# 20H Window Tank



## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

What was your ammonia source for the cycle?

Why not plant the hornwort stems in the substrate?


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Ammonia source was dead plant matter, snail poo and sinking fish food/peas I dropped in for the snails. Did an "instant cycle" by transferring over filter media that already had the beneficial bacteria established. I'm still testing it a few more days to make sure- but I did have ammonia spike the first 2 days.

Hornwort has never done well for me planted in substrate- the ends of the stems don't root, they just decay. In my main tank I have it just as floating plant. Before I have tied it down to stones like this- and then periodically trim off the lower end of stems and re-tie when they get too tall in the tank trailing all over the surface...


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Well, not ready yet. Tested the water this morning- Ammonia is rising at 0.25, Nitrite just above 0, Nitrate 20ppm after I did a 30-40% wc yesterday. I know it's not precise, but I don't really feel like going out to buy pure ammonia, and I have plenty of fish food on hand -some that need to get used up it is expired and I would just feed it to my worm bin.

So I picked out more mts from the other tanks and tossed them in here last night. There must be at least 20 or 25 now. Do snails communicate alarm to each other? I swear after just a few days it's getting hard to see any in the established tanks to catch- either they are hiding from me or I have got all the ones that tend to crawl around topside and the rest prefer to stay in the substrate. I _know_ I have not even dented their population in there.

They gather around the sinking food but don't consume it very quickly- so I have been siphoning out food every other day when it starts to go moldy, and dropping more in.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Pulled out food that was starting to fuzz, dropped in another algae wafer. I raised the temp on this tank to 78° to encourage the beneficial bacteria growth. Cycle is in full swing- Ammonia still 0.25, Nitrite spiking at 0.5ppm, Nitrates look about 20-30. 

Ordered poly filter a few days ago, before I realized my snails are actually okay, it came yesterday. So overnight I put a piece of it in the HOB just to see what it would pull. I didn't get the color indicating copper- good. Instead it turned a pale orangish brown. Which means it's absorbing organics (hopefully that isn't a setback on the cycle) and maybe iron. I did drop in some sterilized chips of granite from coarse gravel under my deck, to hold down the hornwort stems. Perhaps some of them have a bit of iron, but maybe that would just help the plants- I don't think it's enough to cause harm. Tested pH and it was not affected.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Well it doesn't look like much yet. 








After having it set up it for a week decided I don't like the row of suction cups holding hornwort stems across the back wall. Too conspicuous. Removed them all, sterilized more granite chips and used those to tether down the stems instead.








Did some cleanup- the hornwort plants had shed a ton of needles. It seems to be the ones that came out of the main tank, those from the snail bowl are doing better in here. Probably because they didn't have as big an adjustment to make.








Windelov ferns look fine.








Spirodela polyrhiza doing poorly in here- it tends to pile up in a corner pushed by the current, and there were a lot of shed root hairs. I took most of them out and replaced with more culls from the tenner. I'm guessing the swordtails might eat this plant, that would be its purpose in here...

The tank water was starting to look slightly cloudy- so I cleaned out a lot of plant debris yesterday. This morning it's clearer. I'm still siphoning out the food once or twice a day as it starts to mold, and dropping more in. Trumpet snails doing fine (they seem glad of the food offerings as there is no algae). Cycle is progressing- Ammonia test was a solid yellow today, Nitrites 2.0 ppm.


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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

Hornwort to me in the aquascaping hobby is like, that plant that only some people use cause they Wanna. lol im not a hornwort guy >.> go big or go home a.i.r?


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Ah, well, I'm not trying to make this a nice scape. It's a temporary tank to house some fish this guy has to get rid of and no one else will take them. More'n a year ago hornwort was a main plant in my tank- not just a floater- because hey it grew. And it did look kind of cool with all the wispy horizontal lines of the needles massed together. I actually got a lot of comments on that. So I thought since I want this tank to have plants but not put a lot of effort into it, I'd see if I can grow undemanding stuff in ambient light... hornwort fits the bill.


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## MtAnimals (May 17, 2015)

BettaBettas said:


> Hornwort to me in the aquascaping hobby is like, that plant that only some people use cause they Wanna. lol im not a hornwort guy >.> go big or go home a.i.r?


Hornwort is ok to make a temporary bunch of plants where you need something.that's what I use it for.Like in the background until you aquire a bunch of stems to take it's place.Good place for platy fry to hide out too.It'll never root though.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

It has been a long time since I cycled a tank, so I read back up on it not sure if I'm doing something wrong that's slowing it down? or just impatient. I'm still at zero Ammonia, over 5 Nitrites.

I raised the temperature- but the heater can't seem to keep the tank at 80°- at night when I turn down the thermostat for the house it drops to 76°. I've added in another handful of gravel from the established tank, and another half dozen or so malaysian trumpet snails. I cleaned out some dying-off hornwort stems because the cloudy water bothered me, and I've been siphoning out fish food every morning that's getting white fuzzy mold, replacing it. This removes less than 1/4 gallon water, which I top off with new, dechlorinated.

Is it a good idea to have the snails in there? I don't know if their waste is significant enough to add to the cycle. I realize now I should not be keeping the tank so "clean". Hazy water actually might be a good thing, the decaying organics will feed the bacteria, right? Should I also leave the food to rot in there and just bear with the mess of fuzzy mold, siphon it all out in the end. It really is difficult for me to stand, looking at it. 

I saw a suggestion somewhere to tie lump of fish food into a cloth so not as much mess escapes into the water column. But if I'm adding a bit of food every day to keep the bacteria fed, I'd have to untie that messy cloth every time?

I've also got plant cuttings in the HOB and on the sides of it where the makeshift lid leave a gap- pothos and arrowhead. I don't know if this is a good idea, either- do the plants consume enough ammonia to slow down the cycle, or do they help... 

(Yes I realize the hornwort will not root. I'm not expecting it to.)


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

JJ09 said:


> It has been a long time since I cycled a tank, so I read back up on it not sure if I'm doing something wrong that's slowing it down? or just impatient. I'm still at zero Ammonia, over 5 Nitrites.


I saw on you tube someone did a quick cycle by using the water he rinsed running filter's floss in.


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## MtAnimals (May 17, 2015)

JJ09 said:


> It has been a long time since I cycled a tank, so I read back up on it not sure if I'm doing something wrong that's slowing it down? or just impatient. I'm still at zero Ammonia, over 5 Nitrites.
> 
> I raised the temperature- but the heater can't seem to keep the tank at 80°- at night when I turn down the thermostat for the house it drops to 76°. I've added in another handful of gravel from the established tank, and another half dozen or so malaysian trumpet snails. I cleaned out some dying-off hornwort stems because the cloudy water bothered me, and I've been siphoning out fish food every morning that's getting white fuzzy mold, replacing it. This removes less than 1/4 gallon water, which I top off with new, dechlorinated.
> 
> ...


This is the part where you have to be patient.the nitrites will stay like that for awhile,then one day they'll be zero and be replaced by nitrates.The bacteria that coovert nitrite into nitrate take longer to grow then then ones that convert ammonia.Just wait.


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## Pat24601 (Mar 4, 2017)

Neat tank! You can never have too many tanks!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Hilde said:


> I saw on you tube someone did a quick cycle by using the water he rinsed running filter's floss in.


I did that at the beginning. The entire filter media piece in my HOB came out of the canister filter in my bigger tank. I'm afraid that I stalled the cycle by cleaning out the molding food, and having the temp too low...

Bump:


MtAnimals said:


> This is the part where you have to be patient.the nitrites will stay like that for awhile,then one day they'll be zero and be replaced by nitrates.The bacteria that coovert nitrite into nitrate take longer to grow then then ones that convert ammonia.Just wait.


Thanks for the reminder! It's hard to wait. The best time for me to pick up the fishes is a weekend- so I'm really hoping it will be ready in three more days. I've had a tank cycle in as little as four days when I did a media transfer before, but this one is taking longer than I expected. 

Oh well. At least it's giving some plants time to grow so it won't be as sparse. I'm going to take cuttings of the hornwort tomorrow to multiply it around some...


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Have you tried Tetra Safe Start. I get it off Amazon. Sign up with a new email and you will get Prime 30 day trial free.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Still cycling..............

I took this photo with a large sheet of white drawing paper as backdrop (yeah, there's a piece of hornwort stuck in the windelov. And please excuse the hasty photoshop job to obscure reflection of a framed image that was on the wall behind me),








I like the apono stems, doomed as they are. They're trimmings of the longest leaves from my main tank- I put them in here just for looks- I know they will rot. I have been trying to not look at this tank because it's very hard to keep myself from cleaning out the moldy food. Today I siphoned out just three clumps of it that were getting loose enough to start drifting around the tank- I really don't want it fouling the filter or getting all over the foliage.

The hornwort is holding up pretty well, considering. I trimmed a few at base and added more cuttings from the main tank. Some of the stems have been drooping at the terminal ends. It needed a bit of top-off this week and I used old tankwater from the main. Figured it would have a bit of nutrients for the plants. Not sure if it's my imagination, but I think the tops look straighter today.








Also have tossed in another few mts and bit of gravel that got siphoned out of the tenner (I always get some of it accidentally).


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*it's ready!*

This tank finished cycling today. I don't know why it always makes me so giddy-happy to see the pale blue in that little test tube. So this morning I did a big water change- probably 90%- siphoned out down to an inch above the substrate. Not because of sky-high nitrates (they were only about 50ppm) but because I wanted to get out all that disgusting fuzzy white mold from the food remains.

These pictures really don't do the tank justice. It looks somewhat pretty with the ambient light through the haze of hornwort needles, but I can't get a decent photo unless I put a backdrop on. Oh well. Closest equivalent.








Windelov fern seems pretty content in here. I haven't seen any foliage die off, and if you look close can see a young leaf and a tiny new fiddlehead near the center. It's growing!








I found in my tenner this week a little scrap of java fern leaf floating around with two tiny new plants sprouting on it, and a small bit of windelov rhizome. Put both into this tank.








Although they are all shorter from being trimmed at bases, I nearly doubled the number of anchored hornwort stems in here this week. Most of them seem to be done transitioning, I cleaned out all the shed needles and decaying stems, kept only healthy growth which got divided up, new budding ends tethered onto more chips of granite.








Some are so small they lie rather flat when dropped in the tank, so I propped them up against the front glass for now.








Still have two stems of pruned aponogeton crispus leaves and half a dozen of the capuronii in here. As expected, the crispus leaves are quickly decaying- I'm taking those out tomorrow. To my surprise the capuronii trimmings have held up really well- they've been in here a week and although I cut off a quarter inch of the petioles and retied it, haven't felt the need to throw them out yet. They really add something to the tank and I am going to probably add more as they get pruned from the main, see how long they hold up before need to be composted.








Pothos cuttings have grown roots. There's a bit of new stem sprouting too.








I had to rig up the prefilter sponge with a bit of fishing line and rubber band to stay in place (because the fittings got ruined that hold this onto the intake tube).








I'm picking up the adopted fishes tomorrow. Dropped in more sinking food to keep the cycle going meanwhile. Trumpet snails immediately converged.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*got fishes*

Brought home the adopted fishes today. I took as much care as I could with their transport to minimize stress. The prior owner had them ready in a gallon ziplock. I opened the bag and set it in a small cardboard box inside my cooler, held the sides up w/bulldog clips so it would stay open. So it stayed nice and dark, even temperature no lack of oxygen. I tried to drive evenly and not brake hard or take corners too fast on the way home, probably annoyed a lot of drivers behind me... Once home I floated the bag in the aquarium to equalize temperature, then siphoned out some of the bag water that had waste, and started adding portions of tank water in ten-minute intervals. The fish were looking ok through this, a bit pale but not trying to hide in the corners.








There are three serpae tetras aka red minors (one has a missing eye). Two silvery red eye tetras, and two fancy swordtails I think they are hi-fin lyretails. One has a black body with long, flowing orange fins I swear it's like watching a pretty girl with long hair blowing in the wind. The other is red with black fins.








My husband came over to see them and he remarked on how the fish stuck with their own kind- the serpaes shoaling together, the silver red-eyes cruising as a pair. Even momentarily in the bucket you can see this








I have the tank covered sides and top keeping it dark today as a stress-reducing measure. At first the fish cowered on the bottom. The flow of the filter is pretty strong, so I put plastic baffle on and then the tetras and the "golden-haired" swordtail started swimming around. The serpae tetras were even sparring a bit, displaying their fins and buffeting each other with sideways tail strokes. I think two are males- I can see white edging starting to show on the anal fins and I read somewhere they develop white edges when mature? Honestly I have never been really interested in tetras, but once they were in the tank I am really taken by these. Their color is rich and they look very striking among the green hornwort stems.








Blurry image of one swordtail








The red swordfish does not look good. It has a very fat belly and lies on the bottom quivering its pectoral fins. I don't know if it is bloated with food or an egg-bound female. If I loose a fish to shock it will probably be this one. 








I am going to be testing the water and doing daily partial wc for several days at least- even though I did the fishless cycle to build up as much beneficial bacteria as possible, the fish load is probably too much all at once. Plan is to put the tetras in my largest tank, but first I want to observe them for a while make sure they don't come down with some illness from the stress of moving. Easier to treat them in here if I have to.


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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

that pic with the fish in the bucket was neat, shows how schooling fish really do need that school in order to feel safe and comfy cozy.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Yeah I thought so, too. Speaking of which, if anybody's nearby and has a school of red eye tetras you'd like to add to, I'm happy to give you this pair. Already I have decided I'm not going to buy more of them. Think I'd rather have more of the serpae tetras instead.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*settling in*

I am really pleasantly surprised. I fully expected to have a slight ammonia or nitrite spike this morning. After all, I just put seven fishes into a newly-cycled, sparsely-planted tank! First thing I did today was a water test, and it was perfect. Zero Ammonia, zero Nitrites. (Goes to show how well the fishless cycle method can work using fish food, even though I did hate dealing with the moldy crap and stink...). I still did a partial wc, just for the health of the fishes. The swordtails both have slightly degraded fin edges, and the female is still crashed on the bottom- although she breathes easier and makes brief attempts to swim now.








Named the male swordtail Fabio. My kids don't get why this is funny, but my husband found it amusing.








The pictures are still dim because when I took cover off the top and sides, the fishes all hid down in the plants, I think they felt alarmed or exposed. So I've kept the backdrop piece on.








The red-eye tetras have a lovely blue sheen when the light hits them at a certain angle.








I think they look fairly healthy. But I'm not really familiar with this fish, so please tell me if it appears otherwise.
















Here's a closer picture of the serpae that's blind on one side (a bit blurry, sorry).








The good side. It's more timid than the other two serpae- quite understandably I think. But otherwise looks alert and active.








I never kept fish before that have the semi transparent body, there's something rather fascinating about being able to see your fish's innards when they are backlit.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Wow, I can't believe this. Less than 24 hours in my tank, and I swear I'm seeing spawning behavior. 

Watching the fishes just a moment ago, it looked so familiar. The pair of serpae tetras going back and forth through the anchored apono capuronii leaves, one was doing this familiar wagging motion with its pectoral fins and when among the foliage there's a second where they press their sides together and quiver in unison. I'm pretty sure that fin-wagging motion is the male courting the female- it looks just like the attention-begging gesture my male cherry barbs make towards the females. 

