fall weather

Nights have started to get cooler. I've started mulching the garden with leaf compost, and clearing out the weeds. They're numerous but small, didn't crop up until end of the season- that's how long the bamboo leaf mulch kept them down.

Pulled the rest of my carrots, there's a few beets left. Cut down most of the cosmos- two are still flowering a little.

I need to eat- or cut and store in the fridge- my green onions, they made a nice thick stand in the middle of my herb bed and I hate to waste all that goodness but don't cook recipes with them that often.

I've cut back some of the sage. Rue is doing fantastic- need to learn how to propagate that plant. Especially if its the one keeping rabbits away- I see them in the back yard near the fence but never so far up as the garden- either it's my cat's presence, or the rue, marigolds and 'scat plant' in my garden...

The chill last night withered some of my coleus. The pink 'watermelon' one in a pot was just done for, I composted it, glad I've already got cuttings established in the house. 'Gay delight' its tops withered but not badly, I cut it back and brought inside in case I can keep it going as a 'stump'. The 'kiwi fern' coleus under the deck is still fine (must be more protected there) and the ones in front of the house are just starting to look poorly but not hard hit yet.

Those in the back perennial bed their tops withered and I cut off the tops of stems with blackened leaf edges.

'Scat plant' cutting I added to the rear side of this back bed are doing pretty well. I'm gong to heap them high with mulch and see if they make it through winter. Can't stand the smell of the plant in the house, I've already learned!

Indoors, my scented geranium has died. It was looking bad with yellowing, dropping foliage and I thought I was overwatering it. So I held back for a while but now it dried up too much and looks done for. Disappointed- I did like that plant but it never did well since I brought it indoors. Must look for another specimen in spring.

angelfish update

After several days apart, both my angelfishes seem a lot calmer. Skye looks content solo in the 20H- doesn't hide as much as I expected (the tank is right by my front door). For a day after the separation I was concerned because although the fish was able to eat, never moved the mouth -as if stuck in position half-open- and gill movement very subtle. However now it uses the mouth again, although still can't close it all the way. Looks like it might be okay.

Mr. Beautiful, I'm not sure what's up with that fish. Still often has washed-out stripes and startles easy.

The day after I split the fish up, it seemed very nervous while feeding- would make quick dashes to grab food from the surface and dart away again, even splashing water out of the tank it was so hasty. It colored up better when tank lights were off for the day. Next morning I went to sit and observe the angelfish while the tank lights were revving up. I sat nearby like I often do and while Mr. Beautiful came up to the front, stripes washed out. After a while my cat came over and walked about in front of the tank (ignoring the fish). Angelfish watched the cat. Cat came over to me and I began petting him, in long strokes across the body. The movement of my arm made the angelfish freak out. It dashed away back and forth across the back wall in a panic even bumped against the tank wall several times I could hear it.

I don't know why the fish is still uneasy. Water parameters are fine (nitrates at ten). Maybe I need to remove the leaf litter? or do the kuhlis bother it? (although it doesn't seem to notice, never goes pale when they swarm around the tank). Maybe I need to put more floaters in (the frogbit is still sparse) or add more tall plants (crypt balansae one leaf is nearly half the tank height, but it will take a while to fill in).

Today it was better- bold stripes more often than not, came up to greet me and beg, didn't act nervous while feeding. Maybe it just took more time to get over the stress of its objectionable companion being caught. I'm debating now, if I should try again with another angel, or add some blackskirt tetras.. . . .

but nothing soon. First I have to re-home Skye.

Now my serpae tetras are in poor shape. They aren't beating each other up, and eat fine but they do have reddish gills and look a bit pale. Skye's 20H kept stable parameters when I moved fish around, but this 10g went into a cycle. When I saw it starting I moved in the last piece of ceramic out of the 45, and more spare sponges. It's in full swing now (ammonia dropped to zero, high nitrite). I feel bad for them, but I have nowhere else to put them (this pic just shows the center of the tank). They're getting partial water changes daily meanwhile- today it was 50% due to the nitrites.

Maybe it's at the point where I should quit feeling obliged I have to keep these fish to the end of their small lives, and find them a better home, as none of my tanks are really suitable for them anymore (unless I find a new place for Skye and can move them back into the 20H).

shrimp swarm

My betta tank looks different because last week I cut back the windelov fern, planted more crypt willisii and pulled a few buces.

The ludwigia (or whatever it is) has started to grow in the corner.

side view-

Biggest change is that I moved all the amano shrimps back in- since I'm pretty sure the angels or paradise fishes would eat them, and so far Ruby has been mellow about it. They're a bother, though. When I drop in food they swarm all around near where Ruby is eating, darting randomly through the water and bouncing off his body! which looks annoying. I added some leaf litter for them to pick over, and the largest amano tries to shove the other shrimps away from it. Funny.

