Moving Day and Scissor Happy

[kagome]

So, I had to switch a fish around. I have a tank of misfit fish from my Dad's 55 gallon. He gave me a Texas cichlid, an Acei cichlid and a synodontis that were not getting along with everyone else in his tank.

Well, the two cichlids get along great, they chase each other a little bit but it's no big deal. But then they decided to start being mean to the synodontis. They would chase him around, knock the lift tube off the filter and then the synodontis would get stuck in the filter intake trying to get away from the two meanies.

I decided to move the synodontis to the planted barb tank. I netted him but I was worried about the osmotic pressure being different between the two tanks since they have very different bioloads and one is fairly heavily planted and the other is not. So I put the synodontis, Norman, in a bucket and set up an airline hose with a couple knots in it so I could drip acclimate him. He was in the bucket for about an hour. Maybe I was going overboard, but I really like him and didn't want to risk him being shocked.

At first, the barbs and rainbow shark were absolutely terrified because he is HUGE compared to them. But now everyone has settled down. Norman has moved into the big cave in the Buddha and everyone seems to be getting along great.

So here's Norman:
IMG_0386 by Katherine Morgan, on Flickr

He seems to love swimming around in all the plants. I think he likes all the extra cover and probably appreciates not being chased around by two bad-tempered cichlids.

Then, I got the bright idea to trim back my Brazilian pennywort. Yeah, I got WAY too scissor happy. So, I went from this:
IMG_3936 by Katherine Morgan, on Flickr

To this:
IMG_3964 by Katherine Morgan, on Flickr

So yeah, I did that. Luckily, it grows really quickly so it shouldn't take too long for it to grow back in.

[Carl]

You definitely let the scissors take over, but at least the Buddha looks better!

Carl

[kagome]

You know what's weird? The green color on the Buddha was just a reflection of the green leaves from the pennywort! Now that the pennywort isn't there to shade it, the Buddha actually has more algae on it than when I took that picture!

I'm not worried about it though, between the clown pleco and how fast that pennywort grows, the algae doesn't stand a chance.

I've also noticed that my rainbow shark is munching on algae on the glass the way juvenile Siamese algae eaters do. I would have thought he was just going over missed bits of food but he does it on the glass, too. He'll probably outgrow it like SAE do, but it's neat for now.

I want to add some ludwigia repens to this tank and possibly some African water fern. Maybe one of the dwarf swords. OK I admit, I totally can't make up my mind. I want EVERYTHING!! I've done really well with this low tech plant set up. I just dose Flourish once a week after water changes.

If I get some of those, I'll probably move the more massive clumps of Java fern to my son's tank to make room. I love that about Java fern, you can just grab it and stick it anywhere. I can't believe that all of it I have came from two spindly little clumps I bought a few years ago!