I kept an eye on them, and when the pair passed close by the serpae with a missing eye, the one who'd been fin-wagging paused cruising with its partner to position its body stiffly broadside to the weaker fish, and buffet with its tail strokes. I'm fairly certain now that pair is male and female, and the one-eyed fish is another male. Who is quickly becoming the pariah. I gotta get more of these fish. And move them into my main tank, soon.

They must like it here already, and I sure know it's not really an ideal tank.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*oh YEAH they did!*

I found _fish eggs_ in my window tank. This should not be a surprise. Nor should it delight me, but I'm ecstatic. Even though my cherry barbs spawn all the time, I never see eggs- the parents often turn right around and eat them before they fall far, if not the kuhlis or shrimps get them I'm sure. So actually seeing eggs is something new for me. Here's one on a bit of hornwort:








I'm puzzled if it really was the serpae tetras, though. I looked very carefully to tell the males from females- but all my serpaes seem to have a lighter patch at the base of dorsal fin. If any of them is a male, it's Blank (the one missing an eye). Would the females go through spawning motions and lay eggs without a male? or I'm probably misidentifying their gender. I suppose the pair of lamp eye tetras could have laid these eggs- they're even harder to tell apart male from female but one does look a bit plumper than the other...

Whoever did it, I don't expect much. Probably the eggs will get eaten and if not, I don't even know if they're viable- most of them look opaque. If it's serpaes the eggs should hatch in 24 hours, if the lamp eyes, a day later, right? So we'll see. Either one, I doubt the fry would live. This isn't a mature tank full of microscopic things for them to feed on, and no way am I setting up another tank to tend baby fish. I know how much crazy work that is.

But hey, if one survives on its own that would be super cool. Here's three in the rhizome of windelov fern.








At least, I _think_ I see three- arrows indicate where.








Another one on the end of the rock.








Fish aren't the only things busy multiplying in this tank. Did you see how many new windelov fiddleheads coming up (2nd pic)? And I have not once dosed ferts in here. Not only are lots of new leaves uncurling, today I just saw the tiniest little bit of windelov with a root growing on the end of a mature leaf-








I'm wondering now if my fat female swordtail is not bloated or gravid, but just a ballooon-belly variety of the breed? It's still hanging out on the substrate most of the time. When it swims has an odd wobble, rowing constantly with the pectoral fins. I thought it had shimmies but looked up video of that and also found short footage of balloon-belly swordtails just swimming- mine has the same awkward motion..... My daughter named it Splish.

Note: I was wrong about that. Looked more closely at descriptions of the breed varieties. Not a balloon belly, first guess was right: hi-fin lyretail.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Well that was exciting for half a day. I looked very close using the photo as comparison and the tiny clear orbs that were stuck on plants all gone. Something ate them in the night, as I expected. Oh well! I'm still thrilled they spawned the second day in my new tank.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Water tests on the window tank today- zero ammonia, zero nitrites, 30ppm nitrate. Did a 20% wc anyway. Removed the duckweed (most of it, that is) and added a dozen more hornwort trimmings. Moved capuronii cuttings to the rear- I thought if the tall stems could make a screen it would give the fish more of a backdrop feel while still letting the light in? But there's not nearly enough of it. I think it looks pretty this way, but the fishes appear uneasy.








While at it I rearranged the hornwort stems in rows, so they have an avenue to swim between them, and another behind, hoping that would give them a sense of shelter. Maybe when the stems grow up tall it could, but for several hours after I was done the fishes all stayed low, and they've been skittish the rest of the day. I'd move the plants back the way they were- the tall foliage in front corner trailing across- but I don't want to put my hands in the tank and stress them out again right now... 








Fabio has not been very active today, just staying near the female. She is moving less than before. My youngest asked why is that fish not swimming around? and to keep it simple (and forewarn her of a possibly sad outcome) I said "well, she's probably very old and tired." Trying to keep the water extra clean. Unfortunately my kids are already getting attached. My five-year-old named the lamp-eye tetras Shimmer and Shine (no fear of them dying soon).








Had a crazy idea to get window-tinting film and put it so we could see in the tank from room side, but the fishes couldn't see us- making the ambient window their front and giving me the view I want, with light through plants. I doubt it would work, or be worth the cost.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

This morning I took the backdrop off the tank before it was quite daylight outside, left the curtains closed. Fishes were timid at first but I left the tank alone for half an hour before starting the wc- just 10% this time and I was able to do it without much fuss. Hooked a series of bulldog clips to the baffle (just while I have the lid off) so it stays in place and I leave the filter running while doing the wc. Soon after I was done all the fishes were moving around the tank actively- especially the tetras.

Even the female sword was up and about- for a good long while. It seems to take her a lot of effort to swim. After an hour she appears to tire and drifts down to the substrate again. But that's the most activity I've seen from her since she came home. I am going to continue with the small partial wc daily. Have not fed again since trying peas- maybe a few more days of fasting will do her good. Reading stuff online can be so conflicting. Grouping of symptoms between the two swords made me fear they have some kind of bacterial disease- but this morning their behavior looks so much better I am not sure.

I considered adding a very small amount of aquarium salt to the tank- starting with 1 tsp/10gal it could be beneficial for the swordtails, the type of hornwort I have and the windelov java fern should be fine with that. But I'm not sure it's good for the tetras, better to wait until I move them. Today the serpaes and lamp-eyes were displaying at each other for a bit, that was interesting to watch. A concern of putting the tetras into my 38 is will they eat the plants. So far they show no inclination in here, but maybe they will find something in my planted tank more tempting, when they have a real appetite.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*security*

I proved to myself the fishes are uneasy in the brightness. Yesterday they were active for a while after the partial wc, and then all day long they sat still. So motionless in corners, I started to think I had made a mistake with the water change or the ph had shifted from those rocks I put in from the yard. I tested all the parameters and everything is unchanged, nitrates just a little lower at 20ppm is all. 

Later in the day I draped a cloth behind the tank.








Then all the fish (except that female swordtail) started acting normal- chasing each other, sparring, some even picking at the gravel and nipping a bit at plants- showing some appetite now.
















Behavior response tells me that for most of them it's still just a matter of settling in and feeling safe here. After all, they've only been here four days.
















I like seeing them in the wispy green screen of hornwort stems.
















Thought the windelov fern looked neat here in the low light.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*New fishes seem to be finally settling in*

Yesterday showed signs of hunger- Fabio frequently picking at plants, and one of the lamp-eyes struck at a bubble or bit of duckweed on the surface and bonked its head on the plastic lid! I heard a little thump. They weren't as fearful this morning- moving about and interacting w/each other when daylight arrived, instead of hiding. Still act terrified when I open the lid. Offered peas again and this time nearly everyone ate- Splishy was eager and definitely consumed the most. The lamp-eyes ate, the serpaes picked at things, Fabio is still spitting everything out. But at least he tries it.

They are still really timid about it, moving slowly down low shielded by plants and picking cautiously at the food. I had leftover cooked pea bits and dumped the rest in the main tank nextdoor. Reaction was instant- everyone dashing frantically for the food. Totally different!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*really focused on watching this tank right now-*

Plants are doing great. Hornwort is growing at least half an inch a day. I've started seeing tiny baby malaysian trumpet snails in here. Tetras are more interested in food- I lifted the lid to offer peas again today and the silver ones struck at the food right away. Serpaes more timid hid at the disturbance but eventually came out to pick at pea bites on the bottom. Splishy the grounded female swordtail is most active of all when food comes- she sculls around the bottom methodically eating up all the pea she can find. Its kind of sad to watch but also heartening that she has so much appetite. Going to try one or two more epsom salt baths and if fasting/peas/salt baths doesn't relieve the bloat, I guess it's not constipation and will treat for parasites. While Fabio moves around the tank a lot more than Splishy, he is rather listless when it comes to food. Kind of just drifts around. At least I saw him definitely eating some pea this morning, not spitting it out. He's starting occasionally hanging at the surface gulping air. That alarms me, but none of the other fish do this. 

We had a brief, strong thunderstorm this morning. Tetras chasing each other around and flaring. Fabio seemed to feel the urge to mate- he was pestering the female more than usual, nudging her, doing this odd motion where he sits alongside her parallel and moves his body backwards and forwards in place. I saw him swing his gonopodium once or twice. Having not kept livebearers before, that was interesting. 

Tetras are starting to bother the swordtails- I've seen them nipping at the trailing fins. Must move them out soon, but I want them to go through the parasite treatment first, just in case.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Well I think I was right. Female swordtail isn't sick after all. She was just feeling harassed by the serpaes, I think. See end of http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/2...n-i-help-fish-swollen-belly-other-issues.html I didn't do parasite treatment, but moved the serpae tetras into my 38gal a few days ago. Now that they're out of this tank, that sword is swimming about in regular intervals, looking more relaxed. Picks at stuff on the rubber base of the heater, has came up to feed. After peas, next food I offered them was garlic-soaked betta bits. The lamp-eyes (who don't seem to intimidate the swordtails) cruise around lower regions of the tank eyeing the surface, then move up swift to strike a bite and dart back down again. Swords are much more leisurely about it- they wait until they feel safe, then drift up, take a mouthful, drift back down. They are comfortable now- don't even hide when I open the curtains on cloudy days to let more light in. I've since fed them flake, fruit flies and algae wafers- they eat it all (lamp-eyes are quicker to get the flies but that's okay since the swords go after the sinking foods more readily it all evens out).


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I gave away the lamp-eye tetras today. Also picked out about fifty malaysian trumpet snails from this tank. There's still no algae to speak of, and I don't think the food left behind by two fishes would sustain that snail population so I thinned it out. Left in a handful of baby mts (size of a pinhead) and there's still a few adults I missed. Got a few plant packets from the pet store today- java fern 'red' variety it's the first time I saw it for sale. Won't have a chance to plant it for a few days- it will be fine in the gel container until my maintenance day.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*witchy fish*

It is so gratifying to see the female swordtail swimming around the tank normally after that initial worry I had, thinking she was sick.








Because the bold orange and black color makes my kids think of halloween, and her dark trailing fins remind me of straggly hair, we gave her a new name: Witchy.








The male Fabio with his gorgeous long fins,








is constantly following her.








If you could call a fish such a thing, he's a stalker.








She puts up with it pretty well.


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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

lol hes a stalker, or maybe hes just having a good looky loo


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

A few new fish in here- pair of serpae tetras destined for the main tank. 








Wanted them in here for about a week or so to observe and treat if needed for anything. They look great so far. A little skittish but I put a backdrop on to make it darker and they calmed down. Swordtails actually seem excited to have a few companions- or are just curious about the newcomers.








Plants in here are plugging along. Hornworts are starting to fill the tank floor to ceiling with the wispy green lines of their needles. Java ferns grow really slow, but at least are alive. I added some java fern 'red' a few weeks ago- these two bunches








separated out into this much.








Tied down onto little stones and lined up across the back wall- nice to see the leaf texture backlit from window- but doesn't show up well in photos of the tank yet. This red variety is supposed to get taller than the standard java fern, will probably take a long time to see that as I expect slow growth in here. However there are a few small fiddleheads coming up already, so I am hopeful.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*one more*

Added a third serpae tetra.








(Pictures with black felt background make the feathery green of hornwort more visible.)








(This second photo isn't as focused, but I moved the chair that was making vertical pale stripes, and got myself out of the reflection.)








I'm beginning to notice the difference in service and care at each of the pet stores in driving distance, now that I visit them regularly. Went to lfs next town over, because I really want to give them my business. But they only had one serpae tetra left- it looked emaciated and listless (only sick-looking fish I saw in the store!) so I didn't buy but talked to the owner excitedly about the gorgeous angelfish he gets from a family-run hatchery in Florida. Someday I will go back and get my own pair, when I have a bigger tank...

I hopped over to the PSmart in that town- it was very clean and I was impressed with the fish they had in stock, compared to the one by my house. I got this tetra from them. 

A few days ago when I bought previous pair, was a bit irked that the guy tied the bag shut, so when I got it home took some work to undo the knot, jostling the fish around. I didn't want to cut it off and have the bag too short to handle easily while acclimating (I still do the old-school float method). Yesterday pleased to see a rubber band used (I put them to new purpose). Also the lady splashed a few drops of stress coat in the bag. But then she wrote ID for the cashier on it with a permanent marker. I don't know if it would get anything into the tank water but taking no chances I transferred the fish again at home into a clean quart ziploc to acclimate... 

Regardless all three recent newcomers are doing great and look spunky. No hiding or clamped fins, even eager to eat.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Well, that was quick. QT idea for serpae tetra did not last. Soon as there were three in the window tank, Witchy Fish was cowering on the substrate again. I saw one of the tetras persistently chasing Fabio, nipping at his trailing fins. He seemed rather desperate to get away. I watched that for ten minutes, then removed the tetras. After the disruption of catching fish was over, the two swordtails drift calmly around their tank again. Now that tetras are out, have lowered the temp for the swordtails. It's at 72 degrees now, and they look if anything a bit more active. Fed blanched, minced romaine lettuce today. They were not enthusiastic, but did try it.








I added a small clump of subwassertang on a stone into here, and the baby java fern off leaf in the main. More hornwort got trimmed and retired, it grows slow enough that's not too much of a chore. Java fern 'red' is growing out new fiddleheads and young leaves, however there is nothing red about them. Maybe because the light is so low.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

JJ09 said:


> Well, that was quick. QT idea for serpae tetra did not last. Soon as there were three in the window tank, Witchy Fish was cowering on the substrate again.


The problem is the lyretails swordtails have flowing tails and Tetras are fin nippers.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I never actually saw the other ones do it, but I guessed by the female sword's behavior that was happening before.

So now they will have a peaceful retirement with no more roommates.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I decided to dose this tank with General Cure at the same time I'm doing my main tank. Last time did a cleaning siphoned out a lot of pale poo. It could just be from what they eat- I've noticed the swords pick a lot at the white scum that grows on the rubber base of the heater. But also could be internal parasites? so thought it would do no harm to give them a round of treatment along with the others.








Pictures of the java fern 'red' in here. Can see that white stuff on the heater base in the last pic.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*Well, the swordtails aren't going to have a peaceful retirement alone after all-*

Although their new tankmates are calm enough. The ten female cherry barbs got transferred into this tank, because serpae tetras in the main were biting chunks out of their tails. (See my 38 journal on that). The barbs were pretty shy in their new home. All hiding, staying low behind plants at substrate level. I'm not sure if they are nervous because this tank is more open with fewer plants, or because they share it with larger fish (although the swordtails ignore them). 
















They blend in so perfectly with the gravel colors. And, either because they are afraid of getting bit again or because they sense the fear of the barbs, the swords are laying low too. From a short distance it looks like there's no fish in the tank at all.








I kept a background on the tank an extra day to help them settle in. They fed well this morning. I am testing water parameters- so far no ammonia or nitrite spikes. Doing small partial water changes each morning anyway, to help facilitate healing- two gallons a day.

