Pruning

Did some pruning this week, while doing water changes on the 75 and the 10g quarantine. I ended up taking out one on the Amazon sword plants and putting it in the 75! That tank gets a little indirect sunlight from north-facing windows, and it has a T8 and a T12 for lighting. I gave the transplanted sword a good pruning and tucked a Flourish root tab under it, but that's all the TLC it will be getting. I'm hoping that as the only plant in a tank full of fish, there'll be enough nutrients with just the root tab to sustain it. Since African cichlids are diggers, it's not practical to plant a tank with them. Everyone liked the new look - the large plant softens the barren look of the rock "reef" and makes the colors really pop. Barring a few exploratory nibbles it looks like the fish will coexist pretty well!

While trying to adjust to a new work schedule, I ended up not adding the fertilizer to the planted tank. Most of the plants did okay, but not the H. pinnatifida (large serrated leaves, center background) - major potassium deficiency showed up. Hopefully properly dosing the tank in the morning will help it come back! I don't want to lose this plant, since I got it from another aquatic gardener. In the meantime, the java fern was busy reproducing, so I'm hoping the little plantlets will eventually grow into a huge, awesome mass for me.

Three acei fry now live in the 20 long underneath the planted tank - with a 13" base, it's a perfect size to go under the 55g on the same stand. That gives me more options, since the 10g is too small to comfortably grow out those fish, and I need the 10g for quarantine! Although the second-largest acei male is still there - I may trade him in to a nearby store (only one that gives you anything for trade-ins, although I really wish the closer store would give something for trade-ins, their quality is a lot better!). He's a lovely fish, but the Tank Boss really hates him. Bossfish is fairly timid when observed by people - but he comes out just to harass this smaller fish if they're together in the same tank. It's a shame, but they just don't get along. Tiny McTinyfish is actually at least two and a half inches now - pretty big! I think he's about three years old - slow grower due to competition for food from his parents, no doubt.

Speaking of cichlids and personalities, my German blue ram male divorced the female to pair up with the golden morph female! I dislike this outcome, since I want to eventually have two pairs, one the classic color and one the gold morph. I tried getting another gold ram, but he was a new fish at the store and didn't thrive - a few weeks later I found him floating. Last week I spotted another one - I may end up going for that one and, if I can catch the female, quarantining them together to see if she might not prefer a male her own color. This sort of thing is why experts recommend buying juvies and letting them pair up naturally, but I haven't seen a source locally. What's even more a shame, is that the German blue female gets a washed-out look to her colors when nearby the male now - she had such beautiful color before. Definitely need to adjust things there.

The baby plants on the ozelot sword plant's flower stalk haven't put roots out yet, but when they do I'm thinking of selling them to other hobbyists, and maybe seeing if I can't keep one as a houseplant! As far as I know, the Echidnodorus species can live both immersed and emmersed, thanks to the seasonal flooding of the Amazon river. The plant is definitely oversized for my aquarium - a 200+ gallon would be more to scale, or an outdoor pond during the summer!

The dwarf gouramis are fighting with each other again - I suspect the pruning and rearranging has altered the desirability of the tank territories and now they're duking it out for the best spot.