[Varmint]

Part of Oliver's face lost color. There's no fuzziness so I don't think it's a fungus, and it doesn't quite look like a scrape or injury- I wonder if he is just getting old? A few days now after water change, the pale mark looks smaller, so I hope it's healing, whatever it was.

How is Oliver's head doing? I had something like that on Buster's head a few days ago. Under magnification, it looked a little fungusy. I did three 25% water changes over the course of three days, adding stress coat each time and it cleared up on its own.

The tank is shaping up nicely. I love your choice of plants.

 

[JJ09]

It's looking better. The pale area has reduced down to a spot- it actually looks like an ich spot now but he doesn't have any other spots on the body and isn't flashing in irritation. I'm keeping an eye on it.

 

[Varmint]

It's looking better. The pale area has reduced down to a spot- it actually looks like an ich spot now but he doesn't have any other spots on the body and isn't flashing in irritation. I'm keeping an eye on it.

I'm glad to hear it is healing. He is such a cutie!

 

[JJ09]

change of scenery-

I probably did more to Oliver's tank yesterday than I ought to have.

First pulled off a dead java fern leaf and cut out some of their long root hairs that were getting in the way. They were pointing up and tangling in the foliage, having been snagged with the siphon a few times. Then plucked out a few yellowing spirodela polyrhiza. I took four handfuls of this out last week, and I think it was too much. It hasn't multiplied enough to entirely cover the surface again yet, and for some reason stays clear of the area just above the big anubias. One anubias leaf had a lot of brown algae accumulating. Easy enough to wipe off, but I want to prevent that.

I cut the big anubias rhizome into three pieces. Put the largest two on suction cups on the back wall. Looks very different this way.

The smaller part with just two leaves I put low on the wall in corner, as a backdrop to rotala stems. I'm sure it will look different again in a week or two after the leaves reorientate themselves to the light. (Even shorter segment, which had no leaves, I fastened back onto part of the driftwood, in the rear. Just to see if it grows again)

Now that the barteri is moved, the smallest anubias in here, positioned in front on the wood, is becoming a focal point.

I also moved a few of the buce isabella- they were on top of that little peak of the mopani wood on the right, looking awkward. When I took its rubber band off (hadn't rooted), noticed it was bent in an odd way so I cut it in half.

The water wisteria doesn't seem happy that I moved it. Taking a long time to recover. One stem came loose and I replanted it.

Trimmed quite a bit of fissidens- very tedious work. To avoid loosing the bits of moss all over the tank, I held each individual stem with tweezers while snipping with scissors in the other hand. Tied all these down to another side of the driftwood. While doing that, I nudged the wood up a few times by accident and some large bubbles came up, with a very foul smell. I've noticed in the past few weeks that lots of black stuff is decaying off the driftwood. I focus on using the siphon around the base of it because a ton of black mulm collects there each week, and it smells sulfurous. I hope it won't harm my fish. He seems okay (and the white mark on his head is gone). Don't know why another layer of the wood is breaking down now, after more than a year in the tank. When I first put it in, I boiled and soaked it and peeled bark off with a pocketknife. I thought I had scraped all the bark off but I guess this was another deep layer. The other half of this driftwood is in the thirty-eight, and it isn't doing this. That I can tell.

 

[JJ09]

I went to the tank today wanting to get a picture of something I forgot yesterday- growth of the new leaves on anubias I cut in half:

And then focused to take a pic of buce 'selena' in the corner, in ambient light:

Then since I was being camera-happy, made a painstaking setup to get some overhead shots, which I haven't done in a long time. Pics upcoming.

