First post of the year...and of the decade

What better time to update this thing than after the holidays. I hope everyone had their fill of delicious food and well, family. Nothing much has changed although I have made an effort to do some extra maintenance and refine my pruning and arrangement* techniques. I decided to put some slate with java moss as foreground cover although much of it has died. It's probably adjusting to the lower light conditions since it used to be attached to the branches closer to the light. I also added some more Rotala rotundifolia to the left mid-section. It doesn't seem to grow as tall or as red as in my 2 gallon hexagon. It's more likely due to lower light and less Potassium concentrations. It didn't turn as vibrant in my 2 gallon hex until I increased the KCl dosage. You might also notice some new inhabitants. Some time ago I decided to trade in some of my surplus of Endlers (Poecilia wingei) for store credit at my lfs. With it I got 6 neon tetras (Paracheirodon innesi) and some filter media. And then with an old Petco gift card I got two more otocinclus and thanks to a loophole I got a third one for free. So after the mass die-off the population has finally rebounded. I have 6 neon tetras (Paracheirodon innesi), 3 red wag swordtails and 8 of their babies (Xiphophorus hellerii), 4 otocinclus (Otocinclus sp.), 5 baby tiger endlers (Poecilia wingei), and the booming red cherry shrimp (Neocaridina heteropoda) population. When I first got the neon tetras I took extra precautions to ensure that all of them survived. This is the fourth time I have tried keeping them and the first time to be successful. It has been weeks and so far they are doing great. I will end up trading my baby swordtails for more neon tetras once they reach the 1" mark. The baby endlers will go in with their mom once they are big enough that she won't be able to feast on them.

10 gallon tank, frontal view

My 6 gallon tank is probably the one that has been through more changes. One day an idea came to mind and the end result was exactly how I pictured it. I used the same two branches that were originally erect in addition to two more branches that I had stored away. I also thinned out the Vallisneria sp. and added some Hygrophila difformis. Anyway, I really like it. I was thinking about maybe relocating this design into my 10 gallon tank, but I decided against it since that would mean lots of changes.

6 gallon tank, frontal view

This tank, the 2 gallon hex is nothing special. I just let the plants grow like crazy and then prune them down and use the clippings for my other tanks. I'm not liking the Echinodorus tenellus taking over the bottom part of the tank, they are too big and the root systems are overwhelming the other plants. I will put the lot of them into my ten gallon where they will have more room to grow.

2 gallon hex, "side" view

I have never shown this tank primarily because I never thought much about it. It's 2 gallons and currently houses a lonely female tiger endler and numerous baby red ramshorn snails (Planorbis sp. "rubrum"). It only gets ambient light, the light shown was the lamp I borrowed from the 2 gallon hex. I just added those rocks yesterday, the java moss tree originally was set down across the sand as a "trunk". It doesn't have a heater because it's down on the floor where the carpet keeps it nice and cozy and no filter since there's no significant bioload. I do try and keep up with maintenance though. It's fairly low maintenance more or less.

2 gallon, frontal view

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

*I don't consider myself much of an aquascaper so from now on I will refrain from using the term "aquascape". My tanks are planted tanks, nothing out of the ordinary.

Oh No!

I wish I had a pictorial update, but that will have to wait until I get new batteries for my camera. The potassium deficiency has finally been taken care of, my plants' leaves no longer die! Everything hasn't gone as expected though. This morning when I was about to feed my fish I noticed a white milky film on the surface of the 10 gallon, I at first thought the filter stopped working. I looked at the flow and no it wasn't that. As I was looking at the flow I noticed a couple of dead tetras floating belly-up right next to the heater. I looked around for the rest. None of them were swimming about so I was expecting the worst and sure enough I found the rest of the tetras between the plants. I knew for a fact that it wasn't the water because I always keep it in top shape and it couldn't go bad over night. The only other culprit could be the temperature. I checked the thermometer and it was at 92ºF! In total 11 fish died: 4 glowlights; 5 black neons; 1 otocinclus; and 1 baby swordtail. That's pretty much the whole population. The only survivors were the two adult swordtails, one of their babies, an otocinclus and the lot of red cherry shrimp. I still don't know if I will go buy more tetras especially when I have no money. I certainly don't want to add guppies which is the only fish I have an excess of. Maybe this will be the perfect time to give neon tetras a fourth chance. Or maybe not, they are always prone to die within the week even if I drip acclimate them. How about trading in some guppies for store credit and get some tetras with that? Plausible.

I seriously don't know what went wrong. The heater isn't faulty, the temperature went back down to its normal range of 78ºF after adjusting it. I'm thinking that I unexpectedly turned the knob last night when I was fiddling with the lights resulting in inadvertently making fish soup. I will miss my fish.

An Update: At Last

The last couple of weeks I sort of neglected my tanks out of frustration for not getting some things in order. It all started when the strip light's ballast on my 10 gallon decided to die unexpectedly, from then on the plants suffered miserably. And it wasn't until last week that I took some action and rectify some of the problems. I got a replacement strip light from Aqueon, but even after this I wasn't satisfied with the amount of light I was getting. Since I enjoy DIY projects I decided to convert the non-working strip light from a fluorescent pin-base to a CFL screw-in. I'm not an electrician but it was easier than I thought. Now I have two 20 watt spiral CFLs plus a 14 watt fluorescent, giving me a total of 5.4WPG! I also was dealing with a potassium deficiency, I got some KCl from the supermarket which I'm certain will patch up this problem. I also did some small rearrangements, like putting the Hygrophila difformis behind the driftwood, inspired by one of Oliver Knott's creations.

My 2 gallon hexagon was also going downhill, I started getting some hair algae and the Hygrophila difformis was becoming a nuisance. Hydrogen peroxide took care of the algae and I fed all of the Hygrophila difformis to my baby turtle. As you can probably already tell I like to take the easy route. Anyway, I leave you with the results.

10 Gallon, frontal view

10 Gallon, corner view

10 Gallon, side view

Neocaridina heteropoda, male

Hemigrammus erythrozonus

Xiphophorus hellerii, male red wag

Otocinclus vittatus

2 Gallon Hex at night

2 Gallon Hex during the day

2 Gallon Hex in the afternoon,