Well. It's been quite a long time since I've updated this thread.
Hmm, where to start... good news or bad news? I suppose I might as well get the bad news over with first.
My betta died. So did a lot of my cherry shrimp population (there had to be at least 25 in there when I left). I'm 99% sure it's because of him being fed only 2 times during the whole 3 weeks I was away in California for my winter break - that and the lack of water changes and probably the slow buildup of ammonia from the dying hornwort that I'd put in to help keep the water clean when I was gone. I don't want to think about how slowly he died or how much he suffered at first while I got ready to fish him out with the net. I literally cried for an hour upon finding him lifeless at the bottom of his dirty, half-filled 2.5g, but got over the initial grief quickly. There was work to do, and I needed to get myself together on where to start.
Surprisingly, the 5-gallon fared much, much better than the 2.5 - I'm attributing it to the heavy planting, good filtration, and the bag of Purigen I'd put in there to help the tank hang in there until I got back. The water was almost crystal; I'm assuming it helped soaked up most of the remaining tannins in my driftwood, which pleases me. I needed the extra light for my plants.
The fish were really pale and were schooling tightly at the bottom when I first turned the light on and checked on them. The water hadn't been topped off in nearly a week, so the heater was exposed a little and the water was only 70ish% full. I decided that doing a major water change on the 5g was more of an emergency.
I spent well over 3 hours in total on both tanks - I had to completely tear down the 2.5 and start the cycle over. For the 5g, thankfully there wasn't much to be done other than the water, adding my plant ferts, and doing a big trim on my wisteria and ludwigia. (I'd added L. repens a week or so before I'd left, and was happy to see they were doing well despite the poor water conditions. Their leaves are an absolutely gorgeous red underneath!). Almost immediately after the water change, the fish and shrimp began to perk up a little, getting their colors back and (for the fish) schooling a little more loosely.
Today, a week later, the 'strawberry' rasboras are still kicking and doing wonderfully, and the tank is crystal clear most of the time (the not-so most part being when it sits too long without a good algae scrubbing on the front glass from having the sun shine on it for 4-5 hours early in the morning as the sun rises), and the plants are great. I'll go ahead and update my stock list just in case this is a TL;DR moment for those who just wanna see pictures.
General info:
5g Tetra Crescent
13w Fluval CFL (I think 6500k)
DIY CO2 - < 1bps
Aquaclear 20
TOM mini Theo heater
Temp is a stable 75 F
Plants:
Wisteria (lots of it)
Ludwigia repens (a good bunch)
2x Anubias nana
Java moss
Java fern
2x Marimo moss balls
Animals:
8x Strawberry Rasboras (
Boraras naevus)
15x(ish) Red Cherry Shrimp
1x Malaysian Trumpet Snail
And now for pics, showcasing its progress since September. The last one is the most recent photo, taken today. I think I'll just let things settle in and grow out in the near future, slowly aquascaping it as I go along. I really wanna get rid of the anubias... it seems kind of out of place in there. I can't wait for the ludwigia I just trimmed to grow out and form a thick cover to hide the filter and CO2 tubing. As for the animals, I'm noticing my shrimps are dulling their colors a bit; I guess my bright red female had died over winter break. I'm going to purchase a redder batch and see what happens, maybe I could start breeding shrimp to sell!
It's amazing to see how much my tank has grown over the last several months, and despite the frustrations and losses I've experienced with it, it really is a sort of therapy to sit back and admire the work I've put into giving my animals a good home.