 

[JJ09]

Overhead shot of my tenner:

Overhead shot:

This is what it took: I put towels on the floor and bed, got a two-gallon bucket and dipped out most of the duckweed w/a bit of water. Lifted off the light strip and laid the panes of the lid aside. Blocked window light- that took some doing. Just pulling the curtains was no good- still had glare on each end of the tank. I tried several things, ended up taping black trash bags over the top half of the window and leaning huge sheets of cardboard over the bottom half. Got up on a stepstool to get all the tank in the frame. Tried several different settings on the camera to find the one with the best color and light balance. Messed around with desktop lamps to get the lighting right- I ended up putting one on each side of the tank, slightly overhead.

All this with the filter turned off so the water wouldn't be moving- the current is very slight, but even so it makes a blurry image. Oliver hid the entire time, so I didn't want to distress him too much. I only worked as long as it took to get two or three decent pictures, then plugged the filter back in and put everything back in place. As soon as I was done returning the duckweed ceiling, Oliver came drifting up out of his hidey-hole.

I want to do this with the thirty-eight as well, it's so different now. But I don't feel like it yet- maybe tomorrow.

 

[Smooch]

Neat picture! I love reading your tank journals by the way.

 

[JJ09]

Thanks.

 

[JJ09]

It felt kind of odd to only do maintenance on one tank yesterday, but treatment has changed the schedule on my other tank. So I took my time with Oliver. I'm trying this new brace for the lid- it's a piece of thick wire I found, I think from a cooling rack. Going to seal the ends w/silicone but obviously if it rusts I will throw it out. Need something plastic instead but I haven't found the right thing yet... This pic shows how much the spirodela polyrhiza has filled in, though.

I've figured out its growth rate, to keep it in check but not diminish its quantity too much between maintenance days. I remove just one handful per week, or if I'm feeling anal, pick out every single yellowing/disintegrating leaf cluster I find.

I noticed that some of the anubias leaves (on smaller plants) were looking peaky again. Checked the dates and it had been almost a month since the last time I put in root tabs, and much longer since I'd dosed mg (epsom salts). Did both this time. But I'm ready to quit guessing with that- if it's needed or not. Ordered a kit to test for gh/kh so I can actually know if I have an imbalance between mg and calcium.

Bacopa is not doing too well in here. It drops lower leaves at a much faster rate than the ludwigias, and holds itself kind of droopy overall. Looks much better in my other tank- but I don't want to remove it from here just yet. I don't have enough ludwigia cuttings to take its place... As it is, I cut back a few stems of each and replanted, since they were almost touching the ceiling again.

Younger leaves on the anubia I cut in half are really visible now.

I think the buce 'isabelle' looks particularly nice in front of the darker anubia leaf.

Decided to pull out the lead strip that was holding a buce cutting down. Read some articles about how toxic lead can be for fish- in spite of all the suppliers' claims that it is harmless. Better not risk it. Instead I tried to weigh it down with a tiny stone on top, that didn't work. Had to tie it to the pebble (it's the plant on the right).

I cut a bit of windelov rhizome that was crawling off its stone, and re-tied it on at a different spot. Accidentally broke off a leaf. Bummer.

I don't really care for the appearance of this short end, anymore- something about the anubias placement looks awkward to me. So I don't mind shielding it with a sheet of plastic again, to see if I can coax rotalas to hold themselves more upright.

Wisteria is still not doing anything- it really didn't like getting moved. Smaller piece of it has come loose twice. I only have one holding into the substrate now. It's between the log and ludwigia stem at back, here. Hope it does better after getting a root tab this week.

The picture is better with a fish in it.

I think I've been feeding him too much. I want to clean the inside of the front glass, but there's still all these tiny little critters on there- limpets?- they haven't got any bigger than a pinhead but are still numerous. I think they showed up a few weeks ago when for some reason I decided that since Oliver was well over two years old now, he deserved a few extra goodies. I wasn't giving him much more- a few more flakes, three or four micropellets per feeding instead of just two, an extra bloodworm here and there- but I guess it might have been enough to make a difference. I cut back down to his prior rations now, will see if that makes those things go away.

 

[Smooch]

Tank looks good! Oliver looks happy despite possibly eating too much.

