Have been quiet for quite a while, mostly as we acquired a pair of the most stunning beautiful kittens a month ago. They're just perfect and I've been spending all my time cuddling and playing with them! As always I'm surrounding myself with the best nature has to offer
I've also been.... planning a macroalgae bowl 👀 .... more on that another time!
Anyway, FISH TANK.
Since the last update the tank has been pretty hammered by diatoms. They are finally starting to slow down now, though def not gone yet. A lot of things went brown, and at the same time quite a few plants struggled and died, both under and above the water. Above the water, the deaths were due to my arch nemesis APHIDS who slurped down the watercress,
Baldellia ranunculoides and
Myriophyllum brasiliensis. I haven't replaced them yet, so the top is looking a lil boring compared to last time, need to find something nice and waxy to replace them with. Below the water, the hottonia has almost completely gone, I've only got a few stems left. Interestingly the emergent stems I bought are the surviving ones, and the underwater stems all just melted away. A big shame, as it was cheap and I used it to cover up the bottom. I think it would do better in lowtech with little flow. I collected more starwort and some different ludwigias (and a few other fancy stems some friends gave me) to replace it with on the mounds, and a selection of groundcover plants for the bottom. The starwort is doing fantastically though so that's nice, it's a plant that isn't usually used in an aquarium but I definitely think could be a nice contender - I've never been able to grow rotala well, but this stuff thrives!
So the bottom has filled out really nicely now. As well as hydrocotyle vulgaris and verticilliata (vulgaris is doing the best), I've added a lot of marsilea quadrifolia which was growing long runners across the top of the tank, and it's worked great. I also got some grasses from
@Courtneybst tank shutdown to cover the bases of the mounds that were tragically bare. I'm feeling a lot more into it now, the sticklebacks look great amongst it. The mounds aren't quite right yet, but I'm hoping now the growth is healthy I can slowly trim them into the right shapes and proportion. I'm absolutely gagging for a lightscreen background, i think it would really set everything off nicely, gotta design and build that asap!
Mother Nature's latest gift to me is cyanobacteria, to remind me that there is always something new to learn about. 🙃 There's a bottle of cyano-killer coming in the post.
About 3 weeks ago I added a group of 10 sticklebacks to live with Mr Stickle. He wasn't happy at all at first and chased them all around for a week, but then during the heatwave he seemed to give up and now they're all (mostly) friends. It's funny he went from hidden 90% of the time, to out front and center making sure they all knew it was HIS TANK they're living in. 2 of the sticklebacks died, one the day after I got them had to be euthanised cos it had weird white patches on it, and one from the day it was very hot. I have bottles of rainwater in the freezer now for the next hot day. I have 3 males of 9 which is great and means theres not too much agrivation, and 2 of the males have taken up living in the front right and left corners. Mr Stickle is still the most beautiful colourful one, the second male who is his neighbour has gone pearly white. The females are all metallic silver or brown. The fish aren't afraid of me at all, whether I'm watching them from the front and come over quickly, or putting my arms in to do maintenence. They also eat the aphids I plonk in the tank which is great, and they use the whole tank - picking at the bottom and zooming around the rest, often checking the surface for any insects and swimming in the flow of the lily pipe. They only eat live and frozen food, don't like the dry at all but it's not difficult to deal with in summer. The tank so far hasn't dipped below 21 since I got them annoyingly. I'm not sure if they will breed in these conditions, but I wish they would as 9 sticklebacks doesn't quite add the flurry of activity I like to see in a tank! Maybe I should've got 20 rather than 10. They are definitely interesting fish to keep with really interesting behaviour!
However I do find myself really missing schools of tiny fish, shrimps, lil catfishes, all those creatures that add movement. It's a big shame there arne't any tiny native fish to fill the gap, so I'm hoping with the amount of livefood I'm feeding them that they might breed and it's not too late in the season! I still have that 100cm tank in the back of my mind, I'm currently in negotiations about whether I could set it up as a lowtech SA community. Hmm, we'll see!