As a side note, I stuffed the internal filter with media out of the canister and HOB when I switched out filters earlier in the week. In order of the flow going through, it has a few ceramic rings, then the carbon media, then a fine floss pad folded in half, then after the plastic grid a bunch of tiny sintered glass media (the ones that get stuck in the grid in the canister that separates everything from the head and base). I have a piece of sponge that will fit in here, planning to replace that carbon media with sponge soon (carbon is in there to clear out meds from recent parasite treatment).


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Fabio is fabulous! :grin2:

I've said this before, but I really enjoy reading your tank journals. They always make me want to get another tank to experiment with. I have a self-inflicted 2 tank rule though with the exception of my emersed grow out tank which I'm going to dust off today. A 40-breeder has a lot more room for plants than a 29 gallon.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks @Smooch!

I took out the carbon from the filter, replaced with a piece of coarse sponge. But I think it was too coarse- flow stronger and pushed all the floating plants to the far end of the tank. Swordtails were sitting on the bottom again- I think they don't like the flow. They come up to eat, go back down to rest. So today I took small piece of the finer sponge out of other tank's canister and put a piece of that between the coarse sponge and the finer poly media. It's like a media sandwich in there now. Flow a bit slower and the fishes are all swimming around interested. Plants not shoved quite so much.

On another note, my swordtails really like dandelion greens. They didn't spit any out as have with the lettuce leaf, but gobbled it down. Only now I have to spot-feed the swordtails. The cherry barbs are just too quick for them. I feed a bit to garner interest, then wait for the swordtails to come to the surface, and have to drop a large clump of food right in front of their face so they can get some while the barbs dash in. Incompatibility doesn't just have to do with aggression [sigh]. It's also about food competition...


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## SeaCur (Jan 13, 2015)

Hornwort always is entirely too messy for me, sheds older needles. I'm going to need to get that wendelov java fern though!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Well it does seem I was right guessing why the swordtails had been laying low again. Now that the filter has more sponge media stuffed into it and the flow rate is slowed down, they are moving about as normal again. Still not as quick chasing food as the cherry barbs, but they are in the midst and do get some. All the cherry barbs' tails are more than halfway grown back, now. Some of the females they almost look complete in form, just the new fin tissue is clear. I've seen them grow back from nips and tears in the past, and eventually the new fin part colored up again, so curious to see if these all do as well.

The tank has been getting some diatoms, it looks like- pale brown haze on the glass, mostly on the back wall against the window, and some on front right corner. It's easy to wipe it off just with my finger- in fact, easier than using algae scrubber because I can rub it off the silicone in the corner as well without damaging anything.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Female swordtail Witchy Fish died night before last. She'd been rather inactive for a few days, laying on the bottom and not coming up to feed... I guess it was her time. Fabio swims with the cherry barbs now... I was not sure how long her body had been in there overnight so did a 30% wc after the small burial (she feeds the forsythia now). Yesterday I moved three of the male cherry barbs out of QT into this tank, and today I moved the last two over, so I could put some new serpae tetras (destined for the 38 gal) into the QT (while it still maintained the cycle). Now this tank is fully stocked- and the cherry barbs seem to really like it in here. When I was floating the males in a plastic bag to equal temperature, they weren't stressed or nervous or pale at all. They were darting at the sides to get out, and wagging their pectorals eagerly at the females! Today there was a lot of chasing, flirting and spawning going on. 

Pictures coming soon.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*Picture Load*

I still have difficulty getting a nice photo of this tank. Have to remove pictures from the wall behind me, slide chairs out of the way or cover stuff that's on the couch across the room w/a large, dark blanket. Then annoyed that my own hands and camera gleam reflection in the tank glass- which I roughly photoshop out. Oh well. Feel like I'm getting _slightly_ better at it.








Side view: cherry barbs








There were so many baby windelov ferns growing on tips of older foliage, I finally plucked them all off. Some from the betta tank, too. A good dozen were just large enough to fasten down, so I started another windelov stone. Two views of it.
















More windelov babies are still too small- I have them floating in a tiny plastic cup, to grow a bit bigger. These are still on the tips of an old leaf,








and I was surprised to find some very tiny ones growing at intervals along those feeder roots the java ferns put out. I didn't know they could grown plantlets off the root hairs! You can just see a few top and bottom of this picture.








Here's the new little windelov stone, in the tank-








I rearranged the hornwort stems a bit to make a space for it, front left.








The regular java fern bits that I fastened onto rocks a while back, some of them came loose and the ones left are just getting big enough to be noticeable. They're situated just under the filter box.








The java fern 'red' across the back wall, older leaves are starting to decay away, newer ones are growing up- the brighter green.








I removed the arrowhead cuttings. They just weren't doing well. Pothos is thriving though, and the root mass from the cuttings is substatial enough now that it kind of wedges itself into the corner and I don't have to find a place to set it down when taking the lid off (still just a sheet of plastic from an old storage tote), it more or less stays in place.








The tank regularly has two 'looks'. Usually it's like this, now- I have a backdrop of dark gray felt over cardboard, and the window curtains held open, so bright ambient light comes in through the top but not the back of the tank. Hornworts do great with this as long as they're in the center or near front of the tank, java ferns seem okay in the back. 








On cloudy days, I keep the curtains closed and lift the backdrop off instead, so then the whole tank looks bright and airy and the java ferns get a good amount of light. (This is actually more because on cloudy days I prefer to keep the curtains closed if we have lights on in the front room, but it seems to work out well for the plants, too.) There is still no sign of algae aside from some diatoms, which are easily managed. Subwassertang remains healthy so far, I've added a few more bits of it (but not sure how well it will do when temps drop later in the year). Anacharis (elodea) always faltered in here before, but now the few stem pieces floating in here are actually growing- so I might add more when the thicket in the 38 needs a trim. Perhaps it is doing better now because with the added fish load, there are more nutrients in the water for the plants. I haven't checked nitrates in a while, it will be interesting to see where they are at in a week.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

Tank looks good! Your pictures are fine as well.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

The cherry barbs went to a new home a few days ago. Fabio is not quite alone- after some deliberation I moved my one otocinclus over here- I didn't want to loose a lot of the beneficial bacteria colony with the sudden drop in fish numbers- as am planning on getting more new fish really soon- some cories, perhaps- I know one little oto isn't the same as fifteen barbs! but it's _some_thing, and could use the little guy's help cleaning up diatoms. Fabio ignores the oto (who is getting plump now and after just one day in the tank glass looks a lot cleaner). I think he is more content now the tank is calmer- definitely getting a decent amount to eat again without the barbs rushing after everything.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I made a mistake. Noticed that Fabio is eager to feed now- he comes straight up to the surface from his resting spot when I lift the lid- but has trouble chasing the food in the current. I turned off the filter while I fed him. But last night- forgot to switch it back on. He was all night without it running. Looks fine in the morning- oto too- I did a wc for them. Don't want to do that again- and it's fairly likely I would. So I made another feeding ring, for Fabio. So his food will stay put.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

JJ09 said:


> I turned off the filter while I fed him. But last night- forgot to switch it back on. He was all night without it running.


I forget too sometimes. If you have plants in there I don't think it will harm him to much.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*I got some new corydoras catfish*

They're peppered cories (aka salt-and-pepper cories, pepper cories, spotted cories and who-knows how many other names). They thrive in cooler temps,








so I thought would be great companions for Fabio.








I have three so far- two are always hanging out together








Third one is usually in another part of the tank, just as busy scouting around for food, but not as companionable? Hopefully when I get a few more they will feel more at ease. One was very pale when first in the tank- and I did see some long, colorless poo a day or two later, so treated the tank with praziquantel and metronidazole (api general cure) they finished that and look fine.








I have added a few more plants- some stems of elodea (anacharis?) trimmed from the main tank,








more subwassertang








a tiny bit of bolbitis heudelotii I found floating around the main tank,








two even smaller bits of rhizome- off a crypt retrospiralis is my guess - these just for the heck of it- I don't really expect them to grow.








more windelov bits tied onto stones-








and even smaller bits
















superglued to a stone








I realize now I kinda overdid it- should have spaced them out more-








I replaced all these rubber bands that hold hornwort and other plants down. The clear ones I'd used (a different brand than my norm) turn white after they go in the tank which is way too conspicuous, and they also seem to break down sooner. I bought another mixed packet of tiny hair bands just to pick out the black ones for this use. The peppered cories are so perfectly camouflaged among the granite chips and gravel.








I gave up the idea of using a feeding ring with Fabio. He ignores it. Instead, he goes to the end of the tank opposite the filter, lines himself up to swim into the current, and grabs at bites of food as they go past. I was missing who to give all the floating bugs to for a while- the tetras don't seem to like going topside for food- but found that if I offer Fabio a bunch of aphids, he strikes at them and misses or spits out half, which then sink for the cories. So that works out fine.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*there was a baby fish in my tank!*









This was the best I could do for a picture- it was _very_ small, its entire length barely the width of the swordtail's eye. Where did it come from? Must have been an egg from the latest serape tetras' spawning stuck on some hornwort trimmings from the main tank, that I threw in here earlier this week. My first thought was: it will starve. But I saw it ingesting tiny specks of things. My next was that it would get sucked into the filter, or eaten by Fabio, who appeared to be making attempts to grab it. One of those must have happened; when I came back to look again ten minutes later, couldn't see it anywhere. Haven't seen it since. Oh well.

I admit I thought I never want to raise baby fish but when I saw this one I was so astonished and thrilled. I thought how cool would it be, to raise a few tetras of my own, instead of buying more to complete my school?

Funny, when I first saw it, pale thin thing Fabio nipped at, I thought it was a bit of degraded plant material. Then I saw it jerk, moving against the current and thought it was an insect had got in the tank. When I looked close and realized it was a baby fish, all I could do was stare for several minutes. Perhaps someday there will be more!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I had surgery on my right hand recently, to remove a lump of what apparently was scar tissue, just under the skin of my middle finger, that was growing and growing. It all went well, but recovery is tedious. I'm not allowed to do any gardening or put my hand in dishwater much less the aquariums, to avoid infection while healing..... 

So my tanks have kind of been on vacation, it's been two weeks now without any water changes or fert dosing, all I've done is occasionally remove (with a tool) a dead leaf that floats to the surface. I can't quite resist feeding the fishes, but I did reduce their rations by more than half. Instead of feeding the the usual once or twice a day six days a week, I'm only feeding once a day, every other day. It seems to agree with everyone just fine.

However today for the heck of it I did a few water tests, on the window tank and the main. I was surprised to find that although it looks healthiest of the three, showing no signs of plant decay or mulm buildup -except for a few older leaves on the java fern 'red' that dramatically bleached white and died off this week- that the window tank had higher nitrates, at 35 or 40ppm. (I probably overestimated how much the little cories would eat and have been over feeding. A new crop of tiny baby malaysian trumpet snails kinda confirms that. So must cut back a bit more!)

So I did a 50% wc today. With a plastic glove on my injured hand, and doing most things left-handed. It took twice as long as usual but actually with less spills, as I did all the work slower, with more care. The only real awkward part was using the siphon hose, backwards from the normal handling. I also rinsed out the filter media, and while I was at it removed the ceramic rings that are in there. Thinking it will slow the flow a bit- it does cause Fabio to struggle at the surface and later on when I get paradise fish, they like gentle flow. It did work to slow up a bit- I fed flake afterward and Fabio had an easier time chasing down his bites. Also with future paradise fish in mind, I shifted the plastic makeshift lid over to completely cover the top and cut two holes in it, back corner, for the pothos stems to go through. It makes it more inconvenient to take the lid off, but paradise fish are known jumpers so I did that.

Samblu's tank is the one really needs a cleaning, but I will do that tomorrow, and then the main tank following day. One at a time, right now.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*updates-*

*07/05-* Sometimes on really cloudy days or during a thunderstorm I pulled the backing off the window tank to see it bright with light through the plant foliage. I don't think I'm going to do that anymore, though. The plants are getting used to slow growth that matches the lack of ferts- if I expose them to more light too frequently, won't that make them want to speed it up and cause die-off? I noticed one week when I did this often, the hornwort started shedding a lot and changing its growth pattern.

*07/06-* I stopped by the local pet store and what do you know, the tanks all looked clean and the fishes healthy. They had new peppered cories and a large group of serape tetras. So I got some. Two pepper cories for my window tank, and three serape tetras to add to my school in the main. The two new cories are bigger than my original three- one large enough I think it might be full-grown. I have blocked the sides of the tank with hand towels to keep it nice and dark for low stress for a day, and fed a pinch of flake right when letting the new fishes go out of the net into the tank. Nobody had clamped fins or went pale, they all started scouting around busy on the bottom for food.








I also got a blue ramshorn snail. 








I know I didn't like baby ramshorns all over my tenner, but this one I plan to put in the main. However first it went into the window tank, so I can observe and see if it lays eggs. I figure egg packets or baby snails will be easier to pick out of there, since the planting isn't dense. 








I'd never seen a blue one in person before; I think it's really striking.









*07/12*- Tank had higher nitrates than I expected this week, especially since I don't dose ferts in here. It was 30ppm so I did a 50% wc. Thinking why is it higher. Because I removed a large amount of hornwort earlier in the week? Too much fish load? Overfeeding...?

I moved the filter to sit near a corner and flow goes across the width of the tank now, not from short end across the entire length. It keeps the floating plants from piling into a corner so much with the current.








Here's a picture of the few bucephalandra I moved in here to try.








Saw a small green leaf near this bunch of hornwort- its on bottom left of the rocks that hold the stems down- at first I thought it was a small java fern leaf, but I don't have java fern right there. I looked closer- it's that bit of of cryptocoryne rhizome sprouting!








Baby windelov ferns I fastened onto stones are all growing bigger. They seem to do better tied down with the small hair bands- some of the ones with glue come loose.








In fact a whole tiny sheet of the superglue detached with all its baby ferns, and drifted to rest against the base of the hornwort stems. I just left it there.








Bonus pic of my blue ramshorn snail on the tank seam.









*07/13-* So the seven serpae tetras I have now all look healthy. I still want to have a school of eight or ten, but tired of buying fish and some always get sick and die. Done with buying fish from the box chain stores... Sadly the good lfs in next town has never had regular serpae tetras when I visit. They have a full tank of long-fin ones, which look lovely, but not exactly what I want... But... maybe I can raise my own? Surprise chance!

I always put trimmings from my main tank into this one- mostly hornwort and elodea. The tetras spawn so often, I must have transferred over a few eggs before they hatched. I found a tiny baby fish just above the substrate and managed to gently catch it and put in a mesh breeder box (so the swordtail won't eat it, like happened to the last one. So I am raising a baby serpae tetra in here now! 

It was probably a week old when I found it. I fed it egg yolk the first three days, before I realized it was big enough to take pulverized foods. I've been giving it powdered flake, crushed shrimp pellets and betta pellets and now very very small live mosquito larvae, too.

There's a thread on it here http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/21-fish/1177721-baby-fish-what-do-i-feed.html.

Hornwort does not like the frequent water changes I've been doing to keep nitrates down- its struggling to adjust, dropping tons of lower needles and altering its top growth. Looks terrible- but I know it will recover or be replaced easily with more trimmings. None of the other plants visibly affected- I bet it's because the hornwort is such a fast grower, an 'indicator plant'. I think the regular wcs have depleted nutrients for it, but then its dying foliage pollutes the tank. I'm taking care to get out all the shed needles I can with every wc too.