I only have two malaya shrimps, now. Week before I saw the betta biting at something in a corner of the tank, and one of the shrimps creeping in to get at it. Looked like a bit of white, torn up organic matter. I could only think it was the remains of a malaya, especially when I only saw two in the tank afterwards.

Closeup of Ruby, one of the best I've ever taken. Seems to have a few more pale blue spangles.

separated

Mr. Beautiful is now alone in the 45 (kuhlis don't count as company).

The fin tears healed up in a day, but the fish still has marks from bites on its side.

More serious are Sky's injuries- I can't show you a closeup because she is very camera shy right now, but if I sit on the floor she comes out and cautiously cruises around her new tank. I put her in my 20H (after moving out the tetras into a spare 10g, and the shrimps into the betta tank). The bruising on the face is less red, but I'm worried the mouth is damaged- it won't close all the way. She attempts to eat but spits a lot of it out. I did a water change this morning, not much else but wait and see if it heals. Skye hides behind the plants, but already frequently comes out to the front of the tank with stripes bold, so I think she's feeling relieved to be away from the other angel.

My aggressive angel, I thought it would also look more relaxed once Skye was gone. But all day his stripes have been washed out, and he moves away when I walk by the tank- drifts to the other side of the tank deliberately or turns to face the wall, but not dashing away frantically like before. (Too late, I learned how to turn off the red light that flashes on the front of my camera- so the fish won't flinch when I take a picture).

Plant stuff seems inconsequential to note now, but earlier in the week I brought over a few more plants from my betta tank. I did a big trim of windelov fern. Didn't glue or tie down any pieces, just stuck them behind the rock or wedge under the end of the anubias rhizome here.

Pulled a few buce 'isabelle' and 'blue bell'. Wedged these in between the two driftwood chunks. Right now the bits of gravel their roots hold keep them down, but the kuhlis like to go through that crevice and I find them knocked loose sometimes. I hope soon enough their roots will grab the actual wood, and they'll stay in place.

One entire buce 'selena'. It got dusted with a bit of mulm here, but does add a lovely blue note to that side of the tank.

fighting angels

I'm really pleased with how my crypt balansae is doing in the 45. It's getting visibly taller each day, obviously happy with conditions. Encourages me to find a way to move in my aponogeton capuronii.

But now my angels have been fighting. Agression has been building up gradually and I did not take the signs seriously, hoping they were just sizing each other up, working out differences. For a while I have noticed, now and then, that one or the other would have scraped scales, and last week Skye had a small tear in her tail fin. I dismissed it, thinking they were just getting bumped by falling sticks. But I've fixed that now; even when I put my hands in the tank to rearrange things and position the crypt balansae, I no longer knock anything over.

The other day I noticed that the angels were making little rushes at each other. Sometimes I sit in front of the tank when it's not feeding time, just to observe. The angels come up expectantly, and if I don't offer food, they seem to get frustrated- moving back and forth across the front glass with sharper jerks. So this one day I sat there and couldn't tell if the angels were turning and darting to move across the front and happening to get near each other, or if they were actually aiming at each other.

Then one day I saw them going up and down sticks, picking stuff off with their mouths. I wondered if they were hungry, or was it cleaning behavior to prepare a spawning site? Mr. Beautiful has been looking rather stout, and doesn't seem to eat more than Skye, so I wonder if he's really female. They were also doing brief displays at each other, holding their fins out more stiffly, kind of quivering broadside and puffing out the gills. It was subtle, but I saw it. Showing off to each other, or vying for dominance? I'm not sure. I still don't know if I have a same-sex pair, or a male and female. (I did not see any lip-locking, which I've read is a mating precursor- they wrestle with the lips to test each other's strength).

Yesterday I saw clear evidence of deliberate harm. In the morning (day after a regular water change) I found that both fish had tears in their fins, and Skye's dorsal is almost completely ripped in half. They both have scuff marks and scrapes on their flanks,

and Skye has a bite mark on top of her head, and a dark red blotch between eye and mouth, like a bruise. Did the other fish ram her, or did she flee and run into something? Dismayed, I watched them closely. Skye obviously has more injuries, and Mr. Beautiful appears to be the aggressor. I saw Beautiful turn his (or her) body horizontal and zoom across the tank to jab at Skye.

