Alright I'm due for an update.
The tank is doing very well. The salvinia that brookster sent me is growing in the tank, and on me. I don't mind it as much when it doesn't get stuck in my filter. (Most of the baby plants died or grew so now they're big enough to stay up).
Speaking of filters, my tetra EX30 is kaput. Luckily my fluval 105 canister is still going strong. It should have enough mechanical filtration, and biological should be fine as well, with a low fish load and floating plants.
Speaking of plants, my frogbit came in today. It looks great; the leaves are nice and big. I had it before but I remembered the leaves as smaller.
Speaking of smaller, I'm ordering a smaller filter (Marina Slim S10) for a different project. I will seed it with the media from the EX30 that died, which is now floating in a breeder box (the media, not the filter
).
Speaking of a different project, I found some plant growing sort of submerged in a pond. It had the feel and roots of Anubias the leaves of Ludwigia. So I have it, along with some floating frogbit and salvinia, in a 2.5 gallon under, get this, the 24" P+. I have a TPT finnex PAR chart bookmarked but they must be under very high light. I'll figure that out tomorrow for whoever's curious. I've been adding basically EI level dosing to that tank (2.5) just without nitrates. I should probably add some ammonia to compensate tomorrow. I dose a small amount on the 20 of the same, nitrate free, mixture. I will sell some of the salvinia and the frogbit that's growing in the 2.5. I'm sure they will do well under that light.
Speaking of doing well, the fish fish are looking great. It turns out that one of the ones I thought was a female is actually a very small male. It's been hard to sex them as the males don't seem to fight more than one other male at a time. For example, the largest and a darker male ganged up on be male that I gave away earlier. During that time I actually thought the dark male was a big female because the large male and dark male never showed any aggression to each other. Once the abused fish was rescued they began nipping. Now they've established territories and the smallest male that I thought was a female at first has his own in the corner. I should probably give them names. For anyone who cares, that puts me at 3 males (1 very large, 1 dark, and 1 small) and 2 females (indistinguishable except for where they hang out). These are some super cool fish to watch. They will occasionally get a mouthful of sand and spit it on another fish's she'll before getting chased away. It's like TPing houses.
Hoping for fry soon.
I attached a video, hopefully. It's a time lapse but it may not work.
Edit: it doesn't work. I uploaded a FTS instead.
Also, I noticed that with this higher rock structure and the floating plants they will actually come right to the surface to feed or just explore. Other interesting behavior I've noted is the large male flaring at his reflection, seeing the shiny of the thermometer, and brutally attacking it to the point I can hear him doing it from my desk 10 feet away. He's knocked the suction cup clean off the glass twice. I swear he's a mini Oscar. HEY I should name him Oscar!