*Today 07/17-* Well I think I found out why nitrates were high. My blue ramshorn snail is dead already. Bummer. I noticed it hadn't been moving in a few days, and plucked it out of the tank into a small container of tank water to observe, but that night the whole room stank like rotten something. Snail is gone.

It must get the blue color from the body tissue? The shell when empty is all white.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Two of my peppered cories don't look well. I wondered if the smallest one was a runt or unwell, because it didn't grow like the others- four are now the same size, one has remained small. Perhaps it will always be smaller. But now one of the fullsize cories appears listless and weak- the current pushes it around and often I find it motionless among some plant stems, twice I have found it limp drifted against the pothos roots or underside of the fry box. I haven't treated with anything because I don't know what's wrong with it. I thought the frequent small wc I'm doing for the fry would help it- but it seems to be going downhill.

I also worried that something I did recently has harmed it. I added more pothos stems across the back of the tank (stuck through a strip of plastic that has regular holes, from one of the kids' building kits). And I'm using wood stain on the tank stand in progress- I'm working in the basement, running fans and keeping the doors closed between, but still I can smell the fumes in the house. But none of the other fishes seem affected, especially the fry I would think is more sensitive.









I'm soaking some wood to add to the tank- from a branch that broke up high in one of our maple trees and was up there for weeks. It recently came down, appears very dry- here's a cut end- 








and when I loosened off the bark it looks rather pretty. Only two soaks seem to have removed most of the tannins. But I am not going to add the wood to the tank until I am ready to move it onto the new stand, and all that after the baby fish is big enough to handle the stress of such changes. Will do it all at once. More time for the wood to soak and waterlog.








Here's a quick pic of the tank, current state- last week I added another clump of windelov on a stone, from the betta tank- Fabio is resting in the background so not visible but the largest cory does a lot of 'glass surfing' so there he is, darting across-


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

My cories seem to be fine now. The one that was listless perked up after a partial wc, and when I dropped sinking food in the tank at night. I think sap was seeping out of newly-cut pothos stems and affected the little fish? I'm also adding a few cuttings of sweet potato vine, but have these in a jar of water changing out for a few days, to make sure the cut is healed before I add them to the back of the tank.








Figured out that the tiny fish in the mesh box is most likely a cherry barb fry. I can see it quite clearly now and it definitely looks like them. Must be two months old now. Disappointed it's not a tetra. Tired of putting a lot of daily effort into a fish I don't really want. Not sure what to do with it, but can't bring myself to just cull. I'm letting it go in the tank, to take its chances against Fabio. If it survives until fall, I'll move it into the main tank and see what happens...


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Put the boiled, peeled and soaked maple sticks into my window tank. (Surprised that after only two days of soaking, barely any tannins leach out). Not as the arrangement will finally be, and I haven't yet attached the java ferns to them- right now just held down with some stones to waterlog more. Later when it's time to empty the tank and move onto the stand, I'll take the trouble to fasten the plants on, as I'll have to lift them all out then anyway.








I have stuck more plant cuttings in across the back- including a few sweet potato vine, and am making a new lid that fits better, using pieces of lexan leftover from when I made the sliding lid on the betta tank. I kind of like the lighter, orange/tan hue of the sticks in there. It makes the orange of Fabio's long fins really stand out, and the smaller little orange shape that is the baby fish-








Cherry barb fry is loose in the tank now.








Fabio doesn't make any moves to eat it- the fry is big enough now, or quick enough to move out of the way. I am not sure if the fry itself is getting enough to eat. Belly doesn't get as big as when I could target feed it three times a day. I do see it picking at stuff- but not necessarily what I try to feed it. A few times I have dropped in the powdered food near where the fry was, and watched to see if it found the bits of flake. It took bites but spit them out again. Why? I also dropped in tiny live mosquito larvae again, and watched them move herky-jerky up and down the water column for a while. I saw the fry eat one, so at least it is getting that.

For some reason it won't eat the gold pearls I bought. I got size 300-500 microns, maybe it is too big. I offered them twice when it was in the mesh box, and just found the little orange dots stuck to plants later. Even after I thought they would have softened and started to disintegrate, the baby fish didn't eat them. I had to siphon it out. However it's not a total loss- when I put a tiny pinch in the main tank, the adult serpae tetras scrambled to grab all those tiny bites. So I can feed it to them...


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I think Fabio is near the end. He doesn't look good. Paler around the mouth and top of head constantly now, swims in place at the surface or in front of the filter, there's a hole in middle of his tail fin and which is getting bigger every day. I don't know how that started. Seems to have lost his appetite too. The other fishes look fine- I'd think if anything the fry would be affected but no, so I guess it's just Fabio hitting his old age. I tested the water- zero ammonia, zero nitrite, less than 20 nitrates. Even so I did a 25% water change this morning, but he looks no different. The cories are frisky again, though. And the cherry barb fry is growing a lot. Looks to be almost a quarter inch long now.

Most definitely it is a baby cherry barb.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*I'm feeling bad*

I did all things wrong with the filter on this tank. And my fishes have suffered. The instructions that came with it are really minimal, but I _should have figured it out_. I had it hung too high on the back of the tank (I really think this filter is meant for things like turtle tanks) so the flow wasn't going through the media properly- realized this when one day I pulled it out to rinse and saw that the fine floss panel was mostly white just brown around the edges. Gah. Also I had tried to put other media in there instead of buying a new filter cartridge- way back when- and I think I used too _much_ stuff and it clogged the thing. (I have taken some back out) Bah. _And_ after fixing both those problems but the fish still looked unwell, I finally realized an odd vibration/rattle I'd been hearing was coming from the filter. Turns out when I dumped out a trumpet snail three weeks ago, the impeller got loose. It is back in place now but I am kicking myself at _how long_ it was running so inefficiently. The water was getting cloudy and there was a film on top, even though I was doing partial water changes almost every day to try and keep it clear. (And skimming the surface with paper towels every morning).

Yeah the fishes looked really bad that whole time. I should have realized something was up with the filter instead of guessing at all other kinds of reasons. Fabio has been pale, lying around, at the last swimming constantly just in front of the outflow, until I finally fixed it. And a hole appeared in his tail fin- middle of the sword- and just got bigger. Fin rot and fungus. The cories were getting pale and thin and breathing hard, one was weak and limp, current pushing it against stuff. Another had tuft of fungus on its dorsal and edge of tail looked uneven. I was really worried one of them would die.

Thank god cories are tough, and if it weren't for the plants in here (absorbing nitrates and ammonia, producing oxygen) I think they really all _would_ have died. Now I have fixed those three major problems with the filter, the cories have their color and appetite back and are breathing easy (no more constant mad dashes to the surface for air). The one that had fungus, fins are clean again. Fabio isn't as pale and swimming around a bit more- but I feel so terrible. He has lost half his tail. The sword is near gone. Fungus on him went away- I have been doing extra water changes when I couldn't figure out what was wrong- but I am not sure if the rot has stopped, and I doubt he can grow his tail back. He's an old fish! I can only imagine it is painful. He's still eating, though.

I am really frustrated with the filter- now I know I have to keep it higher than the water surface but that's annoying with how I have the lid set up to support pothos and sweet potato stems in the back. I have ordered a new filter- one that I can transfer all the media into so I don't get a mini-cycle- it's supposed to be here really soon. I hope that really improves things in here. 

If Fabio gets to the point where he can't swim or the tail rot reaches his body, I think I will have to euthanize. I can't stand to watch him suffering more.

I really wonder if this period of bad water quality (_must_ have been, although when I tested I got zero ammonia, zero nitrite and less than 20 nitrates- can't quite figure that out) has harmed the long-term health of the cherry barb fry, or stunted its growth. It does look very rosy around the gills and its tummy has pinkish hue (see pic on the prior post)- but I'm not sure if that is normal- a lot of its body is still translucent after all. (It has been eating a lot of the white fungus crud growing out of the maple wood, which is great!)


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Got the new filter. After considering spme options I went old-school. A canister seemed overkill for a twenty gallon that's going to house a paradise fish (they like gentle current) and a few bottom-dwellers. Plus I forgot to make a gap into the back of the tank stand and don't want to drill a hole in it. I don't want an HOB for this tank- nor another internal filter than hangs off the rim. What I pictured in mind was something like the sponge filter in my betta tank, but larger and to hold more media options. So I got this box filter. It's so simple.








I put in coarse sponge, marineland cut-to-fit filter pad and fine floss out of the old filter, in that order. Between the corase sponge and marineland media a piece of medium/fine sponge. Then some gravel out of the tank and a layer of porous bio-cubes. (I thought the gravel in the base was just for ballast, but found out it's actually to house the bacteria after the water has been mechanically cleaned by all the sponges and stuff). I did have to discard some of the original media, cutting it down to fit- but added the gravel, bio-cubes and medium sponge- hope I have replaced media with enough volume of new to equal out- so I'm not loosing bio-capacity. 
















To test it out I put it in a bin with some old tank water and a few gallons of dirty water out of that silly pond container on my deck. I could see the dirty particles getting drawn into the sponges. It worked better at picking up debris when I put it on the little foot pedestal and added a second air pump to increase flow. Overnight it got pretty clear and the floss in the filter was definitely dirty!

It feels a bit risky- I can't go back after cutting up that media, unless I sew it together again with fishing line. I ran an airstone on the tank for some circulation so the fishes wouldn't stress too much and I could take my time cutting the media pieces to size. I wanted it to fit snug without much room for bypass.

My tank looks more sleek now. The noise is very minimal. I've never really liked bubbles in an aquarium- I don't run airstones unless I have to- but it's in the corner so not too noticeable, and it is very - classic in a way. 









It _is_ visible from the side- later I might obscure it with plants, right now it's nice to be able to glance and check on it.








I've been watching the tank all day. After an hour the fine debris started to clear out of the water column, and just as I expected, I could see the cories kicking up stuff where it had settled as they moved about, so I think that will help the filter pick up more. Any dead zones I can clean out with siphon during weekly maintenance. The tank is still a bit hazy- but I expect it will take a day or two to bounce back- and it is looking more clear now than a few hours ago. I watch the fishes especially for indication.








Cories look great. They are flirting about, the largest (I'm starting to think a female) wiggling its fins at the others as if excited. They are all poking around and following each other- I hadn't seen such social behavior before. Have good color and none are breathing hard or going to the surface repeatedly. Fabio drifts around. He definitely has an easier time swimming in this gentle current. Whether he will last long, I don't know.

When all done suddenly worried maybe I got a size too small? This one it said on the website "for up to 45 gallon aquariums" and I thought great, that's twice what I need. It wasn't until I had it up and running that found the small print on the box: it _turns over_ 45 gallons per hour. I know there's different opinions on this, but most aquariums should have turnover rate four or five times the volume of the aquarium, if not more? Well, I don't have huge waste-producing fish, but... the water is still cloudy. My cories look happy, Fabio doesn't. Now he hangs out at the surface right next to the bubble column. He isn't eating and his face is looking pinched.... I tested halfway through the day: ammonia is not a solid yellow but definitely less than 0.25, nitrite zero, nitrates 30. I think that's okay. I'm going to keep a close eye on it and do water changes if needed (although it is nice the hornwort quit shedding so many needles when I stopped dong the daily wc for the fry).


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

- sigh- I think my window tank has a bacteria bloom. It's clearer this morning, but still obviously hazy. Bad smell, too. Either it is simply because I messed with the filter and I need to wait it out. Or it's because -I realized another mistake- the fine sponge I put in there was also the one I originally tested the filter with- so it had pulled all that sinky water from the outside pond container thru it. Odor is suspiciously the same. I wonder if I removed that fine sponge and instead put in some of that sintered media from the other tank's canister, would it be better.

Other possibility is that I've been overfeeding in my anxiety to see the cories gain weight- several of them still look a bit thin. New crop of tiny infant limpets (gah) suggests this, and I do see the trumpet snails coming out in droves. Fabio bites flake and spits it out. I'm not sure if the cories are eating the flake he rejects or not- they move around the tank excitedly when I put the food in but mostly ignore the flake- swim right over it. Sometimes I see them eat it and spit it out, or eat it and push straight out through the gills! Is this normal cory behavior? Are they waiting for it to be broken down enough, or they just don't _like_ it? They do seem to eat the Hikari wafers I put in on other days, and the shrimp pellets at night, and they definitely snarf down the live mosquito wigglers. I'd quit giving flake altogether but it seems to be the only thing Fabio will eat now (at least _was_, until today).


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

JJ09 said:


> - sigh- I think my window tank has a bacteria bloom. It's clearer this morning, but still obviously hazy. Bad smell, too.


Bad smell is not good. At the least peroxide will help. If not something unfriendly could be growing in the substrate or the filter. Try soaking the stinky sponges you used in water treated and peroxide added. At least a 12:1 solution. For you need some of the bacteria in the sponges.

I had the same problem. My plants are in containers though. The bottom substrate, kittly litter, had turned blue. I had to replant them in containers, for I don't have time now to break the tank down and add substrate that I want. This time I have coconut husk in the bottom.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

The peroxide won't kill the good bacteria? You mean to soak it in tank water and peroxide, right?

I am trying to figure out what is best to do before I make a move, have done so many changes on this tank lately it is hard on the fish. If I do pull that one stinky sponge, I'd feel better to replace with same volume of sintered glass media from my other tank's filter, which is well-colonized. I'm worried now that some mico-organism or bad bacteria may have got transferring in here from the outdoor container via that sponge.

I'd boil it though to sterilize and save for later use. 

My other thought is that I need to vacuum the substrate better in case there's old food matter in there. That could also be causing the smell and haze is my guess. Maybe I'll do both.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

JJ09 said:


> The peroxide won't kill the good bacteria? You mean to soak it in tank water and peroxide, right?
> 
> My other thought is that I need to vacuum the substrate better in case there's old food matter in there. That could also be causing the smell and haze is my guess. Maybe I'll do both.


I don't think so. Besides you have more than 1 sponge, don't you? Yes use tank water or treated tap water and peroxide. A 12:1 solution and dip just 5 mins. I do it with my plants with algae with no problems.

Vacuuming too may help. For excess food can cause a haze. That I learned the hard way.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*Not to do too much at once-*

but I also redid the lid the other day. Had to because with the prior filter gone, there's nothing to support the two short strips of plastic that held the plants. Cut up my scraps of lexan. One strip two inches wide goes all across the back of the tank, I drilled holes for the pothos and sweet potato stems. It's got a hole for the filter airline too. Intend for that piece to remain stationary.








Plants waiting in a bin. They sure look healthy! Sweet potato grows roots a lot faster than pothos, nice white ones I bet I will have to trim them regularly after they are established.








I put a straight piece of coathanger wire (temporarily) across the center to support it, like on my betta tank. But there are no sliding channels- I just lift off the panes when I need to open the top.








