Have been presoaking alot of wood in one of the snail breeding tubs. And they are nice and covered in Algae and lots of snail egg sacs covering them.
Took the Little one to MA last week, as he was sad after one of his wakins passed away. He did say he wanted another goldfish. And after seeing all the fish and being able to name most of them. He settled on some Sunset female guppies, I really like them as they are the same color as one of my fave fish. The sunset honey gourami.
He did have the predictable Nemo hissy fit, after seeing the tank with them in. Had to explain we did not have the right tank to keep them in.
Been reading a few of Heiko blogs on natural planting, knew I was not alone in this.
I am loving how the different mosses are growing around the marimo balls etc.
And Have simply let the presoaked bogwood settle where it landed. And definetely feels more natural.
This is not going to be a prestine spotless tank, and will be rather messy. Find that shrimp and fish prefer a level of mulm in the tank to root around in.
There are parts of the tank that are very very dark and overshadowed by the flaoting plants rafts.
Other parts are bright and airy feel to them.
The Planted moss shelves are working great and using ceramic rings are anchors is very interesting, as it is providing lots of places for organisms to hide in and shrimp to explore.
I have provided so many caves and nooks and crannies in this scape using the varied techniques used in the scaping and placement of the hardscape.
And since 95% of the lighting in within the tank and under the water line, I can place it where I want/need it to be. I have a few LED spotlights trained on ccertain areas and in others I am using LED Lightbars.
The amount of live food living within the tank is very interesting to watch, as the fish are constantly rooting around to find them.
My little boy really enjoys helping out with this, and since it is locked away he knows when he can ask to do something with me. And he enjoys feeding the fish from the live food buckets,tubs etc. And is hooked on sifting for ant eggs.
Quick pix of one of the shrimp from last night. Think it was about to molt.