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!!).

Lymphocystis

The diagnosis is not confirmed yet, but the probability of it being whitespot is quite low, given the salinity of the water (it's now finally SG 1.002 @ 25 C). I have just discovered it, and tomorrow morning I'll look at it again, hopefully being able to exclude the whitespot scenario. Apparently, not much can be done against lymphocystis, apart from letting it develop, and hopefully die out, but it is a virus, and in the small confined environment of the nursery where the glassfishes are kept, it may spread... :-(

Meanwhile, I got probably the best picture of these little guys:

Status

I never really got rid of the diatoms, and for some reason (I removed for some days the aerial vegetation cover, therefore giving more light?) they're somehow blooming again.

The other species of algae totally overcame the moss, which I removed, and are doing the same with the hornwort:

I'm adding some fertilizer, which clearly helps the plant, but the algae don't stop growing on it, and all affected needles soon rot, polluting the water.

The whole result is a quite unsightly mulm resting on the substrate, in spite of the weekly siphoning. I'm soon going to lower the water outlet from the filter from its elevated position down to the water surface level, hopefully increasing the flow and helping move the material into the filter.

One of the glassfish is gone, and the other ones do not grow by a bit. Possibly, they are smaller than before... They still eat only mosquito larvae, which attract them with their continuous movements. 

Not very happy, at the moment.

New guests

Got a couple of mangrove seeds collected in southern Brazil (Florianópolis). They are in the tank since a couple of weeks, and apparently going pretty well. Soon I'll have the problem to raise them up, following the advice of A. Calfo, in order to expose to the air the roots. I'll do it with only one of them, so I can experiment what the best practice is.

Hopefully more roots to come soon...

Mangroves around the world

A collection of pictures I took in different times and places, for those interested in these peculiar, fascinating environments:

Mangroves around the world

More (Thailand and Australia) to be added later.

Other guests

The Neritinae have layed eggs: a number of white, sesam-seed-like spots scattered in sheltered places on the decors. The water is not salty enough to make them survive, but perhaps I'll be able to witness the hatching.

The archers are doing fine, one has clearly become the Alpha guy, harrassing the others, but strictly at eating time. For the rest of the time they do hang around all together quite nicely. When the food is crickets, however, it's just impossible for the others to even get close enough to the only opening in the lid to try their luck in shooting: Alpha sits there and scares them off. And I'm too slow to get more than one cricket at a time in the tank, so last time Alpha got 4 out of 4 of them. I'll have to try some other insects, such as flies, that I can introduce in a significant number, so that the hunt will be distributed among all three archers.

The glass fishes are quietly living in the little home. I can't say they have grown a bit since I got them, but seeing them every day, it's probably hard to appreciate that.

The Java moss has almost succumbed to some hair/thread algae. The Hornwort, too, keeps getting covered with them. The amazing thing is that the plants is the only spot of the entire tank where I get algae: everything else is clear! With the exception of the diatoms, that keep affecting the substrate only, now: the Nerites are doing a great job, and their breeding is evidence of the amount of food they have around.

OK, time for the weekly water change...