The last piece I had wasn't long enough to span the tank. So I cut two short pieces that kind of overlap in the front. It's makeshift, but still an improvement over that plastic bin lid what I had before.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

It's cleared up! After that last msg I wrote, I went back down and glanced at the tank- like magic, the haze was gone. Still smelled bad though. So I went ahead and added more bio-media from the other tank's canister, removing that one suspect sponge (it really smelled sour, not nice and musty like the other sponges and media) and the dirtiest/clogged fine polishing pad. Feel better having a larger ratio of the filter box contents as bio-media for some reason. Also siphoned the gravel- gently. Did about a 20% wc in the process. Tank has never looked so better. Still an odor, but much reduced.

Fishes on the other hand... well most of them are exploring around. Fabio is laying on the bottom breathing hard. Smallest cory is sitting in a corner- resting? not sure. I am starting to be able to tell them apart, but feel reluctant to give them names. It nags at me that they still seem a bit thin- kind of tadpole-shaped when seen from above/below- wide head and narrow body/tail. I see them eat but only the largest (a female?) looks to be in really good shape. Maybe they need a parasite treatment.

I saw some interesting behavior from the largest cory in the last few days. If it's a she, doesn't appear plump enough to be gravid by my guess, but really seems it wants to mate. This fish darts round the tank pausing and flipping its fins, then up to another cory and quivers all over. Follows the other one close around the tank, quivering all the while and sometimes shoving up against the other fish or running right over it. This is also the one that cruises up and down the glass a lot- then pausing to quiver pectoral fins at the glass. I get the sense this cory is in spawning mood but as the others are unresponsive, is flirting with its reflection.

Also makes me think this is the only one of them who is really healthy. So now I have to figure that out.... I think I will soak their sinking foods. The snails swarm all over it before it appears to get soft enough for the cories to be interested. I'd rather feed the fishes first.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*Marked improvement this morning*

the water definitely looks a lot better- very clear. Minimal smell. All five of my cories eagerly came up to the front to eat spirulina wafer (I give this to them once a week). Even Fabio came to eat! and was drifting around the tank in his old manner. 

I did notice over the past few weeks Fabio sometimes gets _twitchy_. Jerks around and dashes across the tank, then acts normal again. I thought maybe he was just getting old and experiencing some kind of fish dementia. Um, probably not a real thing. Some of my cories occasionally flash against objects- I thought this was from irritation of fine debris getting stirred up out of the substrate, as I didn't see any signs of ich- no white spots on any fish. So I hadn't done anything because not sure what it was. Now considering parasite treatment because of their skinniness, I read the back of API General Cure package again. And something about the description of gill flukes clicked. It's probably what _all of them_ have. I dosed the tank this morning.


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## lisals (Jun 21, 2017)

Hope the general cure fixes whatever might be bothering them.
And woot for clear water! Hopefully the smell completely disappears soon too


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*Day two of general cure treatment.*

The cories and swordtail have more appetite, but some of the smaller cories sit around breathing hard, and Fabio went back to hanging out at the surface near the filter outflow again. The medication lowers oxygen content in the water. I don't have another air pump- both my spares are running this filter until I can get a larger one to do the job solo. But I do have lots of airline, splitters, connectors and flow control valves.

I added an airstone to the tank, opposite side of the filter to provide more circulation and oxygen in the tank. Used a splitter so one of the air pumps is supplying both the filter box and the airstone. At first this diverted too much to the airstone, there wasn't enough flow on the other side to run thru the filter box. I put a control valve on the line that goes to the airstone to constrict it, and fiddled with it until the airstone has just enough to ripple the surface, and the filter looks like decent flow. I can't tell if Fabio feels any relief, but the cories look more at ease and the smallest one isn't darting frequently to the surface anymore.









Oh and here's the box filter- about half bio-media, half sponges and poly.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*Fabio is gone*

He rests under the hydrangea now. I put him to sleep with clove oil. I hope he had a nice end of his years, but for the past few weeks has just looked so miserable, I had no real hope for his recovery and could not watch him suffer more. He went peacefully- did not struggle like Oliver had under the sedation but just rolled over onto his side and when I dosed more clove oil, quit breathing like that. The end.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I got a new air pump rated for 40gal. Cories are done with their treatment. I worried for a bit that they are still kinda skinny, but have been assured look okay. No longer so flat in the belly but getting rounded out some. Three biggest ones look to be females? their paired fins are wider and rounder. The smaller cories have pointy anal and pectoral fins. It's cute to see them flock out to feed in the front corners where I drop pellets and wafers, so I can watch them. They're acting more flirtatious with each other.
















Looking back at older pictures noticed the hornwort isn't doing as well now, by comparison. Nor the elodea- it seems to be dying off quicker than growing new leaves. I thought at first because I have fewer fish so less waste... but then realized I had also changed the lighting situation recently- to reduce algae on the front glass. I've put things back to how they were with curtains open during the day so the tank is more brightly lit from way above, and put a plastic sheet across lower window pane to diffuse it. Not sure yet if this is a good solution. I put plastic sheet over the other lower window pane flanking the 38gal- and that one is getting less dark algae spores on the short ends of the tank so I _think_ it will be an improvement.


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## lisals (Jun 21, 2017)

Awww. RIP Fabio.

Glad to hear the cories are doing better though.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*spawning!*

I didn't get any photo because what I saw was so brief, and I haven't found the evidence yet: but my peppered cories spawned! 

None of the cories came to the front corner for their breakfast- unusual. So I watched the tank for a while. Three of them burst out of a thicket looking especially flirtatious, then I saw the 'T' formation between a pair. When the female was backlit for a moment I saw that she was carrying three eggs under her belly in the fins! The next moment she disappeared among the plants and when I saw her again, only one egg in the fins. Later in the day the fishes are calm, no eggs in the female's 'basket'. I don't see them on plants or glass, but she's definitely stuck them somewhere. I am really happy they've found my tank so much to their liking, and wonder if I'll get any corydora fry?!

This happened the day after I added leaf litter to their tank (half a loquat leaf, one catappa, one guava and half a jackfruit). As in the other tanks, I don't see any difference visually in water hue, or pH with the test kit- but is the spawning so soon after just a coincidence? Or was it triggered by the weather- later that day we had severe thunderstorms. Hm. I'm tempted to add a few more leaves!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*I got my paradise fish!*

Went to the lfs yesterday- I have had my eye on their tank of blue paradise fish for months- and I was right to be anxious to get one in time. They only had _three_ left. Two were cowering in a corner- one had ripped tail fin, the other a small body wound. I saw the third paradise fish- who looked to be in good condition- darting at the other two when they tried to move around the tank. I bought the aggressor. 

He seemed to be ignoring the other fishes in the store tank- tetras- so I hope will not bother my cories. However for now is in temporary quarters. His QT tank is still draped to keep it dark (reduce stress), so I don't have any pics yet but will soon. But this fish doesn't seem to need my careful treatment. Immediately on release into my QT he was exploring around, even approaching the front when I stood nearby. He shies away when I reach over the surface, but comes right back out. Very bold! 

I don't usually feed new fish on their first day with me- giving them at least twenty-four hours to settle in. They don't want to eat when frightened and being hungrier on the second day are more likely to take unfamiliar food, I think. But this guy was already nipping at things in the tank and since I had just been in the garden I offered him two small caterpillars. He gobbled them. I gave him a leaf hopper and about ten mosquito larvae. He ate them all. 

It was really cool to watch him hunt down the wigglers. My serpaes dash frantically after those and eat them _all _in seconds. The cherry barb fry looks for her share, but seems to find them more by chance than anything else. This paradise fish hunts with_ intention_. I can see his eyes searching. He glides very smooth, pauses, looks around, glides again. Moves across the tank bottom or through the bolbitis fronds searching methodically. (I am kind of putting the bolbitis meant for my 38 through quarantine, too. It came in with a few pond snails- I hoped the paradise fish might get rid of the baby ones that hatch which I can't even see yet and I think he's doing that. Definitely see him nip at things on the plants).

Not to spoil him right off the bat with live foods, I gave him some bites of pea this morning (the other fishes all got it after their day of fasting). He went after those just as avidly. Stopped feeding him when I saw his tummy all rounded, but he is still keen to eat (of course). When I smacked a mosquito that landed on my arm, dropped it in his tank. He snapped that up too.

I am thinking of names already: Floki, Melvin, Tazzie, Xing, Sirus, Ryker ...


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Here he is! 








It's hard to get a good picture because his QT is a plastic bin- the sides are only translucent. He is still kind of washed out, I don't expect to see his full colors until he's in the proper tank which is nice and dim with dark substrate. (He actually had better coloring than this in the store, while displaying to the other fish he was bullying, but I bet will be even brighter than that when matured.)








I think his fins have lovely form, although noticed when I got him home (of course) that the filament on one of his pelvic fins is missing. I don't know if that can grow back.








He's just a little guy still. Even though the size of my betta his proportions are of an immature fish and I know will grow twice as large. (Still thinking of names. I verbalized a lot of them today while doing stuff around the house until finally it annoyed my six-year-old. "Ahh! I don't care what you call your fish!" she said. Haha.)


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I went to get some serpae tetras today from another aquarist- see my 38 gal journal- and he took in my baby cherry barb. It was her first time ever out of the home tank, she didn't even know to be afraid of the net. She made the 30 min car trip just fine, and I hope she will be happy there. This guy has_ lots _of tanks with very healthy-looking fish, so I feel assured she will have good care.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Looks like both my QT tanks are going thru a mini-cycle now. Or small ammonia spike from something.... I am doing partial wc as needed. Found out it's difficult to siphon the bottom when there's leaf litter and (in the paradise fish's QT) free-floating subwassertang. My method now is to do most of the wc with siphon hose, then use a turkey baster to gently get mulm out from under the leaves and among the subwasser. The paradise fish's QT has quite a few dying fronds on the bolbitis- going through transition. Black algae coating some upper leaves, hair algae. Also two new fiddleheads coming up from the rhizome, so not too worried. I cut out the necrotic fronds- he has less cover now, but maybe the dying plant parts were causing the ammonia? Can you see the fish.








I have added sweet potato vine to the paradise fish's QT bin. I moved it last night. I had the two quarantine tanks sitting on one piece of furniture- this low cabinet that seemed sturdy enough- I asked my husband dubiously if he thought it would be okay and he shrugged: sure. But yesterday I thought I saw the tanks had a slight tilt to them, towards the center of the cabinet. I got out the level and my eyes were not playing tricks on me- they were both leaning into the center. I realize the ten-gallon weighs over 110 pounds when full, and the bin QT holds 8 gallons, that's another 66 pounds or so. I don't want this piece of furniture to collapse on me! So I moved the bin QT off, onto a bar stool. I looked up its specs: supports max weight of 220 pounds. It will be okay.

It was the easiest fish move I have ever done. I scooped out water into a clean five-gallon bucket and put the largest plants in there. It was down to about three inches- enough to just cover airlift tube of the sponge filter. I simply lifted the bin over to the stool, fish still in there. He swam around a bit probably wondering what was happening, but didn't hide or freak out. I slowly replaced his water and the bolbitis, and he looks fine. Gobbled his peas this morning! I'm calling him Perry. 

Except- I think maybe it's a girl? in which case I might re-name to Star.








When he's done with QT I'll move his sweet potato vine onto the window tank. There's a few open spots now. Sweet potato vine does so much better growing roots submerged than pothos. I removed some of the pothos stems which are just not thriving, the lower end of stem looking like it will rot. Three left which have nice roots, but theirs are brown where the sweet potato vine a more healthy-looking white.








They have grown so much in here, I had to trim a bunch of roots out on maintenance day. Some had reached all the way down to the substrate and were starting to loop around. This is _after_ the trim:


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*two kinds of catfish*

Last week I moved my one otocinclus into this tank. I can't make up my mind what to do with this lonely fish. It was starting to look skinny in the main tank, and rather listless- instead of constant busy nibbling it would lie still for long periods, then make frantic-looking darts around the tank- to this spot, then another, then another- without feeding long in any one area. I really think it was running out of algae to eat in there. Between the trumpet snails, nerites, limpets and shrimps- not enough left for the oto maybe.








So I took a chance and moved it over here where there are still some diatoms, green spot algae and fungus growing out of driftwood. Even though plenty of trumpet snails in here too, and far more visible limpets, it seems like the oto is finding more food now. I did a slow acclimation but for the first day it looked pale and was breathing hard. Now its tummy is rounder, and it moves about busy nibbling on surfaces again. It's cleaned all the diatoms off, but appears to be finding enough on wood and plants for the time being.

It is kind of cute, and also rather sad, that it hangs out with my cories at the substrate level sometimes. I wonder if it finds their company a bit companionable.








I am kind of hoping it will learn to eat algae wafers and zucchini from the cories, then maybe I can move it back into the main tank and supplement its diet that way. Soon it will be too cold in this tank.








Incidentally, when I was taking closeups of the oto among cories, I noticed this one catfish seems to have a bent tail- on the right








Before I thought well, maybe it just lets its tail drift up when resting. But when I look at the others- you can see it even though the photo is a bit blurry- their tails remain straight whether scavenging or at rest.








I hope it is just a birth defect and not an early sign of fish tuberculosis.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*I moved my paradise fish*

into the now-empty ten gallon QT. Here's why: his small bin QT was still not cycled, and the ten-gallon one was sitting there next to it empty of fish but fully cycled, so... I moved him. I pulled the heater, but left the previous filter in there- it's not plugged to an airline and I rinsed out the media so it wouldn't be stitting full of stagnant mulm, but I kept it there for the bacteria load- maybe they will transfer? Perry's smaller sponge filter running next to it. I moved all his plants over- sweet potato vine in the lid, bolbitis fern making a thicket on one end of the tank, a small bunch of hornwort on the other, all the plastic plants in between.








Subwassertang was the biggest pain to move; I much prefer when this stuff is tied down to something, but I wanted to keep it going as long as there is a fish in QT so I plucked every last bit of it out of the bin with tweezers and moved into the ten-gallon tank to sit in a corner. It does sink more or less.








I thought once Perry was in a darker tank, he'd show better colors (my daughter's friends visiting a few days ago said "oh, you have a new fish! this silver one!" because they didn't see any color on him then). True to expectation, he showed his stripes the moment I floated him in the tank to acclimate. For the first time since I brought him home I thought thought: wow, he_ looks_ like a paradise fish! 








When I released him the first thing he did was try to eat the floating duckweed.
















He seemed real excited to be in this larger, more densely-planted, dim tank (with better water!) He was going around and around the tank in constant, curious motion with his tail wiggling animatedly. And for the first time I saw him hunting malaysian trumpet snails. Yeah, I am pretty sure this fish is going to give me natural snail control. A snail on the glass wall moved, and Perry stopped short, tipped his head to roll his eye sideways at it, and nipped lightning fast at the snail's head. The snail dropped to the floor; I don't think the fish has managed to eat one yet but he sure is trying. He was constantly perusing the bottom of the tank, biting at snails he found with their heads out.

