Been a while.

In my last post, I said I was going to do a riccia carpet. I bought some slates, tied some mesh on, and stuck some riccia between. They were growing well, the last time I saw them before I left for my month-long trip. I had moved the moss ball, anubias nana and red tiger lotus to a smaller tank outside, where I had a betta fish.

When I came back, I saw this stuck to my filter.

I spent an entire morning scooping out all the riccia. Anyone who's had riccia can tell you that it's a bitch to remove. After that, my tank looked really empty with only a piece of driftwood and a ball of pellia, along with empty slates with mesh on. I was considering whether to do a DHG carpet next.

Then my betta fish died this morning. I cleared out its tank, took out the anubias nana and red tiger lotus, and transferred it into my shrimp tank once again. The marimo ball was all brown. I guess it needs more light or carbon dioxide.

So here's what my tank looks like now. If you scroll down a little, you'll see some photos of the scrawny little red tiger lotus with a couple of small leaves. It's grown into a monster right now. There's still no carpet and looks very plain, but I'm hoping the few bunches of grass in front of the driftwood (DHG? They came tangled with my HC many months ago) will spread.

Bonus picture of a berried female among the pellia.

My table has started to warp under the tank. It's probably got to do with the temperature nowadays; with the cooling fan on, the tank temperature is still at 30.4°C. I should probably go buy a metal stand, or a marble table perhaps.

R.I.P. Oto.

Another casualty in my tank this morning - my otocinclus catfish.

The temperature has been really terrible recently. Even with my cooling fan, my tank temperature can hit up to 29-30°C in the day. Oto has actually been surviving fine even in that temperature, but yesterday we finally had some rain to bring the temperature down. My tank temperature dropped to about 27°C. I guess poor little Oto's body couldn't take the change.

He was a cute little fella. I'll miss him.

Thankfully, the only other inhabitants of my tank are red cherry shrimps. The shrimplets seem to be doing well. At last count I have about 16 of them, which is way more than I expected. After my trip I might introduce more, but right now I'm not even sure how to handle them when I'm away. I'll probably teach my mom or brother to do top-offs for evaporation.

Am also considering doing a riccia carpet since my HC and glosso are basically gone. There's this thin grass thing that's sprouting here and there though. Looks messy, and I'm also sad that I have never had a proper carpet since starting this tank. I have so many rubbish plants all over the place. The tank definitely needs some rearranging.

R.I.P. Swarley.

My beloved blue crayfish died a few days ago after escaping from his tank. I found him alive behind my shelf and returned him to a shallow container for him to get his gills used to water again, but perhaps he was too traumatized by the whole experience. After I returned him to his main tank several hours later, he got agitated and eventually died.

I haven't loved a pet so much in a long time. When he died, a little piece of me died with him.

I've buried him in a small container in my garden. I'll miss him a lot.

Day 30.

My main tank is one month old! I've also taken down the miserable tank that I used for shrimp, and relocated the inhabitants (plants, guppies, rocks, etc) to the main tank and Swarley's tank.

Tank is definitely cycling since ammonia has gone down a lot, but nitrites and nitrates are shooting up. I'm doing 20% water changes at least once every two days, and when I'm not working I try to do them twice a day. My tap water has 0 ammonia, nitrites and nitrates which is great. The tank's pH is still stuck around 6.4 and I don't know why. Someone told me to add sodium bicarbonate but I'm a bit worried. It doesn't seem to be an issue though.

I lost 3 shrimp in the last week, including Rainer. Might be the water parameters causing it, but the other shrimp seem fine. Yesterday I spotted a shrimplet!

My 3 berried shrimp are all still berried though, so I have no idea where this shrimplet came from. Is it possible that shrimplets hatch separately?

My bladder snails are growing bigger too. I spotted a baby one so they must be reproducing. I don't see eggs though. They're not posing a huge problem right now other than blocking my view occasionally.

Glosso seems to be doing well and spreading. Red tiger lotus has grown its third leaf today. HC hasn't all melted, which is puzzling. I've only been dosing Excel whenever I do a water change. But I've changed my photoperiod to 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours at night.

I haven't mentioned the driftwood that I added about a week ago, too. I tied some Riccia on it with sewing thread and the snails and shrimp seem to love it. Had to weigh it down with a rock after boiling it. Looks okay though, and provide a nice hiding hole at the bottom.

Here are photos of the tank now!

Day 22.

Yesterday I bought a new tank for Swarley! It's bigger than the old one so he has plenty of space to run around. I also transferred his favourite rocks and tube over, and his companion guppy which he hasn't eaten yet.

I cleared out his old tank of course, then threw some of the crushed coral substrate into the main tank's filter. Hopefully it'll bring the pH up since it's still around 6 :( The main tank's inhabitants are doing pretty well, although I would prefer if they would eat the algae off the glass.

Since I've transferred Rainer over to the main tank, I also moved the old plants over. The red tiger lotus bulb has grow a tiny leaf! I'm leaving it in the main tank for now, but once it grows I'll take it out and put it in a tank on its own.

Day 19.

I've been incredibly busy and tired from work and didn't have the time to make an entry for the last week or so. However, I've been keeping up with my water changes, of course.

Notable things are that I've moved Rainer over to the main tank. He's found a nice hidey-hole under a piece of driftwood. Otto is still alive and well. The glosso is definitely growing well. The HC doesn't seem to have any noticeable growth but isn't dying either. There are green spots, which I assume are algae, growing on the glass. I don't mind them, because there's been an outbreak of snails. I'm kind of interested to find out what type of snails they are (too small to tell now) but I highly doubt I'll keep them around once they grow bigger.

Finally, the biggest thing to note is this:

Yes, after almost 3 weeks, my tank is finally starting to cycle! I thought the low pH was preventing it from doing so, but turns out it just needed some time. Of course, the amounts of ammonia and nitrites are pretty high right now, so I'll be keeping on top of my water changes. Good thing I'm not working the next couple of days.

If anyone is selling shrimp please let me know! I want to get some for this main tank once it's done cycling and the glosso carpet is properly grown. Will also be putting in my driftwood and getting mosses!

Day 12.

Finally back at home after almost 48 hours away. Such is the nature of my work. That's why I need my tank to be low tech.

I forgot to set aside water to age last time I did a water change, so I'm not able to do one now. I've only just put the water aside so I'll probably do it tomorrow when I wake up. When I looked inside the tank, I couldn't see any movement at all, which was weird because the guppy should be there. I couldn't find it on the substrate either. Later on, I found it on the floor next to the tank. It committed suicide. Can't say I'm too sad about it; I've been trying to get it out of the tank for ages.

Otto is still alive which is amazing and wonderful. Swarley has finished eating his moult and excitedly grabbed the algae wafer I dropped for him. Rainer is still alive, along with the guppies and snail in his tank.

As for the plants, the fanwort still looks terrible but everything else in the main tank looks normal. The red tiger lotus in the wine glass is disintegrating but from what I've read, it's common for them to do this. The bulb that I've dropped in the shrimp tank is growing roots, so that's awesome.

Just a short update until I've done more to the tank.