Hi
@Colin_T thank you so much for your insightful reply. I am awaiting the arrival of the kubotai rasboras today, along with the green neon tetras, a total of 30 new fish to add to the aquarium.
Most of the plants are ephiphytes growing on driftwood and yes, I usually pull out all of the driftwood to do a thorough gravel vacuum once every month or so. That is the beauty of epiphytes. The only plants in substrate is one sad rosette sword that I often find floating as it doesnāt have many roots, the plant was not a great plant from day one when it arrived in the mail, but it is still alive. There is also some hornwort floating around and some dwarf water lettuce that I keep in a coral above the anubias. There are a lot of plants and I wasnāt planning to remove any of them.
I change water when it needs to be changed and I use my TDS meter and water testing to determine when that is. Usually it is once a month as the tank is lightly stocked at the moment and I feed lightly, skipping a day once a week (sometimes twice). The TDS is around 180 right now and parameters were tested this morning. Yesterday was the most recent water change.
When I first brought the embers home (around Oct 2022, I think), they would swim from end to end of the aquarium. They eventually settled in to just hanging out in the plants. I used to have half the top covered in duckweed but pulled all of that out a couple of weeks ago. The glass cats seemed to come out of hiding more now that the duckweed was removed. Now the hornwort is floating around and the ember also like hanging out under that, and under the anubias leaves.
Yes, you are right, there is no backing on my aquarium. In all of my years keeping aquariums (since the late 1980s) Iāve never had a backing on my aquariums. It makes it easier for me to see them and take pictures without a background, especially in my little dark water shrimp tanks.
This tank is in my basement and my husband works 12 hour shifts directly across the from that aquarium, three days a week. Other than that, we might pass by doing laundry or if I go down there to sit and watch my aquarium. I have 6 aquariums and that is the only one in the basement, and since there is never a whole lot going on down there, it is my least watched aquarium. There are motion detector lights down there and they come on as we walk downstairs. I donāt use electric lights too often, a habit I got into over the past 25 years keeping parrots. When the sun goes down we leave things dim/dark so the parrots stay quiet and go to sleep. So I will sit downstairs in the dark (better for taking pictures too) and watch them. There is one corner of the tank that receives natural light in the afternoon from a daylight window in the basement though.
I donāt think the fish are hiding on me. Maybe theyāre also bored? There are scuds in that tank to hunt. The Siamese algae eater probably bothers the lone cory more than any of the embers. The SAE also chases a glass cat out of hiding now and then too. I would like to keep the SAE though and I donāt plan to rehome it. I donāt have an algae issue, but Iāve grown fond of it and right now it is the most excitement in the tank as that fish is active and swims around most of the time.
I really appreciate the tips and youāve made me think of things in a way I hadnāt in the past. Thank you so much.