He is starting to fill out a bit more now- and especially seems to like earthworms (from my bin)








I swear his colors are bolder when he is excited about food. These pictures came out blurred but I like the form.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I just euthanized the male cory that had a bent tail. I found it lying on its side, patches of fungus and a lump on the side of head. Labored breathing, rolled upside down when it tried to swim. Looked really bad. It did not move away when I nudged it with tweezers, very weak. Symptoms remind me of the serpae tetra that died the moment I separated it into a QT container. This one I folded into a paper towel and put my foot over it. Then took a shovel to the backyard, all in the space of a few minutes. I feel horrid.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*spawning catfish!*

I noticed yesterday that the cories looked a bit more active than normal- kind of dashing around the tank together, then stopping short with fins held wide quivering excitement- but I didn't think about it. Today when I fed them I saw one female had her pelvic fins pinched together. She was carrying eggs! There was a flurry of activity among them in a bunch of plants, and when she came out again the fins were empty. But a few minutes later I saw the group of cories rushing around together, mouthing each other and following close, and then she appeared to have two or three eggs in the "belly basket" again. You can barely see them here.








I saw her cleaning the underside of windelov leaves, and go through the motion of sticking an egg on them, but later could not find the egg in that spot. However there are definitely at least two placed on the subwassertang-








Not sure how well they got fertilized, as I only have one male now. He's to the left in this pic- and if you look close can see an egg under the female, in her fins just to the right of the food wafer:


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*it looks different-*

My cories were spawning again this morning. Later I saw an egg stuck to the glass- but it was exposed for over half an hour to air so I don't know if is dead or not. It was a bad day for them to spawn! However I am pretty sure they are going to keep doing it, so no loss... 

Today I put my custom stand under the tank. It took half the day. Emptied the tank- plants and some hardscape in one clean bucket- fishes, leaf litter, more plants and the running filter in another.








I got the stand in place and leveled, but a bit worried because it turns out the top surface is not perfectly even- the tank rim only rests solid on _one_ corner and the middle of the span of long sides. I am not sure if this is safe to avoid the glass cracking, even though it's a fairly small tank... quick photo of the tank on the new stand next to my thirty-eight, and the white bucket on the side: that's where my fishes are right now. The cories _look_ okay- one of them is pale with stress- I'm testing tank waters to see when ammonia goes back down- it got a spike from all the disturbance.








I was going to trim the roots back of all the stems in the lid, but decided not to in case it temporarily decreases their uptake of ammonia- definitely want them to do that job right now.








It's replanted now- in a bit of a different arrangement- I decided to quit keeping hornwort pegged down, all as floaters now. I have a few more elodea stems- they grow a lot slower but stay in place much better than the hornwort- and when a few windelov pieces came loose from their stones, I fastened them to the wall of the tank with suction cups. Yeah, I know I tried this before with hornwort and didn't like the look of it. Maybe different with this other plant. Trying to get some height of greenery in the tank. There's also vallisneria I introduced, and some crypt retrospiralis, in the back corner where it gets most of the light.

Going to get a picture when the light is better.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*short cycle*

I was hopeful this morning because ammonia was dropping but as expected, my window tank is going thru a mini-cycle. Seems to be progressing quickly. It had a cloudy bacteria bloom yesterday which cleared by nightfall, and the trumpet snails are no longer climbing the walls. Today ammonia is 0.25 and there is the beginning of a nitrite spike. Perhaps tomorrow or the day after I can move the fishes back in... surely by the weekend.

Meanwhile the cories are doing fine in the bucket. I checked their water. Ammonia test was a solid yellow. I can see their shapes through the white bucket wall as they swim against the side, and right now they are going up and down the walls in a tight group, following each other very closely. Are they spawning in the bucket?!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

No can do. I was worried about the top of the tank stand being not quite level- its on another thread- so went and got a thick piece of rigid foam to put under it. That meant I had to tear the tank down again. Good thing is the fishes were still in the bucket... I tested their water today and it has small nitrite spike. Did another partial wc for them. It is still better conditions than in the home tank- which is once again going thru a mini-cycle now. It spiked ammonia the day before yesterday, today higher on nitrites.... I am so ready to put them back in there but have to wait.

Eager to move Perry out of QT, too. Every time I smack a mosquito or catch a fruit fly in the kitchen, he gets it- the favorite fish. This morning he got a good serving of live mosquito wigglers, too. And later after dumping kitchen scraps in the outside compost, I brought him a small, fat soldier fly larve, rinsed it off well. Think he's had enough for today! Now when I walk by his tank he gets so excited he is practically doing loops back and forth at the front glass.

I hope he likes it in the window tank when he finally gets there.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Yesterday I moved my cories and otocinclus out of the bucket, back into the window tank, which is all replanted. They surely were stressed in those temporary quarters- the oto so pale it looked yellow.








To try and keep them calm while re-acclimating I put a bit of leaf and subwassertang in their bag (I've read that cories will release a toxin from their gills when distressed, which can kill them all). It seemed to work. At least, most of them were hiding under the leaf. And nobody died.
















Once in the tank, they were all very animated and seemed happy to be home. Cories are frisking all over the place. Oto colored right up and is feeding on spirulina wafer alongside the cories again.
















I bought one more peppered cory from the pet store today, he is on his lonesome for a short while- I wanted to take the opportunity while the QT is still set up and cycled. Watching him closely I saw something I never noticed before- that cories have short whiskers under their lower lip, in addition to the longer barbels on the sides of the mouth.








When he moved into QT, Perry my paradise fish moved out. The new cory is hiding under things in the QT, I draped the tank with towels to make it darker. Perry on the other hand, is not at all stressed at moving.








He has been swimming all over the tank excitedly, fins flared- jerking his ventral fins open on sudden stops so I can see the regenerating one has double in length again! He doesn't seem to mind the cories, but is acting aggressive to his reflection on the back wall haha. So I guess that answers my question could I keep a pair of them. As I'd expected, he colored up more in this tank:








And is looking fat now. I fed him this morning (hadn't planned at first on getting a new fish and moving Perry), but he still has plenty of appetite: nipping at trumpet snails making them fall down from high perches, biting limpets off the tank walls, and scrounging around on the bottom to eat all the bits of wafer food he can find.








