End of Week 4 (Jan 22)
So I didn't post this last week because there wasn't much change. Still took a picture though! Things getting a bit overgrown... the good news was that cycling seemed to be done! Which brings us to the next week...
End of Week 5 (Jan 29)
First of all the Hygrophila on the right got a well-overdue trim. The crypt finally seems to be done melting and is growing new leaves - really hoping that one keeps going strong - since it's there in the back behind the log it's really difficult to see anything except the longest leaves. It would look great if it could grow in a bit thicker.
Those pennyworts were driving me crazy. They didn't seem to want to hold into the soil at all and were constantly getting dislodged. I pulled them all up, trimmed them down a bit and they're now floating. Seem to be doing just fine that way! There's also a stem of asian water grass (Hygroryza aristata) floating up there too (the fuzzy green roots belong to it). Interesting plant; I'll give it a shot!
So in the place of the pennywort I've put some stargrass (Heteranthera zosterifolia). Just planted yesterday it just looks like a bright green mess right now but I'm sure it will fill in nicely. As long as it manages to stay rooted it'll be an improvement over the pennywort.
Also got two other plants to try but they're a little hard to see in the photos. Scattered in clumps on the left behind/around/in front of the S. repens is some Rotala 'bonsai'. I know it's got bonsai right there in the name but I was surprised at how small these were.
Then in the front right there's two clumps of Marsilea hirsuta - one on either side of the rock cave. Hoping that one fills in to carpet some of that empty space.
Last but certainly not least I added some shrimp!
There's only 5 adults in there right now, one female had her eggs hatching the first day as well as some baby shrimp I found in the bag (could have been hatched from that female, could have just been stowaways on the bit of java moss/riccia that was in the bag with the adults). There's another female with eggs as well right now (they have eyes - hatching soon) and another with a saddle. Here's hoping at least one of the two remaining adults is a male.
I wanted to get more shrimp but I didn't want to spend too much to figure out if my situation would kill any shrimp I put inside. Everything LOOKED good on paper (cycled, PH just under 7, ~150 TDS using Seachem Equilibrium since our tap is very low) but I didn't want to put $50 of shrimp in just to find out something else would kill them all overnight. Could have gone with something less expensive like low grade cherries but then I'd have to figure out what to do with them when I added the color I DID want - wouldn't want them breeding with my pumpkins and giving wild colored babies.
Even with just the 5 adults in there the shrimp are quite a bit more entertaining than I was expecting. Those tiny feet move incredibly quickly when they're picking through the sand, and the couple times I've watched one swim across the tank has been amusing. Spotting the babies that seem to be getting bigger and bigger is fun, too.
I was trying to get a picture of my favorite this morning but couldn't get a clear shot - she's the one currently berried and she's a nice vibrant orange that darkens to almost red on the top of her back.
The resident populations of nematodes and copepods are still going strong. There's been a tiny outbreak of ramshorn snails but I'm hoping now that there's less plant melting going on their numbers will stop going up as much. There's only one bigger snail (.5cm diameter about) and the rest I've seen have been tiny babies crawling on the glass. Also spotted a pond or bladder snail (didn't check shell direction) the other day, heading over to where I had dropped a tiny piece of a spirulina wafer for the shrimp.
I figure I'll give the shrimp a few months to settle in before I add anything else. Was watching some videos of Spotted Blue-Eyes (Pseudomugil gertrudae) and I'm starting to really firm up on the decision to add them, but I want to give the shrimp some time to populate in safety. Like I said earlier they're plenty entertaining on their own anyway!