What about a piece of plastic clothes hanger to brace the lid? Then it would be just a matter of finding a way to attach it.

I've been eyeballing buces. I always want to call them 'bruces'. :icon_roll The sayan-1 black, brownie brown and copi susu keep catching my eye, but I've read they need CO2 and I cringe at the idea of spending lots of cash on a plant that I don't know if it will make it or not.

 

[JJ09]

It wasn't enough to make him fat- I think he liked the extra food but I definitely don't like these things on the glass...

I've tried using plastic coat hanger pieces. It's either too thick, or too flexible and doesn't give the support I want. I even tried sawing a thick one in half lengthwise, but then it was too flexible again.

Bump: I'm starting to love buces. I don't use C02 and they are doing fine in this tank- but they certainly grow very slowly. They do much better for me in here than in my other tank- I think because the higher light is too much for them in my thirty-eight. The only thing keeping me from getting more is the expense. I paid $30 for one of my nicest ones- including shipping but yeah, a lot for one plant. I can see why the cost, though- it takes a long time to grow them, and they sure are striking. I wish they were more common...

 

[JJ09]

Very routine on the tenner this week. Just picking out the yellowing and disintegrating spirodela polyrhiza is not enough, it turns out. It had filled in the surface completely, started to pile up in corners and Oliver was having to search for a gap to take a breath. Will have to remember to take out a good handful or two each week.

I love watching fiddleheads of ferns uncurl- whether it's terrestrial or here, under the water.

 

[JJ09]

Nothing much to report on Oliver's tank today. Params the same, as they have been for a while. Nitrates 20-30ppm, fert dose remains steady. Very little plant trimming to do- only a few dying leaves, and duckweed to thin out. One rotala stem getting close to the surface, I cut it in half and replanted. Subwassertang looks real nice in this tank. It has no signs of algae, perfectly healthy. I will probably have to trim it next week to keep in shape- it's grown all out of proportion to its stone anchor and will start grabbing substrate particles soon.

I do think the phoenix moss has begun naturalizing on this knobby end of driftwood. There's three or four tiny bits there, front and below the main clump, that I don't remember tying down.

The real thing of note is bucephalandra. My 'emerald green' cutting has drifted up against the 'selena' one. I let it be, for now. This pic in ambient light- you can see the 'emerald green' has a root going down, and two new shoots coming up.

Here's from the other side:

The little buce plantlets growing from stem pieces tied to a rock are getting bigger! Looks like a tiny bit of fissidens stuck among them, too.

There are still tiny things on the glass. Limpets or not, sure are annoying me. I picked about a dozen off the front pane with my fingernails today, and even so missed a few which made some fine scratches when I cleaned the glass with algae scrubber. Bah.

 

[JJ09]

I trimmed the subwassertang today, accidentally taking off more than I wanted to. The scissors don't cut it easily for some reason, and I end up tearing and too much comes free. I think I need smaller, very sharp scissors for this job. If I want to do precise trims.

Also trimmed some bacopa. It's still not doing as well in this tank as in the main one, but I looked close and realized the stems with most dieoff were close to the big anubias, I bet it shades them. I trimmed the stems at substrate and replanted on the other side. I was going to pull the root ends out but that kicks lots of mulm into the water column, and a few of them do regrow new leaves, so I left them. If they don't regrow, they eventually decay enough to float free and get plucked out. Now it's pretty bare around the anubias, will have to think what else could go there...

Anubias leaves have repositioned themselves and are pretty much horizontal now. Oliver regularly uses them to rest on, I often see him motionless on a big anubais leaf in the corner early mornings. So I'm glad I moved this plant, for his sake if nothing else.

