#this is a high tech tank so hopefully they'll settle in well

[prince-liest]

It's been a solid few months now of Her Highness living in her own little tank with the company of only a single nerite snail that she isn't physically capable of assaulting, and I am happy to report that not only is she still exhibiting active and curious behavior, but also that I am finally actually starting to be happy with how the tank turned out.

My original plan for the visual design of the tank was to have a mix of Iwagumi and Dutch: I wanted some pretty seiryu stones with a foreground of monte carlo carpet, and a Dutch-style planted backdrop behind the stones.

The monte carlo carpet is growing in great now that I've yanked out the last vestiges of the glossostigma I'd also planted in there, but unfortunately 3/5 of the background plants that I used either died off or just weren't what I wanted and expected. I finally just yanked out the slowly decomposing stems and replaced them with a small forest of crypt wendtiis, and I think I'm very happy with that. Crypts are pretty, they'll grow pretty huge if the ones in my big tank are anything to go by, and they're nowhere near as much maintenance as stem plants. I'm tired of trimming, replanting, and dead lower stems.

I am hoping this will also help the algae get under control. The diatoms are finally dissipating, but I've started getting hair algae, and I'm convinced that it was at least partly from the decomposition of the struggling plants, since it's extremely easy to not overfeed a single betta fish. That, or I'm not fertilizing enough. Fingers crossed!

#personal #petblogging #aquariums #fishblr #planted tank #aquascaping #no full tank shot sorry I'll do one when the crypts grow in a bit #this is a high tech tank so hopefully they'll settle in well