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.

10 Gallon Rescape

I had been thinking about changing a few things in my ten gallon for quite some time. Yesterday I decided to once and for all do something about it. The number one thing I had to take care of was to net out all the guppy juveniles I had in there, I realized that I didn't appreciate them as much as I used to. So they'll be going into their own tank and maybe in doing so my admiration for them won't diminish. I also trimmed all the dying leaves on the java fern which increased open space dramatically. I took out all the plants and the driftwood, sloped the gravel, and added some Vallisneria. It was very hard trying to get everything how I wanted it, the two main pieces of wood and the branches had to be tied together to make sure that they wouldn't move. Planting was probably the most difficult, considering that you can barely get both of your hands in the tank while making sure not to move anything already in place. I struggled trying to get the dwarf lily between the driftwood, the opening there is like 2" at most. After removing most of the plants, this is what was revealed:

I quite liked this, maybe if it was refined somehow it would make a great layout. Not for now though. Anyway, these are the pictures so far.

Before:

After:

Fauna: 7 Hemigrammus erythrozonus, 5 Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi, 2 Otocinclus vittatus, and hundreds of Malaysian Trumpet snails

Flora: Ludwigia repens, Microsorum pteropus (2 varieties?), Vallisneria sp.?, Nymphaea sp. 'rubra', Taxiphyllum barbieri

I'm feeling a bit uneasy about the Ludwigia to the left, I might have to trim it shorter to give that area a more filled, bushy finish. And perhaps even add a few Rotala rotundifolia.
It looks much bigger in my opinion, less fish and more open space and the Vallisneria in the back gives the illusion that it is taller. I'm happy.
Shortly after finishing I noticed some courtship behavior amongst the Glowlight tetras. I've seen them do their dances before, but I'm yet to see any eggs. I'm thinking that what triggered it this time was the shade provided by the vals.

Hemigrammus erythrozonus

Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi


Ludwigia repens

This is a work in progress, it might/will change as it grows. I'm open to suggestions so if you have something to say go ahead. Currently, I'm not sure whether to trim down the ludwigia to make it into a nice bushy foreground. I'm also still undecided whether I should add a bolivian ram as a centerpiece fish. I've had these fish in this tank before and they did quite well. I should give them a try. Thanks for reading and thank you Karen for the vals.

New blog

This is my blog, I'm fairly new to aquascaping but not to fishkeeping. I've kept fish ever since I was 4, now I'm 19. You do the math. I like it because it keeps me occupied and I like nature in general. I'm also hoping that one day I'll make a career out of it. I'm aiming for ichthyology.

At the moment I have a 10 gallon tank with some black neon and glowlight tetras and a bunch of baby guppies that I will get rid of as soon as possible. I also have a six gallon tank which is basically a endler and RCS sanctuary. Plus several smaller tanks.

For the moment I only have these images. I will get some of my tanks as soon as the aquascapes improve a little bit. I hope that with this new thing I will learn a little bit more and be guided in the right direction. As time progresses I will add more stuff and hopefully I'll get some feedback.

Hemigrammus erythrozonus

Hemigrammus erythrozonus

Hemigrammus erythrozonus

Betta Splendens-King of his 5 gallon bowl