Mangrove status

About ten days ago I moved the "best" mangrove in a more shadowed area, hoping that, if the black spots on the leafs are caused by excess of light, this will reduce the impact. At the same time, I set into the ground the only root, which shows today a marked increase in diameter. I added a fragment of fertilizer tablet in the vicinity. The gem with the next two leaves is on its way, so let's hope for the best.

The second best, still without leaves after the last couple fell, is however still alive, as I can see from the roots, which have clearly taken grip in the ground, and from the tip, which, covered with the last dead cuticule, shows inside a tiny gem.

The "bad" mangrove, showing no sign of life whatsoever, and planted in the substrate as a last chance a number of weeks ago: today I dared to move the sand a bit to check the roots, and they are alive!

What is a good mangrove?

Two of the mangrove seedlings I collected in Brazil, in two different locations, are doing acceptably well. The first one exhibits a lovely crown of 6 leaves, grown very close to each other vertically, which I believe has to do with the light (too much? The plant is indeed very close to my 2x38 W 6500 K. Or too less?). The roots, however, appear underdeveloped in comparison, with one extremely long branch only, whereas all the others are likely dead. Just today I saw a new one appearing, though!.

Nice crown of leaves. Very close to each other, though, and I don't know if this implies light problems. The bad news are, the oldest starts showing black spots (clearly visible on the lowest, to the left).

 

Strange root development? One more branche spotted today!

The second one shows a great crown of roots (but only a couple are really alive), which I recently decided to have touch ground, in the hope this would help developing the leaves: these had started growing quite well initially (as I recall, a first pair, that fell soon, then a second pair, which went down even sooner, and a third, which lasted nothing), but at the moment are as below. Note that the new gem is once again darkening.

One can count at least three accrretion rings, corresponding to as many couples of leaves. Notice the distance between them, showing that the leaves came down faster and faster. The new gem is already blackening.

Video session!

An archer show in my tank, but also a show of the great opportunism of the rainbows, who are able to run to the fallen fly much faster than the archers.

 

Less action here, but I love the performance of one of the rainbow females, at 01:37, darting from the depths and able to dead-stop before hitting the surface; the following slow-motion repetition shows some details of her ability of using the fins. Enjoy! 

Photo session

It's been quite some time, so today, taking "advantage" of the pictures I had to take to document the swollen gills of one of the rainbows, and of some flies I haver just bought for the archers, I've decided it was time to take some shots. Sure enough, a movie is the only way to do them the right credit (and I will hopefully do that in the next few days, so stay tuned!), but that's what I got today.

Aiming.... But the rainbows are ready to get the prey!

Swollen gill

One of the rainbow females has had this for quite some time. I thought it was due to the little spike of nitrites I discovered weeks ago, and hoped it would heel after NO₂ would disappear, but I'm afraid it's actually worsening. Otherwise she's doing fine, and today even manage to jump first after the archers shot a fly, and got it!She kept it in her mouth for minutes, chewing it but being unable to swallow it (fortunately!), until one of the males took over when she spitted it for a second.

They're back!

Ther archers are finally back, out of their hideouts. The trick was, apparently, to give them some fun, i.e. some CRICKETS! I got some huge ones a few days ago, they're long gone, but since then the archers never went to hide again, and stay alert all the time for some more to come. Great.

The "good" mangrove has now 6 (!) leaves, and still only small roots, whereas the "bad" ones have no leaves at all (or better, they lost all of them), and a great root development. Unbelievable.

The Vallis are not doing very well, they keep on the yellowish side, even the new leaves now, but they do keep generating new runners, which is, I believe, a good sign. I only set a few tablets of Tetra Plant Crypto fertilizer at the end of July, when I settled the plants into my bare sand substrate, and then randomly provided small amounts of liquid fertilizer. I'll try to go for more. Pity the Fe test I bought just doesn't read anything else than 0 mg/l...

Eheim, what's wrong with you???

Yesterday I decided it was time to check & clean the filter, especially in view of next 3-week trip...

As usual, detaching the tap from the head was an impossible mission: it just stays stuck in there, no matter how much one pushes that damn red button. I eventually opened the filter head without removing the tap, causing the expected flood in the cabinet. Later on I noticed that forcing the flow lever towards the OFF position may do the trick. To the next time....

Apart from the usual brownish mud, the filter was actually quite clean.

Again, problems afterwards: no matter how full the tank was, priming was simply impossible. I scratched my fingers to bleeding point in the attempt to restart, to no avail. The impression was that simply no water at all was sucked in. Spent the evening with that, and eventually gave up, leaving also the inline heater off, inevitably.

Today morning, thanks to the usual good advice of the folks in the TFF, I "solved" the problem the old way, sucking in the water from the pipe's end.

Now, Eheim, for the cost you charge your filters, a bit better engineering would be appreciated!