I may have to strategize how to ensure the cories get enough food around this greedy tankmate. I'm very glad to finally have him in his intended home, though.

~~~

Later: Ahh!

Perry is _gorging_ himself- he ate all the cories' leftovers, picked the larger limpets off the glass, and is now going around excitedly eating baby trumpet snails. He is so much fatter I've ever seen him and I'm worried he will hurt himself. I am getting out my mesh fry box to isolated him in it for a day so he doesn't get bloat from overeating on snails!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Perry is still in isolation in the box. He has pooped out a bunch of tiny little triangles- swallowed those baby trumpet snails whole, I guess. I'm surprised it doesn't hurt his insides, and wonder if he got any nutrition from them- did he actually digest the soft snail bodies? I'm not about to rinse the remains to find out, though.

I took my new catfish back to the store this morning. Thought about it all night and still can't think of a way to keep Perry from gorging on the cories' food- and they eat a lot slower, so I think he really would hog it all. I don't want to see him choke on something like Pinkie did, nor to see the catfishes starve. Maybe they could subsist on the biofilm off the leaf litter, but I doubt it. It seems pointless to have one more cory in quarantine to add to the tank, when I'm probably going to have to take these others out and re-home them.

If it comes to that I will move the cories temporarily into my empty betta tank- although it is too small- while I find them somewhere to go... Very bummed about that. Second time trying to keep cories, and it isn't working. 

Because I happen to like the aggressive species more. I'm not about to give up my paradise fish. No matter how cute the cories are.
~
Later today: in the afternoon I let Perry out of the box- the cories having had a good feed this morning on shrimp pellet. Paradise fish immediately went back to hunting. He eyes the trumpet snails carefully, tipping his body sideways to scrutinize each one, and only bites at the smallest of the small. So I guess he can be my snail control- few babies will get past this guy. When the adults get old to die off, I will just replenish by thinning out from the other tanks...

I did kind of stir his poo with a skewer when siphoned out the fry box before removing it. It mostly broke up- no more triangle shapes- with bits of broken shell in there. So I guess he did crunch them pretty well after all.

He also ate two cory catfish eggs off the glass. I didn't even realize they had spawned until I saw Perry eyeing these nice while globes stuck on the glass down near the substrate. He snapped one off before I realized what they were. He tried for the second, tore it in half. Then cruised on looking for something else. And cory eggs are tough!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Last night it was finally cold enough for our heater to kick on- below 68°. First thing this morning I checked on my unheated fish tank- it was 69°. My otocinclus catfish still alive, but very lethargic- just sits in one place on the driftwood, not busy feeding. Too cold for this little fish. I moved him this morning into my empty tenner. Where I had recently adjusted the temp down to 74°- in case I needed to move the peppered cories in to get them away from Perry. Paradise fish and cories all look fine.

I've found a few ways to manage feeding them both. Perry has very sharp eyes and is much quicker to dart after a mosquito wiggler than my betta ever was. If I sprinkle a bit of gold pearls on the surface, he is kept busy picking at the little specks of food (and likes them very much!) at the same time I can sprinkle some down into the lower area of the tank. The food bits fall down where the cories can reach them, and by the time Perry is done looking for all the food at the surface, most of the pearls at the bottom have settled between substrate grains. Perry can't find them easily there, but the cories can locate with their barbels.

My other method is to wait until well after dark. It doesn't matter if Perry appears to be sleeping- resting very still under a bit of driftwood or between the filter box and the wall. As soon as my footsteps come near or my form a shadow upright outside the tank, he is right there at the glass expectantly. I can't sneak up on him. But I can sprinkle some finely crumbled flake at surface where he can just see it- I even take pains to pick out the pale yellow colored flakes from the container. Then softly drop a few sinking wafers in for the catfishes, on the other side of the tank while Perry is busy up top. The wafers are dark brown color, so Perry can't see them well in the dark, I think. In the morning his tummy is awfully fat, so I guess he did get some of it after all. But after a week, the cories still look okay I hope they're getting their fair share.

Regular servings of flake, betta bits, algae wafer or crushed shrimp pellet I can't keep from Perry. He spots the food right away- and goes meticulously across the substrate looking for every last bite of it. It looks like strong competition for the cories. So I am keeping a good amount of leaf litter in this tank, to make sure they have plenty of biofilm also. I ordered more from Tannin Aquatics- my first lots of leaves is disintegrating- especially the catappa leaves, those fall apart quickest. There are still some guava leaf and loquat intact.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Night before last I fed Perry his flakes topside, then slid a few sinking wafers in for the cories, after dark. Perry must have noticed after he got all the flake bits that the cories were feeding on something. I watched them closely, saw after a while he had located the wafer and was trying to carry it around. It was too big for him, but he must have gotten a large portion when it softened; in the morning his stomach was distended. I fasted him the next day.








The cories seem to be more reserved- I saw Perry jerking his fins open at them a few times yesterday (his re-grown feeler is almost full length now); I hope he is not going to attack them over food. Yesterday I caught a few mosquito wigglers outside- the puddle is not very productive anymore- I only found five. I was in a hurry and after rinsing just dumped them in the tank, not individual dips like usual. Perry missed them entirely and was watching the surface. I had to leave, but figured he'd locate a few. Cories came out to scout for them, too.

When I got back from errands, found Perry with a dark area dented on top of his head. I think he must have found a mosquito wiggler at surface, lunged for it just under the support bar and hit his head. He doesn't seem bothered by the injury; I will do a few extra wc to keep clean. I'd been using a piece cut from coathanger wire again, to support the lexan lid (it sags in center). This one was starting to rust through and I'm out of coat hangers... so the week before I sanded the rust off and coated it with plastidip.

Today his tank got a bit more substrate siphoned out of the 38- I needed more on the short end to support crypt roots- I've moved in here all the crypt retrospiralis out of my 38g. (I didn't like the way they looked in that corner around the bolbitis, and read it can be cold-hardy so wanted to try it in here).








and across the rest it's just slightly thicker.








I got some new plants in today, the java fern 'trident' was intended for this tank- it's got very tall fronds (I expect will grow out shorter)








one leaf had broken off I let that float anyway, to see if it sprouts baby plants. I've also moved in here the anubias congensis, from my other tank.








Top of the tank, pothos is doing better than sweet potato vine. I think the sweet po' doesn't like the chill off the window at night.








It's still kind of a scruffy tank, but I like it.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Some of the plants in here (elodea) haven't been doing so well. I reverted to the old backdrop I'd originally used. It was just a piece of cardboard with dark cloth draped over, that sat behind the tank and usually tipped so the top leaned away from the tank onto the window pane. That let more light in from above. I think the plants have been missing that extra amount of light- so I took off the black plastic that was currently taped across the back of the tank tank wall, and returned to using the tipped cardboard. This means there's a now strip of light across the top:








but most of the time I view the tank from an angle above, like so. It is still not _bright_, but definitely more light in there now so I hope the plants that were faltering improve.








With the late-season heat this past week I found more caterpillars in the garden, and a few more mosquito wigglers. The other day gave my paradise fish a caterpillar that I thought might be _just_ a bit too big for him to handle. He bit at it repeatedly, with that little excited waggle of his tail. Finally got it down. He likes fighting for his food! The rest of that day he did loops across the front of the tank whenever I walked near.








A day later I gave him a few mosquito larvae. The biggest one I dropped right in front of him, the smaller ones I tipped in altogether- so they scatter. He was so excited at getting the first one, started zooming back and forth across the tank, blasting past the other larvae as they drifted, herky-jerky, down through the water column. It was funny. Finally he noticed one of the smaller wigglers, stopped short, and started intently hunting for them across the bottom of the tank.

Unfortunately he's getting wise to my feeding strategies and stuffed himself with hikari wafers intended for the cories the other night. 
















I shut him up in the fry box again so he can ease his bloated stomach over several days' fasting, and I can give the cories shrimp pellets without interference. I think I'm going to get tired of this soon, and have to re-home the cories - sigh-


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## Betta132 (Nov 29, 2012)

I love your naughty little food thief, he's so feisty. 

When I had to feed cories and a ctenopoma at the same time, I used this little wire basket that's meant to hold fish bait. If you Google "wire bait basket holder" you'll see what I mean. Put all the food in and drop it in the tank, and it carries the food down to the bottom. The cories can stick their faces into it, and food thieves can't pull the big chunks of food out and swim off with them. May be worth a try.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

So the cories can stick their whiskered mouths in to get the food.... ? that would be great! @Betta132 thank you! I didn't know such a thing existed. I kept trying to think how to make a container that would allow the cories in/out and exclude the paradise fish- but they're roughly the same size right now... 

I will look for one of those bait baskets. Sure hope it works.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

He got out, the stinker! The fry box leans ever-so-slightly, and he must have jumped over the low end. Definitely hit his noggin on the lid piece again, as it was shifted over, leaving an open gap by the tank rim. Lucky he didn't land on the floor. 

He's cruising up and down the tank glass watching me. I know fish don't have much expression, but he sure does look pleased with himself.

I'm ordering one of those mesh bait traps...


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*time for an update*

That scrape on Perry's head from jumping out of the fry box has completely healed. You'd never know it had happened. I am still trying to distract him at surface when I feed the cories sinking foods, and feeding them at night so he can't see it in the dark- but my strategies are less and less effective. The cories seem to stay out of Perry's way and they don't come out to the front of the tank unless there's food offered. I have seen him a few times move deliberately at one who very quickly dashes away- I am afraid he may be getting aggressive towards them.... I ordered a bait basket but it's taking a long time to arrive.

I am starting to wonder if I have a female paradise fish. Aside from a small trailing tip on top of the caudal fin, there's no sign of the longer tail a male develops. But I've only had Perry two months, so time may well tell...








Here's an update on the plants- I don't seem to have any more elodea in here. I think it all melted away entirely. That kind of surprised me because I thought elodea was a tough plant that doesn't mind cold. Maybe there's just not enough nutrients and light in here for it? Well, my new 'trident' java fern is sprouting lots of babies- here's a few on an intact leaf-








and the large leaf that was floating in here had a few baby plants, I went to cut just those pieces off-








and found a regular row of nodules on the underside of the leaf, where more young plants will sprout. All over! I'm tired of seeing a large leaf drifting in the center of the tank, so I cut it up into segments around the sprouting plantlets and left them to float while they develop.








Some of the pieces of rhizome I buried by the tank wall are sprouting- tiny leaves of crypt retrospiralis.








Found a tiny bit of crypt root that was adrift in here since some changes in the past few weeks. Tucked it back into substrate nearer the foreground where I can see it. I can't tell if it's a bit of crypt parva, or crypt wilisii. You can see through these pics the subwassertang is kinda scraggly now. The terminal ends of it thinner, not as wide and it's not spreading nearly as much. I think because of the cold.








Anubias I moved in here seem to be doing fine- new leaf on it. Behind it you can barely see, the bolbitis I tied onto driftwood just sprouted some new fiddleheads. I was about to take it off and throw away, but it's growing! very slow, of course.








Windelov ferns as usual, doing great. Cut out a few older, deteriorating leaves but there's plenty new ones.








Regular java ferns across the driftwood appear diminished. Older leaves all melted and some new fiddleheads are coming up, but I don't think they look quite right. Most of them sprouted right before the temp dropped in my tank, and it seems to have stalled their growth. 

Overall look of it:


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

My window tank is chilly now. My thermostat is set to seventy, it falls to sixty-nine before turns on. But thermometer in the window tank reads 64 or 65° in the morning and stays that low most of the day. Even though I've put folded cloths across the windowsill to block drafts. The fishes don't seem to mind. Perry comes over to see what's for breakfast as usual, the moment I walk down the stairs. The tank was looking dim so I trimmed back the sweet potato vine. It wasn't a lot brighter but Perry hid under driftwood for a day. Fish prefers it dim, I think.








I'm still having trouble with the feeding. I got a few of those small wire shrimp bait cages. (Listing on the site I bought it from as 'Stainless Steel Fishing Bait Cage Trap Basket Feeder Holder'). Thought I could use one to feed the cories, and the other to feed kuhli loaches in the main tank, keeping bigger fish at bay.

It didn't really work. The largest food pieces I use that paradise fish or tetra will carry away entire, still slid through the gaps in the bait holder. If I lay the shrimp pellet or wafer across the wires of the basket, it stayed in for a while. The cories nibbled and came back, interested but not aggressive about it. Perry a different matter. That fish really wanted the food, and was determined to figure out how. I should have known. I could see Perry tipping her head side to side, trying to solve it. When the bait basket was laying down, which made it easier for the cories to nibble through the rungs, Perry tried to slide in sideways through gaps in the top. Almost could fit but didn't push through and damage self. Backed off. Smart fish. But kept circling and nudging the basket until pieces fell through anyway- and when I sat it upright to put the larger gaps against substrate, the cories couldn't reach the food easy, lost interest and wandered away. Perry was darting at them.

I left for a few minutes and when I came back it was obvious Perry had pigged on the food. Stomach bulging, looked like a little whale. Saw my paradise fish in the back of the tank, head up, throat distended, gagging on an entire shrimp pellet. It's just how Pinkie died. Quick I grabbed a fertilizer stick (never used it for inserting ferts to the substrate but it's the longest tool I have so often put to other purpose) and chased Perry around the tank- fish dropped the pellet but was still gorged regardless. So two days no feeding after that. I sprinkled in some gold pearls late at night for the cories. It's getting more difficult to make sure they eat enough. I may just have to move them out of this tank. Sigh.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Yeah, using those wire bait holders hasn't worked at all for me. I got tired of orchestrating feeding to exclude Perry and get enough down to the cories. A few weeks ago I moved the catfishes out- they're now living in my ten gallon (temporarily). The cories seem much happier in their new digs- update on my tenner journal has details. 

Without little catfish to follow around and check up on, Perry kind of just drifts around the tank, comes to see if I'm going to offer food, otherwise not much to do it looks like. I can't tell if my paradise fish is content with the peacefulness of living alone, or _bored_. 

I would like to get a mate or companion for this fish, but remember how beat up the other two were in the tank I bought it from... so doubtful if that would work out.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Couple of weeks ago I noticed that while java ferns are dying off in my window tank (I put pieces of the 'trident' one into main tank to float- see if the baby plants will grow out there), the bolbitis rhizome I tied to a piece of wood is sprouting new fiddleheads. Slow, but it's growing!








So when I moved some plants around in my main tank recently, I clipped some of the new shoots that were growing off the main rhizomes. Their root hairs already clinging to some substrate.








I haven't tied these down in the window tank, but kind of wedged them on top of driftwood pieces where the sticks cross each other. I can't tell if they've taken hold yet, or if any new fronds are emerging, but they're definitely still green.

So even if all the java ferns disappear in here- windelov is slowly but surely loosing its larger fronds- it looks like the tank will still support subwassertang, vallisneria, crypt retrospiralis, hornwort and some anubias. I'm okay with that (still no ferts, no heat)...


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*tank has a new look-*

Few weeks ago I noticed only vals were really thriving, so every time I thinned some out of the main tank, replanted them in here. But it was going to take them a long time to spread enough to cover the back wall. I got a sudden boost in plant material, though. From a guy in local fish club who was moving, cleaned out his tanks and sent me some vallisneria (with some other random stuff mixed in). Filled my window tank with the exact plant I'd been hoping would eventually grow in. I'm very pleased








Trying to decide how to provide enough light for the plants without encouraging algae, I removed the dark panel and put a double sheet of plastic across the back of the tank. Now there's three layers of plastic film between the tank and window and on very sunny days I can close the curtain if its too much. I like how the new background softens the light.








Perry seems pleased, too. More plant cover: better fish color.








I started out with planting by moving the leaf litter to the front of the tank- fish is taking a look at it.








Vals went in- one at a time. Added some substrate siphoned out of the main tank. It's always odd to me, seeing the other tank through the side of this one.








Here's a view of the other short side. 








Had to move a few things around. Didn't realize I still had three of these tiny crypts in here.








Windelov ferns still look peaky and dropping older leaves. If the increase in light doesn't help them, maybe it's the low temperature? I hope they grow back out more come spring. However I don't really mind if there's some fluctuation in plant mass due to seasonal changes in here...








It's harder to get photos now. My eyes can make adjustments to the light coming in thru the plastic backdrop that camera can't handle. The best it can do is this:








Unless I prop dark background up again (between the diffusing plastic sheeting and window) to block some light-








~ a day later: fish is still looking content, more curious about people outside the tank, maintains good color. A few vals have come loose- I tossed those with really short roots. So much quantity I might not even bother replanting the few floaters.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Came down in the morning and saw Perry resting in the vallisneria. I wanted to get a photo of her among the plants, but she moved up to the glass as soon as she saw me, of course.


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## ac0xr (Aug 13, 2014)

Just read through your journal here and really enjoyed it, well done!

I've always enjoyed reading about Paradise Fish in books and on the internet but have never kept one. They don't seem terribly popular, but I enjoyed the pictures of yours - it made me want to keep one! So many fish, so few tanks.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks! I had read about them a lot, too, from older books. I'm glad I finally got one. I think they're unpopular because- as you can see from my experience so far- it's hard to keep them with other fish. Like bettas, a lot of them prefer to be loners. I'd love to get a few other paradise fish and have a little harem in here, but not sure if Perry would like sharing space.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Bucket of plants I got several days ago had a thick clump of moss in it. I painstakingly untangled them all and cleaned out dead stuff, algae strands. I thought at first it was java moss, but some of it grows in a kind of triangular frond. Looking closely at some comparison pics, I think it may be Taiwan moss? Which would be cool if it can grow in cooler temperatures. Most sites list its temp range from 65° to mid seventies, but I've seen a few that say it can tolerate as low as 58°. So if that's it, could live in my unheated tank. I'm trying it.

Closeup of the strands








First attempt was to tie it down on driftwood twigs. It was difficult, took a long time, annoying with wet thread and mesh. No good at it, either. I remember why I really don't like working with moss. And the next morning realized I don't actually want moss-covered branches in the tank. I'd prefer it growing on ledges of rock or larger driftwood chunks.








So decided that temporarily, I will enclose it in a wire basket and see if it survives. Let it grow out a bit while I look around for a rock or hunk of wood to attach it to. I still have these little wire bait cages I tried using to keep Perry from the cories' food. I cut the leader and the little spring-hinged door off one. And using plant tweezers, threaded longer strands of the moss through it. It looks messy right now, but later I can trim it back to encourage denser growth. Probably without shrimp or fry in here to pick through it, will gather algae and debris. But I hope before that gets too ugly I can find something I want to attach it to.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Thursday I did water change on Perry's tank. 








I cleaned up the back strip of the lid. The sweet potato vine has been dying. Looking very anemic and loosing foliage. Periodically I've been finding tiny white bugs on the undersides, pinch them when I can. Finally got tired of the unhappy-looking plant. Removed the remaining stems (I think part of its trouble was lack of sun)- dunked in soapy water (to get rid of the bugs) and going to see if I can get them to root again, start anew








While the support strip of lexan was empty of plants, I took from the tank and cleaned off the hard-water scale. The few pothos stems on there got trimmed back, from the bottom up- the roots were starting to look unhealthy and lower edge of stems blackened. Cut them back to good tissue and replaced the missing sweet potato with new pothos cuttings off my houseplants.








In the tank, looks as if windelov fern is doing okay after all. Appears that the dieoff is finished, and the remaining younger leaves look decent.








The clump on the biggest stone is much reduced, though. I snipped the rhizome in half where it is bare, to make it sprout more leaves.








Subwassertang in here doesn't look very good. It's all ratty on the edges. From the cold? This tank is down to just 60° some mornings now. That's with our thermostat set to 65°. Must get some chill from the window. I won't let my husband lower the thermostat further at night, for fear it would actually get too cold for Perry.








