Poor Ranga!

While away, another Glassfish departed, again for no apparent reason. If I can see a problem among them, it's just that they didn't grow a bit since I got them, back in January. Therefore, they are still in the hatchery, to avoid the archers' attentions. I wonder if this could somehow prevent their growth. But until I get some new plants, I cannot risk to release them into the Big World. Also, they still accept only very lively food (mosquito larvae; live bloodworms are ignored), which limits a lot the possibility of feeding them. For the holidays (almost 3 weeks away) I'll have someone to come and feed them a bit.

Rio!

The lymphocystis, or whatever that was, disappeared in two days, and the fish appears to be fine. It could still have been white spot, and in that case probably the parasite has simply left the first host, and moved on to the second stage of its life, spreading into the tank and looking for new hosts (AARGH!). Therefore I had raised the salinity and the temperature (from 25 C to 28 C). About ten days have passed, so T goes now back to 25 C.

No plants left under water, and only two struggling above the water. I decided to give it a second try, this time with Vallisneria americana. Problem will be, the water is already brackish, although very low-end: with the Hornwort I had gradually increased the salinity from 0 to 1.002 in months, whereas now I don't want to pull it down again; let's see how this supposedly very hardy plant will do.

I'm presently in Rio again, lucky harvest this time: half an hour on the beach in Copacabana during rough sea, and I collected more mangrove seedlings than I can really handle!

In the weekend I'll go to a new estuary I found some 50 km south of town, with a nice manguezal. Locals say it might not be a good idea trying to enter those waters, but let's see. I got the diving case for the little camera, so hopefully I can get some nice shots (since I don't need more seeds!!).