29 July 2016

tenner highlights

Nothing much to report on Oliver's tank today. Params the same, as they have been for a while. Nitrates 20-30ppm, fert dose remains steady. Very little plant trimming to do- only a few dying leaves, and duckweed to thin out. One rotala stem getting close to the surface, I cut it in half and replanted.
Subwassertang looks real nice in this tank. It has no signs of algae, perfectly healthy. I will probably have to trim it next week to keep in shape- it's grown all out of proportion to its stone anchor and will start grabbing substrate particles soon.
I do think the phoenix moss has begun naturalizing on this knobby end of driftwood. There's three or four tiny bits there, front and below the main clump, that I don't remember tying down.
Out-of-focus picture here for most of it, but you can see the little tiny green sprig on the left, an individual by itself.
The real thing of note is bucephalandra. My 'emerald green' cutting has drifted up against the 'selena' one.
I let it be, for now. This pic in ambient light- you can see the 'emerald green' has a root going down, and two new shoots coming up.
From the other side. I can't decide which picture I like better so I show them both.
The little plantlets growing on stem pieces tied to a rock are getting bigger! Last pic for comparison was taken just over a month ago.
From slightly different angle can the leaf texture. I do believe there's a tiny bit of fissidens stuck among them, too.

I cleaned Oliver's sponge filter today. It rarely needs it- one fish and a snail population don't seem to create much waste in here to clog it up. But I did notice there was a lot of brown mulm in the base where I have bio-cubes. Figured a long time ago, if I need something in there to weigh it down, why not something that can house the bacteria? I rinsed out the bio cubes today, they had a lot more mulm than the sponge itself. Added three more- there was just enough space.

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