I am pretty sure now, they don't like each other. Skye is thinner than Beautiful- I wonder if the more aggressive angel is subtly keeping her from eating as much, or if she is thinner due to stress, or if Beautiful is larger because a her, and gravid.

And my issue is what to do about it. I can't really put a divider in this tank. My fishkeeping friend suggested I do extra water changes, rearrange the decor, and maybe add dither fish, to alleviate the aggression. I'd rather actually re-home this fish and try with another, but it is still discouraging. The only other place I can safely put Skye while I find her a new home is in the 20H- the exact reason I kept it running, but now it's full of tetras. . .

45 short sides

The gap between my largest tank and the walls of its niche, are just wide enough I can stick my head in there and look through the side the of tank. I like to do this sometimes and view the angels on a clear background. Tried to get a photo of each end- it's awkward to use the camera there. (I had to patch the pictures together, so there's a misalignment halfway down) Left side:

Right side looks nicer:

The angels don't like the camera. I think for the little red light that blinks when I focus it. They kept farthest away, behind the sticks and roots. Can just see Skye, stripes all washed out, framed in the sticks below

Here's a photo I meant to include last time. New leaf emerging on the java fern! There's quite a few, and more fiddleheads all the time.

val cleanup

I took some time to cut away and remove a bunch of the melting leaves off vallisneria in Lady's side of the window tank.

I didn't get all the brown melting gunk out, but it looks much better now

aquarium plant shuffle

I moved a few around yesterday. I pulled wisteria out of the tenner and planted it in the tetra tank. In that now-empty corner put two sprigs of ludwigia trimmed from the 33.

I did miss a few pieces of wisteria- not wanting to stir up a lot of mulm, the ones that didn't come up easy I just cut at substrate level.

Unless ludwigia does really well in here and takes off, it will take some time for that space to fill back in.

Also added a few more crypt willisii into the tenner, so in front of the skull there's now a small group, not just two (these also came out of the 20H).

The wisteria stems took place of crypt balansae in the back corner of my 20H. I moved those crypts into my largest tank. I think they will do better in here with the warmer temperature, and this tank needs some taller plants. Not yet willing to give up leaf litter for a substrate bed, I planted the crypts into a container. Used a slotted plastic box strawberries came in, with more holes punched in the side for water flow. Put a root tab on the bottom before I planted the crypts in a mix of gravel and safe-t-sorb siphoned out of the 20H.

I thought it would look too obvious there's a clear box of gravel sitting in the middle of my tank, but actually it hides nicely behind the anubias roots and is flanked by the stones with buce 'green wavy' so not too noticeable.

Glimpse of it from short end of the tank. There's four rhizome pieces in there, with a few leaves each.

It's too early to tell if the crypts will go through melt, but already a few of the leaves seem to be standing up straighter. If they do well, I might find a way to plant my aponogeton capuronii in here, too. It's not looking too happy in the unheated, un-fertilized window tank.

a few more inside things

I managed to save my tarragon from whatever ailed it earlier in the year. It's not going to summer outside again. And I've been eating it, ha!

Sensitive plant is still here. Tired of seeing its naked stem I pinched its top, to see if it will sprout new growth sideways.

Dismal- this little houseplant fern just isn't happy. I often forget to move it into the shower and it was starting to look dried up. So I made a point of splashing it with a bit of tapwater every time I was at the sink. It didn't like that- the next day a ton was drooping. Maybe the hardness of tapwater? or the chlorine? whatever the cause, I've gone wrong. It only has one frond left and I don't think I can save it.

Well at least I still have pretty violets!

nearly empty

My garden is pretty dismal, now. Well, except for the spot overtaken by my favorite fern! (I never should have planted it so close).

Quite a few of the beds are completely empty now- except for a few volunteer borage and celosia

We've pulled and eaten nearly all the carrots- a handful are left under this tangle of borage

The herb bed still has life- rue and green onions are thriving. Still have some sage and lemon balm, too. My thyme plant completely died. There's a few small leeks and a couple of parsley plants too.

From the garden moved indoors- my ginger pot is really happy! But I noticed too late that the lemon verbena behind it didn't look well. Pulled aside the ginger the other day- lemon verbena is completely naked of leaves. I found two grey caterpillars, one fat green one and a smug-looking gray leafhopper. Pinched them all.

I've also still got the salad burnet indoors. This one keeps showing stems that turn pale, anemic- looking and slightly mottled yellow. I suspected a bug but couldn't see it. I doused with soap spray, no improvement. I started just yanking out the stems when they began to look sickly- and what do you know, now it has more healthy foliage than not. But the stems don't have a nice even graceful growth habit anymore- they bend and turn. I think the light is not strong enough for it here.