vacation explosion
I took the family to the beach for almost a week (sunday through thursday night) and opted not to risk having anyone try to take care of my tank. I don't have any fish keeping friends or family nearby; additionally I've got five tanks with fish and just didn't want to try to get someone to deal with all of that.
So I just let the tanks run. For this one, I did a fifty percent water change a day or two before leaving, and fed the fish a little extra (though not by much) the day before leaving.
I got home Thursday night, late (well after lights out), so I couldn't really inspect the tank well, but with the room's lights I could see that my absence had apparently done well for the plants.
This morning I checked and was very happy with the growth. Lots of growth. Noticeable growth in nearly everything, even the anubias petite. The dwarf sag is propagating much more, the microsword is even showing some signs of propagating that I hadn't noticed. Some things have really exploded: most obviously the water sprite, but also the stargrass, the mystery rotala in the front right, the rotala in the back left, and the apongeton.
Some problems though. The algae on the jungle val is still ugly, plus the jungle val is showing some other trouble signs. The cabomba is not doing well, probably for the most part due to where the floating water sprite has gotten itself. Not sure if I should use something to anchor that stuff on the right side or what. Last week I redirected the spray bar - it had been pointing directly from the back to the front, now i've angled it down significantly toward the bottom front corner trying to get more water flow to handle some algae. In general I think that's helped, or SOMETHING helped, as the algae isn't as bad in a lot of places, I think.
I'll be doing a trim this weekend. Starting to run out of places to throw my extras.
I'd like to know if this growth is in part due to the extra CO2 being fully online now, or what. Maybe my being away and not removing the lights so much to trim/play with stuff in the tank made a difference. Maybe it's just that being away from seeing it every day made the contrast more stark.
Here are some pictures. I didn't clean the glass at all, so pardon the yuck.
I took the family to the beach for almost a week (sunday through thursday night) and opted not to risk having anyone try to take care of my tank. I don't have any fish keeping friends or family nearby; additionally I've got five tanks with fish and just didn't want to try to get someone to deal with all of that.
So I just let the tanks run. For this one, I did a fifty percent water change a day or two before leaving, and fed the fish a little extra (though not by much) the day before leaving.
I got home Thursday night, late (well after lights out), so I couldn't really inspect the tank well, but with the room's lights I could see that my absence had apparently done well for the plants.
This morning I checked and was very happy with the growth. Lots of growth. Noticeable growth in nearly everything, even the anubias petite. The dwarf sag is propagating much more, the microsword is even showing some signs of propagating that I hadn't noticed. Some things have really exploded: most obviously the water sprite, but also the stargrass, the mystery rotala in the front right, the rotala in the back left, and the apongeton.
Some problems though. The algae on the jungle val is still ugly, plus the jungle val is showing some other trouble signs. The cabomba is not doing well, probably for the most part due to where the floating water sprite has gotten itself. Not sure if I should use something to anchor that stuff on the right side or what. Last week I redirected the spray bar - it had been pointing directly from the back to the front, now i've angled it down significantly toward the bottom front corner trying to get more water flow to handle some algae. In general I think that's helped, or SOMETHING helped, as the algae isn't as bad in a lot of places, I think.
I'll be doing a trim this weekend. Starting to run out of places to throw my extras.
I'd like to know if this growth is in part due to the extra CO2 being fully online now, or what. Maybe my being away and not removing the lights so much to trim/play with stuff in the tank made a difference. Maybe it's just that being away from seeing it every day made the contrast more stark.
Here are some pictures. I didn't clean the glass at all, so pardon the yuck.