I'm not surprised that some of the random stem pieces I got in that recent batch of plants have died already. Bits of windelov, anacharis and watersprite are still fine. Moss tangle in the cage is still green. To my surprise, although it is melting leaves, the stem piece I thought looked like bacopa isn't dying yet. It sprouted two new leaves- you can see left and above in the first windelov picture. I think if it does survive in here, it will look leggy and unattractive, but am waiting to see.

Perry didn't like the disturbance when I removed her pothos and sweet potato roots. She hid under the driftwood for a few hours. I expect less nitrate uptake while the pothos regenerates their roots, but I hope the vallisneria will make up for that. To avoid too much upset, I'm not rinsing out her filter until next week.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Saw some behavior from Perry the other morning that momentarily alarmed me. I hadn't fed her yet, and was sitting in the same room as the tank. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed she was making sudden jerky motions- flashing? My first thought was oh no, has she caught a parasite? Then I watched closer. She looked normally alert and relaxed, then would swim close to a leaf or the glass- in particular the corner of the tank, and hold very still waggling her tail for a moment. Then jerk at the decor or glass and away. When I moved closer and she saw me the behavior stopped as she started cruising up and down the glass expecting food. All the rest of the day I kept an eye on her tank whenever I was at a distance in the room, and didn't see her 'flashing' again. She looks fine.

I _think_ what I saw was snail-hunting behavior. The excited little tail-waggle makes me think this. I believe the quick motion was her grabbing the snail to jerk it off its hold. If I see her doing it again will try and watch from afar with the binoculars or something, haha.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*pictures of Perry*

Just over five months now. I still wonder if Perry will develop a long gorgeous tail and prove to be male. It does seem like the lower lobe of the caudal fin is growing out now. Maybe a late developer?


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*I did a little test*

I held up a mirror to the side of the tank, to see Perry's reaction. The fish noticed right away.








And started displaying, fins fully spread and ventrals out straight, broadside to the mirror image. So it was hard to get a photo because usually tail or head was pointed at me! So I think Perry is a male- do females display this way. Sure acted like thought it was a rival fish in the glass.








I noticed for the first time pretty blue colors in the tail. I'm a bit disappointed how pale and washed-out Perry's colors still seem, to pictures of other paradise fish I look at. Is it because not yet matured? Or do I need to feed different food, or perhaps mine is unhealthy and not showing any other symptoms?








It was evening when I did this so put a lamp in front of the tank, it bounced off the scales some. I'll have to do it again during broad daylight for more natural color. Maybe Perry just needs more stimulation. I did notice lately he's got kind of thick lips. That's another trait of the male.









Hm, well I just went looking for a some answers. Some paradise fish don't gain full color until they are five or six months old. I don't know how old mine was when I got it, but the body proportions made me think it was just barely old enough to be sold. Also: they have better color over dark substrate... Also, maybe I should be feeding Perry at least twice a day, if my fish isn't full grown yet.

More reading tells me: paradise fish prefer meaty food. I should go buy something like bug bites, and feed the mosquito larvae as treats, not staple (don't have any right now anyway). I wonder if frequent offerings of worms would be good for him. One article I read said ramshorn snails should be in the tank, because snails are a major part of paradise fish diet. And that if you feed the ramshorns _carrots_, the paradise fish will get more intense coloration from that. Dang, I shouldn't have squished all those ramshorns babies.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*paradise show-off*

I held the mirror up to the tank again, to show my kids how Perry flares. He made a move I hadn't seen before- came up very close to the mirror image, and slowly tipped his body horizontal, as if lying down in the water, with a twisting threatening motion. It was very curious looking, very deliberate, and my daughter was amazed. When I pulled the mirror back he would energetically dash up and down the front of the tank looking for the 'other fish'.

So fast to move, it was hard to get a decent photo. Here's my best








Look at the color in the tail.








He jerks his ventrals open and _out_, so they make an _A_ shape.








I am eager to see more growth on this guy.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Perry's tank got a few new leaves. Newer pothos stems are just beginning to show nubbins of roots- they grow so slowly compared to sweet potato vine! I recently sold (locally) a batch of trimmings and extra plants. Most from this tank. Doesn't look much different. I moved out twenty pieces of hornwort, a dozen vallisneria that had come loose from the substrate, a few clumps of subwassertang 








and most of the moss- which I'm still growing out in a jar. Here's what I have left of that:








I still don't know what kind it is, maybe I can figure it out once I find some hardscape I like to attach it to, and see its form when grows out.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Perry's tail has grown out more! Quick photo, more upcoming


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*some updates from the past 2 months-*

I put a piece of cleaned clay pot in here. Thought Perry might use it as a cave. Nope. He preferred to always hide behind the filter box, or under driftwood sticks, when frightened (which is pretty much only as I -slowly- pour new water into the tank. He doesn't care if I put my hand in there for anything, or use tools). So after a few weeks I moved this clay piece into the main tank, where the kuhlis and shrimps appreciated it. I did think it looked nice behind the vals, though.








Made a shelf, sandwiched some moss between two pieces of plastic canvas.








Tried to get a few photos of Perry's tail growth. It's going to be glorious.








But most of the pics turned out like this- because if I'm near enough the tank to take a picture, he's zooming up and down the front glass.








Pothos cuttings started sending out long roots. I swear the week these roots appeared, the nitrates suddenly dropped from the usual 20-30ppm at end of week, to less than _five_. 








I suddenly worried that other plants in there would suffer from lack of nutrients, but the windelov are even greener, 
















and Vals have quit melting. 








Maybe because longer hours of daylight now. I started doing just 10% wc per week, instead of 20%. And it had been -ahem- almost three months since rinsing out his filter media, the flow finally starting to slow down so I did that. Ran a lot quieter again (it had been starting to make large bubbles).

More plant pics- subwassertang still looks ratty, but is starting to perk up a bit.








Bolbitis fern grew few new leaves. I cut some of the old ones out, that were darker and curling.








Anubias congensis isn't much to look at, since it turns away to face the light- but has proved it can survive temps down to 60°!








One of the plants I thought was sagittaria came uprooted and had no new growth- roots rotting. I tossed it. The other hung on a bit longer.








Still a small piece of regular java fern in here. Never looks happy. I've since moved it into my tenner.








Crypt retrospiralis hung on all winter too. I hope to see more growth when it warms up.








I finally figured out the bits of rhizome that sprouted in here are crypt willisii.








These smaller crypt willisii got shifted around I have just replanted them.








I added a few pieces of crypt undulata, just to see if it would live in here. Not much melt, and this small one in the front is already sprouting a new leaf! But it's also sending those seeking roots up from the substrate, so I guess not quite enough nutrients (no surprise).


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Top of the tank- My orange-and-lime (I don't know its variety name) coleus is growing really well on Perry's tank.








from the window side








So many new roots in the past few weeks-
















I had riccia in here for a short time, then decided not to keep. It scatters into tiny bits too easy, even with the gentle current more or less keeping it in one place. After some reading I realize it's a high-maintenance plant that does better in a high-tech tank - or kept at surface like this... Hi, Perry. Blue freckle-face.








It's now in a container by the window, and for a while I was still fishing tiny y-shaped green bits out during every water change!








Shame, because it's such a cool-looking plant. I just don't want to deal with it.
















I got some ramshorn snails (free from the pet store). My idea was to have a population to feed Perry- I read in a few places that ramshorn are natural food source for paradise fish.








I kept them for four days in two small glass boxes with plants- 








to go through a little quarantine period, since I don't want ich from the pet store in my tanks... that went on top the fridge at night wrapped in a wool scarf, to stay warm enough.








I fed them every other day with a bit of spinach or carrot








Rest of the time they appear to be eating algae off the hornwort








or dead edges of subwassertang leaf.








I have always kind of liked ramshorns, until the day the babies swarmed my tenner... I thought this would be a good way- Perry keeping their population in check, while having a few adult snails in reserve for breeding. I will probably soon get tired of doing small partial wc with airline on these little glass boxes twice a week, though.

And now I'm not sure if he will even eat them? I dropped the largest ramshorn snail into his tank. Perry bit at it right away, eagerly investigating but didn't eat it. Maybe he can only eat baby ones... I didn't see it for a few days. Saw it again then- not moving much. Not sure if the colder nights made it sluggish, or if it kept closed up against fish attack... Also the center of its whorl looked suddenly pale. I guess this tank has lower levels of calcium- the trumpet snails in here often have very white tips also. Hm. After two days of the snail closed up in one spot, I plucked it out again and returned to the glass box. I might keep these snails in a different tank eventually, and just give Perry the smallest ones as treats. Or try adding them to his tank again when it is regularly at warmer temperatures.

I know a bladder snail could live in here, though! One hitchhiked on a plant and was crawling around in here for five days before I saw it and squished for Perry's snack. Maybe if another one shows up I will let it live and see if Perry will eat them on his own...

Full-tank shot using the kids' i-pad. It takes better photos than my camera. (I don't know why this irks me). Next time I'll block the window light so it's more even, but you can see the vals are holding on well now. Subwassertang is getting thick in its corner, I think I will thin that out soon. Bolbitis doing well enough that I'm considering adding more when do first trim from the main tank.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Another pleasant surprise as the days warm up- the anubias congensis has a new leaf!









Subwassertang taking better shape in here. Hard to get a photo of it, but the bits I tied onto sticks last year, are looking well, fluffy now instead of raggedy. A few pieces of java fern rhizome on there are trying to regrow, as well.









Perry himself is showing better colors, since I added more, dense floaters. It literally happened the moment I dropped them in. All of a sudden his colors are darker and bolder, and they stay that way consistently, not just when I feed him. I do think he prefers the thicker cover of the salvinia, to the hornwort that lets more light in.... this may change my plans of which floater will start off my new tank.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*time for some updates-*

I keep things more regularly posted on my blog, but sometimes forget to come over here and update the tank journal.... 

*from 04/15-*
I put salvinia minima in the tank. Perry likes the cover a lot, although I don't care for the brownish look of the roots- so I keep hornwort lined up just against the front glass, all the salvinia is behind it.









*04/20-*
I have been dropping in pond or bladder snails now and then, when one shows up (in my daughter's snail bowl she gave up keeping, in a batch of plants I received, etc). This one was definitely a pond snail- I learned recently that pond snails are much larger, don't reproduce as rapidly, and have very short, thick "horns" instead of the longer, threadlike tentacles. I distinctly saw that feature on this guy once it was in the water, and it was cool. To have such a different snail. 








Perry immediately took an interest and tried to bite it through the plastic when I floated it (temperature change for the snail).
















I tried to get a few closeups so you can see its little stubby 'horns'.
















When I put it in the tank, the snail fell to the bottom, Perry following it down. I found the snail later lying on its back. I righted it, and it crawled up the glass a few inches in a corner, stayed in that spot for a day. Then disappeared, which was disappointing. I don't know if Perry managed to injure it or not (well, at least he is trying to feed on the snails) but now I happen to like this one! I've still not seen the smaller bladder snail again, although there are so many new baby trumpet snails it's like his tank has a rash.

*04/27-* moss began to really grow out on the mesh shelves. Very hard to get a good photo, because the shelf is on the back wall, and the plants are so small- but I love looking at them with the light behind. Like little threads of green, growing zippers.









*05/29-* Moss ended up so tall it was tangling around itself. Here's a bad photo of the shelf pulled out of the tank-








I trimmed it and sold here on the forum.









*Today-* 
Here's a few casual photos I took. Not great pictures, I'll have to take the trouble one day to put a panel behind and light it from the front. I've started keeping the curtain shut unless the day is overcast, to prevent so much algae on the tank walls.








Perry makes me smile. He's the only fish I have right now who notices when I enter the room and darts around wiggling his tail excitedly. He zooms back and forth across the tank when I feed him mosquito wigglers or red worms. Sometimes if I have been sitting still on the couch reading for a while, he even notices if I stand up (across the room) and starts going up and down the corner closest to me, for attention.








So fun. I'm starting to wish I could give him more space- that I had a 20L for him instead of this 20H...


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## Tiger15 (Jan 7, 2018)

The plants look healthy, and free of any algae. What direction your window is facing. Do you get any direct sun through the window.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

The window faces northwest. It gets a bit of low direct sun very late in the day. I have three layers of semi-translucent plastic film to reduce light- one is taped across the bottom half of the window, and two sheets on the back of the tank. I also keep the curtain closed on sunny days. If it is cloudy, I open the curtain but then the tank walls, vallisneria and anubias start to get soft brown algae (which I can rub off with my fingers).


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## Fisherking (Feb 27, 2012)

Thanks again for another informative thread! Couple questions: 

Where do you find the mosquito larvae you mention? 

What is the worm bin?


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

@Fisherking I deliberately keep a basin of water in my backyard, for mosquitoes to breed in. It's an old sink I lined with plastic sheeting, and I put some leaf litter in there. Every three or four days I collect the larvae before they make the final transformation into mosquitoes. I just siphon them out with a drinking straw, then dump through a shrimp net and rinse in a cup of tank water two or three times before giving to the fish.

The worm bin is my indoor composting bin. It's fed with kitchen scraps and supplied with cardboard bedding. I have the earthworms called red wigglers in there. Easy to set aside a few for the fish whenever I get into the bin for something.


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## Tiger15 (Jan 7, 2018)

You have all low light plants. Have you tried higher light plants with direct sunlight for a few hours? I have a planted shrimp bowl by a west facing window that receives 4-5 hour direct sunlight. It's heavily planted with floating and carpet plants and algae free.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

@Tiger15, No, I hadn't thought of that. Mostly because the tank is unheated and the room is kept cooler in winter, at night the tank gets down to 60 or 62°. I didn't think there were high light plants that can take low temps? In fact crypt undulata and crypt becketti are doing well in here right now, but not sure if they will live through the winter.


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## Tiger15 (Jan 7, 2018)

JJ09 said:


> @Tiger15, No, I hadn't thought of that. Mostly because the tank is unheated and the room is kept cooler in winter, at night the tank gets down to 60 or 62°. I didn't think there were high light plants that can take low temps? In fact crypt undulata and crypt becketti are doing well in here right now, but not sure if they will live through the winter.


I don't know if it is true that high light plants cannot take lower temp than low light plants. Temp tolerance is origin dependent, and many common aquatic plants originated from temperate and subtropical zones.

I set up a planted shrimp bowl this spring with no heater, no aeration, and no filter. The biggest fluctuation is temp with 4 to 5 hour direct sunlight daily: between low 60s to high 80s thus far. My high light floating and carpet plants (Amazon frogbit and dwarf hair grass) are thriving with no algae of any type, not even green water. I don't know how they will do through summer and winter when the temp fluctuation is more extreme.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Tiger15 said:


> .....
> I set up a planted shrimp bowl this spring with no heater, no aeration, and no filter. The biggest fluctuation is temp with 4 to 5 hour direct sunlight daily: between low 60s to high 80s thus far. My high light floating and carpet plants (Amazon frogbit and dwarf hair grass) are thriving with no algae of any type, not even green water. I don't know how they will do through summer and winter when the temp fluctuation is more extreme.


That's definitely green and algae-free! Looks cool. Where did you get that bowl- does it suction cup to the window? I've never seen one like it. You've certainly sparked my curiosity to try a wider range of plants in this tank. I was trying to avoid adding ferts, keeping this one as low-tech as possible, but I might try frogbit or something.


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## Tiger15 (Jan 7, 2018)

I bought it from eBay, shipped in from China. It hangs on the wall by hook, but I tied it with fish line on the window hinges due to the weight. Do not trust silicon glued hook on the window as I broke one already. Mine is 1 gal and I can only keep nano fish and shrimp. Larger size are available in EBay but rare and steep in price.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Home-Mount...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Quick update, although i have no photos. Perry's color is bolder and his caudal fin has grown out even more. I was thrilled today to find a female paradise fish at LFS 40min away, in a tank they usually don't sell from but said if I ask a certain person I may be able to buy her. She looks very healthy and of all the fish in the tank (swordtails, gold barbs, cories) she was the only one that came up to the glass and eyed me. The other fish _didn't_ look beat up, so I think she has a calm temperament. I really wanted to bring her home, but worried Perry may be too aggressive. I held the mirror up to his tank again. He flared and darted around excitedly when I removed the mirror, but not as vigorously as Ruby fights _his_ reflection. Then I started reading up more on paradise fish again, thinking thinking what if I got a tank with bigger footprint- a 30gal- and planted it thicker. . . . could I keep a pair (or trio if I found another female). I just read in two places online that when the paradise fish turns its body horozontal, it's showing the belly in an act of submission. I don't know if this is true or just repeated falsehood, but if it_ is_ true- then Perry was submitting to his reflection, trying to end the sparring match he perceived. That would bode well for him to get along with another- and the female I found is slightly bigger than him anyway. Hm... . . . . 

I'd _really_ like to go back and get her, but this 20H isn't quite big enough... Well I could put her in QT while I find a 30gal and do a big tank switch. I'd tear down my 38, put a new 30 in its place on the stand, replant with just the ones that can stand cold, move in all Perry's plants, put the serpae tetras in the 20H (with the warm-water plants and kuhlis). Let everything settle- Perry would spend a day or two in a bucket- and then re-introduce Perry and the new lady fish into the 30 at the same time (so he doesn't feel it's solely _his_ territory). 

Could work? or am I crazy thinking. It'd be a lot of work to do in the hopes that female is still at the LFS when I go back in a week, but I doubt anyone else noticed her, and usually the fish in that planted tank are not-for-sale the clerk told me, so . . . . 

I can't stop thinking about the possibility.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*I did the crazy thing*

I bought this new tank for Perry today. It's a 33gal- four feet long, 13" wide and 12" high.








I saw it at the LFS next town over, and just had to have it. I was planning on acquiring a 20L or a 30- but this is even better. Plenty of space for Perry to share with a new girlfriend, and even though I know the chance is slim, if I ever find another female, it could house a trio.

Tomorrow is a big day. I'm disassembling my 38, because this tank will go in its spot. Perry will have to spend a week or two back in the 8 gal bin (with daily wc if needed), while his new tank gets cycled, and his prospective girlfriend goes through a brief quarantine (I'm picking her up this coming weekend). I'll wait to introduce Perry into his new tank the same time as the female, so he doesn't immediately feel territorial over the space towards her. He has no idea what's coming.








I can't wait to scape the new tank!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

*Final look at Perry's 20H Window Tank-*

Right now his setup is in transition. Here's the last fulltank shot I took, 15 July. He was hiding under the moss ledge that day (which isn't doing so great. The moss strands have grown long again, but there's fewer of them, and it didn't spread/multiply like I'd expected. I guess I'd have to trim it a lot more frequently to get that effect).








Every time I got close with the camera, he turned tail to me
















A little better in this short end photo: 








He avoided the camera here- but you can see some green plants!









Day before yesterday I patiently tried to get some more photographs of Perry on the eve of his big move- but like usual, he was moving around so much that most of them came out blurry. These at least show his colors nicely:
















and here you can see the fine blue freckles on his head and nape.








Backlit by the window. Alarmingly, for the first time I see something amiss with my paradise fish. There's a dark spot on his dorsal fin. No idea what it is. Well, I'll do daily wc while he's in the holding bin....








The one photo I got where he was both in focus _and_ looking at me:









~~~~~~~~~~~~~​
This is what happened to his tank yesterday:








I'm not proud of it. I actually have no wish to keep this tank anymore, but it's a place to put the rest of my crypts, and I'm not going to ditch my serpae tetras- the oldest are well over three years, now. So it's a place for them to live out their lives... . . . and then we'll see.

Here's Perry waiting for his new tank to be ready, in the 8gal bin stuffed with plants. He's taking it pretty well. 









I changed my mind- about having this thread follow him into the new 33 gal. It's such a different tank, I am starting a new journal for it. Coming back to add a link as soon as I have some pictures up.

*Here's the new start: 33 gallon long for paradise!*


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