Time for the Kids to Leave the Nest

When I left this morning, the CO2 was not bubbling at all into the 10-gallon tank (I had turned it on early to check on it). When I came home, I was dismayed to see that it was bubbling up the ladder at a very high rate; it looked like all the CO2 was going to the 10-gallon tank (and none to the 30-gallon).

Fortunately, I immediately saw an oto swimming around seemingly unbothered by the tank conditions. So I'm guessing even at that high rate, the ladder was not effective enough to push the CO2 levels into the danger zone. I found the zodiac loach alive (and well?). Nevertheless, wanting to improve conditions in case it was possibly difficult to breathe, I quickly cleaner out the filter which improve the flow rate dramtically. I thought this might have the synergistic effect of aerating and circulating the water, both of which is supposed to be preferences of the zodiac loach. In order to further accomodate him, I changed about 40% of the water later that night (it's still much too yellow for my liking). He came out during the refill and appears to have regained some of his color.


Once that would-be emergency was taken care of, I turned my attention to the breeding net that has been sitting in my tank for several months protecting my cory fry. First, I pulled all of the remaining duckweed and java moss out. Then, it took quite a while to cajole the juveniles out into the great wide open. I was tickled that when I checked in later, I found them still swimming within spitting distance of each other.

I did my best with the plant situation; hopefully the plants that had been in the shade all this time will adapt to the extra light quickly. I had to remove a couple lotus leaves, and there will have to be some trimming soon to clear out the right side like I've tried to clear out the left side.