Tiger Shrimp Are In

Without any soccer, it was the right weekend to start hacking away at all of the overgrowth I have allowed over the past few weeks. These pictures make it pretty clear how much I was able to remove from the tank. The two freezer bags in the top of the picture have those big, bushy thin-leaved plants, and temple on the left. The third freezer bag is full of some truly large water sprites, and the sandwich bags had star grass and rotala ludwiga.
To give some more perspective on how much stuff I had actually pulled from that tank, I also have a picture of all the stuff that was unworthy to bring to the store and ended up in the trash.

Below is a picture of the "new" tank, where light can now get to the lower plants (especially/hopefully the red lotus).


Looks completely different, no? Almost bad... Well, it's kind of like a haircut, I guess; if you don't care for it, you just need to wait for it to grow back. We'll see how quickly it fills in again.

Rather than waste all of the excellent growth, I decided to swing by Alamo Aquatics again to see if they could move some merchandise, as it were. The tank was relatively empty, and they were nice enough to take on my plants.

Mona said the temple had gone like wildfire previously. It's a high-demand item they don't carry otherwise. I was particularly complimented that my water sprite was the only water sprite she could keep alive in that tank (the rest would melt), though I imagine that is more due to luck than skill.

They were nice enough to give me some tiger shrimp in exchange (don't they look cool?). I only asked for one or two, but Mona graciously gave me four. They ended up in the 5 gallon, because it needs some interesting inhabitants. I just hope they leave my pregnant ghost shrimp and her eggs alone.

As a side-note, while doing the water change on my 30-gallon tonight, I was happy to spot five otos, so they're all accounted for. I doubt I'll ever be able to count 6 golden kuhli loaches at once, but I saw a couple healthy looking ones swimming around the back of the tank, too.