kuhli scrum

There are several areas in my tank where I can drop sinking food and the kuhlis will get a large portion of it, because the barbs don't like crowding down among thickly grown stems. The "grassy corner" with vallisneria and crypts balansae and retrospiralis. The opposite corner where elodea grows. And today I discovered another good spot, where windelov fern is near the front tank wall. Black kuhlis were the first there- and they were all over that food.

Tiger showed up next.

By the time Albert arrived, the six kuhlis pretty much kept the food entirely covered with their writhing bodies, so the barbs couldn't get it.

I admit I helped them hog the advantage- every time I leaned into to get a close look or snap a photo the barbs would scatter in alarm. Kuhlis, unfazed, kept eating away.

I haven't had so much fun watching them eat since I used to put food under a rock. Lookit Albert's little eyes!

Seen from above.

This picture is pretty funny- the black kuhli's posture makes his barbels look like fangs threatening the smallest cherry male- haha.

Of course eventually the loaches themselves pushed the food out into an open area, and the barbs got their share.

palm 'flowers'

A beautiful new leaf, opening like a fan.

My parlor palms have produced these funny bead-studded flower stalks again.

It seems they do it every year in january.

Kind of hard to see, but this plant has two!

bucephalandra in my tenner

Taking a look at how they are all doing. This is one of my favorites, a thin-leaved blue one that I have on a stone. It's grown enough I'm thinking of taking a cutting from the tallest stem.

Another one that's grown significantly- this bright green one (on the right) is the tiny bit that grew off a dead-looking rhizome fragment.

'Selena' is another one of my favorites- but I'm not sure why some of its leaves are looking brown. Maybe too much mulm settled on the and blocked light? or just an older leaf the plant will drop.

Happiest, these two among the marsilea hirsuta, are from the group I pulled out of the thirty-eight and treated for BBA with amano shrimp in a vase. It worked. They have stayed algae-free and are growing out new roots and leaves in here.

anubias flower!

Flower on my anubias afzelii got taller

and yesterday it started opening-

it kind of unfurling at the tip. I've seen pictures of this but never really expecting mine to do such a thing.

notes on the tank

Trying to make more small improvements to my routine. I cleaned the glass lid of the thirty-eight last week; had always thought some obscurity was fine for my low-light low-tech tank but plants are looking even better this week so maybe that is one of the small things that helps. Certainly nicer to look down into the tank occasionally when the glass doesn't have hard-water deposits fogging it up. It took some doing to get most of it off- algae scrubber pad, vinegar which I left on for five minutes, and plastic fake-credit card. One area I wasn't able to get entirely clean, but it's much better.

I'm leaving a bigger gap of time between dosing macros and micros, and keeping up the back-to-normal increased micro dose (just under 10ml for the tenner, approx 30ml on the thirty-eight). I used to dose macros after everything was done for maintenance, then do cleanup, then come back and dose micros. I'd been told that with such a small dose (1/3 EI) it didn't matter to dose the macros and micros at same time- although usually it is recommended to do micros the next day. Now I'm dosing the macros before I'm even done with all the maintenance- and wait longer afterwards to add the micros- at least twenty, thirty minutes. I think it's made an improvement. I'm seeing regular pearling in both tanks after the water changes.

Some of the plants appear healthier- hornwort is growing faster and has thicker, stronger needles. Ludwigia and echinodorus in my main tank are finally showing some growth and not discarding as many leaves. My crypt wendtii has three baby plants right now, both clusters of green crypts have several babies and the newer crypt petchii each have a baby offshoot as well (here below right of the parent crypt petchii- just above the subwassertang):

Unrelated plus: the stone of flame moss is growing up from its glued pieces, laid down in lines. Just like I'd hoped, the tiny new shoots are growing up at intervals along the pieces, not just the ends, so I think it will end up nice and thick.

Flame moss strips are all growing out tall enough I could trim and make new stones . . . . I don't really like looking at those white strips though, so I've moved them behind the subwasser baskets so they lie between other plants and aren't as noticeable.

Last time I redid subwasser baskets kept the trimmings in a plastic jar on top of the tank- just behind the light strip. I had quit keeping it in a jar on windowsill for the winter, because it was looking poorly- probably from the cold. I thought this jar on top of the tank might not stay warm enough or get enough light, but to my surprise those subwassertang bits look great and have been pearling on a regular basis (not just on water change day). I'm keeping them to grow out enough to sell again.

Apono capuronii is getting taller and taller.

For a moment today one leaf bent down in front of the bacopa, and it looked pretty the textures together.

Side shot:

Full tank shot. I'm a bit concerned that the barbs seem to hang out in front of the filter outflow a lot, and sometimes I see them at the surface as if for air. Worry that my use of the sponge to block Tiger escaping has reduced surface movement enough that the barbs don't have enough oxygen at certain times of the day...?

say hello to the little guys

Saw some interesting behavior when I first introduced my new striped kuhli loaches into the tank (a week ago now). Usually the kuhlis seem to just bump past each other without noticing the other one is there- but this time I saw one of the black kuhlis had his body perpendicular to a new striped one, and he moved all down the striped kuhli mouthing its body. Never saw that before- not sure what they were doing but it looked like the resident kuhli was inspecting the new one...

I managed to get a few pictures of the new ones.

You can see why I call this one Tiger! The stripes go almost completely around its belly, from the side it looks solid. There's a black spot with a 'y' shape of orange in its middle, so easy to tell them apart.

The other new kuhli is a bit yellower, and all its stripes are fairly even. Named Sassy. My five-year-old is happy I pointed out to her which is which- she likes to peer around the tank to find each kuhli by name (and count shrimps). Sassy had pale fungus-looking marks on his (her?) head when first came into my tank, but since the extra water changes that seems cleared up.

I'm wondering now what kind of kuhli Albert actually is. His background color is almost white, and he's got spots on his belly. Quite unlike the others.

Here's Albert, a black kuhli and Tiger in the same picture- you can see how different their colors and patterns are.

Closeup of Albert's pattern- his black stripes/splotches seem to have widened so the white in between is very narrow and some are converging. It's interesting.

And here's a shrimp.

Starting to get a little fond of these guys. Managed to count five the other day, so perhaps I have not lost so many as I thought!

sansevieria

Here's a plant I rarely post about. A year ago I thought it was going to die from rot. Glad to see it recovered and grew a new leaf.

Look at it now! The new shoot is almost as tall as the original. It seems stripier too, and doesn't have the yellow margin. Do I have two kinds of sansevieria in one pot? or will it gain the yellow edge when the leaf matures.

morphing

That weed I harbor is changing its shape again.

I expect it thinks of springtime because it sits next to the heat vent, maybe it is shooting tall to flower soon.

tiny flame moss rock

With some trimmings of flame moss out of my tenner, I did one more painstakingly small glue job. I dipped the ends of the cuttings into superglue, the held them onto a small flat stone to stand upright, glued just at the base.

It is definitely more of an instant effect, looking like grass! here dropped into container of water I had on hand to keep the moss damp and test how well it adhered-

I think of all the micro photos I've managed to take, these are my favorites:

but it's kinda messy with the white glue blobs. That's noticeable once it is in the tank. Here next to the pebble I made the week before.

The plastic strips of flame moss are starting to grow out-

Kuhli for scale.

wintering stevia

My stevia is doing pretty well indoors this winter. It has grown enough to start flowering again. I pinched off the tiny white stars

and took cuttings to dry for sweetener again.

I bet it will grow back enough for at least two more cuttings before spring and transitioning to stay outdoors again.