Water change night tonight so did a little trimming and tidying.
Trimmed and replanted some lobelia, tidied up the ferns and removed some plantlets from the leaves which I've superglued to the left foremost branch top to try and balance the planting slightly.
Also added some moss (weeping) I think.....(probably due to its sorry state
lol)....to one of the rear upright branches as there are still some that need covering. Hopefully the moss will take in this tank, its never really flourished in the nano. The only moss I seem to have any level of success with is good old taxiphylum barbieri (java moss)....that has taken really well now and is looking just as I'd hoped
There is a smidging of Christmas moss on the left foremost branch top, but it too isn't doing much.
Going shopping on Saturday to try and find the elusive echinodorus I keep banging on about for the left rear.....it seems nowhere has any decent stock in my lfs so relying on maidenhead stokesley for a nice one......also have a look at some more fish too. Saw some nice rams in p@h but they were recent arrivals and had a little white spot so left them alone!
Quite fancy some marginatus pencil fish to keep the small ish theme going, however I'm getting tempted by things like head and tail lights and black phantom tetras too lately.
Things are real slow in this tank with nothing really thriving, I'm desperate to try and speed things along with a drop of the lighting unit, but don't want sulking crypts again. Maybe the clean new co2 diffuser I've just popped in tonight will help with better co2 injection which may have been slowly deteriorating as the old diffuser got dirty. I may try upping it slightly over the weekend to see if I'm at the limit regards fish happiness, then judge whether I dare up lighting intensity.....wish I could afford a new unit with split timers and dim functions!
Some plants that were doing really well (lobelia cardinalis) have slowed growth, with smaller leaves and seemingly paler colour too, so I may try dosing more heavily along with a tweaking of the co2.....most likely plant mass has increased even though it seems slow to me, so maybe I just need to adjust everything up a touch.
Only been feeding the fish in this tank once a day to try and keep waste to a minimum, it's noticeable how much more slowly they grow, but otherwise they seem happy enough.
Unfortunately another 2 shrimp succumbed to the filter inlet so only 1 left now
but in all honesty I'm not going to replace them as the tank is algae free.....touch wood, and i can still get my shrimp fix from the crshrimp tank. Going to order a new easy aqua out pipe as they have 14 slots rather than the 8 in the current one, hopefully this will reduce the draw effect surrounding the outlet and save anymore casualties.....snails often find themselves stuck fast too!
Anyway no photos as was a little bit fizzy after the water change and was a late one with all the trimming and replanting, moss tying, superglueing etc so ill try pop a couple up tomorrow night.
Cheerio,
Ady.