.

Also I got two Siamese Algae Eaters. I am pretty sure they are Crossocheilus siamensis, even though the pet shop called them Flying Fox, which could name any one of another different species. They have identifying them the clear fins, stripe goes all the way through the tail, one set of barbels, not a sucker mouth, no golden stripe. I've always wanted to have a flying fox or siamese algae eater, but never saw them in the shop before (more often they have chinese algae eaters which grow a lot bigger and tend to sucker onto other fish, consuming the slime coat. I actually saw one doing this to a gourami in a shop tank once). These siamese fish are great algae eaters, eat brush and hair algae (which most other fish and snails won't touch) and are friendly, schooling species. Mine certainly do stick close to each other. I can see them constantly moving around nibbling on surfaces, and am surprised at how quickly the plants got cleaned off. I haven't seen the Watersprite look so brightly colored in a long time.

In fact, they've got things so clean that Tilda seems a bit frantic searching for algae to eat now. I put stones back in from the water-jar-in-windowsill setup, and the oto was all over that.

the ten

I've been preoccupied with some new occupants. And some rearranging. And future plans. I've been wanting for a long time to get a 10 gallon tank for my betta Flash to live in, and I finally did it.

Observing the aquarium plants more I realize that the Java Fern and Anubias can do fine in lower light, in fact they grow so slowly that the faster growing algae coats them alarmingly. So I have moved all those plants into the new 10gal, am not planning to put a direct light source on there. I think (from how well the Java Moss does on its own) that these two kinds of plants will do fine in here without the extra equipment. No added nutrients either; just fish waste. I plan to add a nerite or ramshorn snail to help control the algae, but for now it's just got the two smallest Cherry Barb which I moved over.

Minimal setup. Besides the plants, with all the driftwood they're tied to, it's got running the small sponge filter which has sat collecting bacteria in the bigger tank for months now, and a heater too. I figure all those items would bring over enough beneficial bacteria that the tank is pretty much instantly cycled, and so far that seems to be the case. I've been checking every day and so far there is no ammonia or nitrite spike. The Barbs are a little shy, but look just fine.

It's a bare-bottom tank. I just want to try that out. My plan is for this tank to just house one betta and a snail or two, so there won't be a huge bio-load. And almost to my surprise I find that I like the way it looks, very elegant somehow. There is another, aesthetic reason I moved those certain plants over. I find that I prefer looking down on the Anubias then straight at them from the side. They're prettier that way!

Flash

is still not doing well. Most of the time his home looks like this:

out of sight, crashed on the bottom. I worry that his health is ruined, that I should put him out of his misery. After the usual friday cleaning and water change (when I added a low dose of aquarium salt) he seemed a little better- moving around, coming over with interest when I am near the bowl again. But still misses when he tries to eat half the time, spits his bites back out, sinks down to the bottom again.

I have a new home ready for him, but worry that the stress of moving into it might well kill him.

oregano

it's growing! Among the stems, tiny new green leaves. But I've failed with this before, so not getting too hopeful yet...

my boston

The one remaining Fern I have. At least it's still alive! And putting forth new growth.