I had a fright with my heater earlier this week. Swear I saw a few bubbles inside it. There was a tiny gleam where I don't usually notice it (center of the pic just above the blue thing). Looked like three small but definite bubbles, bigger than condensation drops. I had just read a bunch of horror stories on the forum about heaters exploding, so I unplugged it. Didn't do anything about it for a while, and found that room temps are warm enough the tank stayed at 78º as-is. Today I removed that heater and put in a newer one that I had bought for my QT a while back. The older one doesn't look too bad- there's no blackened glass or cracks, but I'm not taking any chances. I installed the newer one, but haven't plugged it in yet, as there's no need.

Oliver's behavior was a little different today. He wasn't as nervous when I worked in the tank. He was cruising around inspecting things even when I was refilling. I'm glad of it, but a bit puzzled what made the difference.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Thanks for the update....any full tank shots?

 

[Varmint]

How are the limpets doing now that you put Oliver on a diet? My Bettas eat anything they can fit in their mouths. I'm betting he has been preying on them now that he is probably a little hungrier.

I was looking closer at Oliver. Except for the tail and fins, he looks a lot like my Betta Buster. They have the same coloring.

 

[JJ09]

ScubaSteve- haven't done a full tank shot in a while. It all looks like less now, because I trimmed some bacopa when I moved it, and trimmed back the subwassertang. I'll do another one soon when there's more growth.

Varmint- I still have limpets. Maybe their reproduction slowed down, but I can't tell. Some of them are bigger. Oliver doesn't eat them. I picked as many as I could out by hand the other day, and fed them to the cherry barbs in the other tank.

 

[Varmint]

ScubaSteve- haven't done a full tank shot in a while. It all looks like less now, because I trimmed some bacopa when I moved it, and trimmed back the subwassertang. I'll do another one soon when there's more growth.

Varmint- I still have limpets. Maybe their reproduction slowed down, but I can't tell. Some of them are bigger. Oliver doesn't eat them. I picked as many as I could out by hand the other day, and fed them to the cherry barbs in the other tank.

I had a huge infestation of limpets in my Fluval Edge at one point. I never saw the fish pick at them, so I don't know what caused them to disappear. Hopefully yours will just magically go away too.

 

[JJ09]

Java fern is happy- the biggest leaf is producing spores- or whatever those spots on the underside are called, that will form little baby plants!

And look at that, the piece of anubias root I tied down is sprouting a leaf. I will have to think what to do with it when it grows fullsized foliage. It would shade the other plants around it too much, here.

I had to re-level the tank this week. Noticed that the cardboard sheet it sits on was crushed nearly flat across the front, there was a definite angle from the back. I got out the level and verified that. I figure the weight of the furniture it's sitting on must have slowly compressed the carpet, and now it is tilting slightly forwards. When the tank was half-empty during water change, I carefully lifted the front edge of the furniture up with my knee- just enough to slide another shim under each corner, and check with the level again until I had them in the right position. It still bugs me to see the angle in the cardboard under the tank, but I can't change that out unless I empty the whole tank.

 

[JJ09]

Oliver is still hanging out in the hospital tank (see other thread) he seems to be getting comfortable in there. Likes resting near the surface on watersprite sprigs. I hope he'll be back in this tank within a week. A few more days of treatment with Prazipro (so far no change- white spot is still on his side, he hasn't got any more though) and then I will have to decide what to do next. I have bought clove oil and a few airstones so I can try sedating him to look at the the thing closer, or pull it off with tweezers. Don't know why I'm so nervous at the idea of anesthetizing my fish...

Meanwhile, his home tank is getting a little rescape. While he's in QT I started moving a few things around and discovered his main driftwood piece is rotting. (Another thread about that too). Today I got a new piece of mopani- it's longer than the current driftwood piece so I will have to rearrange things. I am getting eager to move the plants onto it and create a new look, but for now the wood is boiling on the stove. Three times already today I've poured off tannin-soaked water, it's still coming away deep red! Might take some time to get it relatively clean.

When I get the plants removed from the old wood I'm going to scrape it down as much as I can and see if there's a harder core. Maybe I can still salvage some of it, or cut it into smaller pieces to anchor other plants on...