I’ve been busy setting up the 10 G river tank

… for the WCMM in the basement. It has a bit of wood and some medium sized rocks, but mostly pebbles of three different sizes. I scrounged some parrot feather and salvinia out of the pond and one of the little water hyacinth plantlets, added some java fern and African fern from the big tank and dumped in a Japanese moss ball and a few physa and MTS. Here’s a shot while I was planting:

In early October I started to scoop the minnows out of the pond. I found nine out of ten. One of them had had a spine deformity – he looked like a Z from above, and we were always amazed that he was still swimming along with everyone else. But in the end, I guess he didn’t make it.
The nine seem happy enough in their smaller quarters. I put a little powerhead in for them, and they love swimming right in it’s stream.

Two days ago I added Cthulhu, the Bristlenose from the blackwater tank. I’ve carefully acclimated him to the cooler and somewhat harder water over the past 10 days. And while he seems a little shell-shocked by having been moved twice in two weeks, he’s slowly regaining his colour and starting to explore his new home.

I took him out of the big tank, because he’d been harassing the Ranger Pleco, who’s a bit of an emo kid. Rory, the Ranger kept showing up in the mornings with torn and ragged fins and grew more and more shy. Now, the fact that his nemesis is gone slowly dawning on him, he’s finding back to his happy scamp self, and, ye gods, is he ever beautiful, proudly displaying tail and sail and with all his fins fully healed.