Day 30
Great news!
The cycling is actually on the move. Looks like all I got to do now is keep on doing water changes and it'll be set. I am going to be doing one ASAP tomorrow, can't now because I was just doing the water testing before hitting the hay tonight.
Water Conditions: 30 Days after Set-Up
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrites: 2/5 ppm (I hate being colour-blind to purple right now)
Nitrates: 5 ppm
In other news, I have been going over the plants in my 5.5 gallon and taking out the ones that seem to be having trouble adapting and transferring them over to the 1 gallon so that they can grow out in an environment where I can keep a close eye on them. In all honesty, the vast majority of the plants are doing just fine. Only two strands of Bacopa are struggling. I did find two leaves of Java Fern floating in the tank attached to roots so I took those out and put them into the 1 gallon. It has since grown a third leaf and grown itself a chain.
In the 5.5 gallon, plants are growing well. I had a few leaves melt on the Crypts and on the Banana Lily so I pruned a little and noticed a new stem growing on the Banana Lily. New leaves are also growing on multiple chains of the Java Fern, and one leaf as even managed to produce the orange dots/spores.
Nice white roots are growing on the Bacopa strands, but I haven't gotten any propagation on them yet. Hopefully I will manage to do that soon.
Only bit of bad news I got thus far is possibly not even bad news. In the plant grow out tank I found a bladder snail. I was surprised and my first thought was that it came in on the Crypts since there were bladder snails in the tank with them when I got them. Second thought was that it came in with the Bacopa as an egg and only reached visible size recently. I'm on watch patrol in the 5.5 gallon to see if there are others but none so far. I'm keeping the bladder alive, but I found it funny that it was in the 1 gallon instead of the 5.5 gallon.
Buck is doing well, hasn't bothered Jeb at all when I'm around. Does great all day, and is beginning to like lounging on the Crypt leaves. If he isn't doing that; he either is making his bubble nest hiding in the Java Ferns, or patrolling the tank. He seems to disappear the moment I turn the lights off for the night, though that might be his dark colouration coming to play. Jeb, on the other hand, disappears all day. Only sign of his presence from dawn to dusk is little snail turds in his favourite spots, and a trail of turds and clean sand/glass over wherever he was last night. He is just as hard to find at night when I take a look for him, since he tends to hang out around my driftwood and his shell colouration lets him blend right into it...the striping really breaks up his shape.
Anyways, I'm heading home for the weekend so I'll being doing a check in at the LFS there again to see the stock and check on things...yeah totally doing it for those reasons and not to just look at fishies.
Have a good time all!