Last weekend, while I was trying to get pictures of the Apistogramma baenschi “Inka” in my 20L, I also snapped a few shots of the Nerite snails and Amano shrimp while waiting for the Apistos to come out of hiding. I wanted to share a few of those shots.

Olive Nerite Snails are by far one of the best algae eaters you can add to your aquarium, but many of them are quite pretty as well. I love the spiraling parallel lines patterned over many of their shells. I thought this guy (above) looks pretty good against the orange tones of the rock.

One of their key attributes is their willingness to slither along the glass, cleaning it of green spot, or other tough algae. You can see that this particular snail’s shell is slowly eroding away due to the lower pH and hardness of my water. This is fairly common in planted aquariums, especially when CO2 is injected as the carbonic acid is hard on their shells. I’ve known some hobbyists who used reef epoxy to fill in these holes, prolonging the life of their invert inhabitants.

Amano shrimp are the other must have invert in nearly every aquarium. They can clear a field of hair algae in a matter of days, if added in proper proportion to the size of the tank. (That, by the way, is probably roughly 1 shrimp/2 gallons.) Too many, with too little algae, and they will start eating your moss fronds, or other delicate leaved plants. To minimize that, I feed mine algae wafers. The largest Amano in the tank usually swims right to the wafer, and holds it captive until he’s eaten his fill. Then the rest of the invertibrates in the tank swarm the leftovers. A day of the life of an invert.

My 50G had turned into quite the farm tank, but I’ve finally been able to reclaim it as an aquascapable aquarium. I really like the hardscape, so I’ve decided to leave that in place, but simply replant it with some different plants. Previously, the aquascape was dominated by Blyxa japonica, where now I’ve only retained that in the middle to the right of the large piece of wood.

I’ve added a number of stem plants, and I’m hoping to trim them into bushes, kind of dutch style, behind the rocks to the right. I’m still deciding whether or not to keep the Eleocharis sp. ‘Japan’ in the foreground, or to rip it out and go with something more vintage like Glossostigma elatinoides. Comments welcome!

Previously, I talked about Sphaerocaryum malaccense, and how it can be a unique and beautiful plant in an aquascape. I had the good fortune to take some pictures of my friend’s, plants, who let them grow emersed and managed to get flowers. Below are a few of those pictures. From the flowers, you can clearly see how this is a grass plant.

The flower stalks are fairly condensed before they open. The white flowers themselves are very tiny and delicate. I didn’t notice any significant fragrance from the flowers, but they’re nice nevertheless.

I really do enjoy seeing how the aquatic plants that we grow submerged look when kept out of water. Hopefully, I’ll have several more flowers to show later this summer.

A couple months ago I ordered a pair of Apistogramma baenschi “Inka” off of Aquabid. This is one type of Apistogramma that I’ve wanted to keep for a long time, after seeing pictures of it online. I love the mohawk that the males have, as well as, their very pretty coloration.

Just like Apistogramma panduro, they have a red ring on their tail fin, with a caudal spot on their body just before their tail fin. This particular fish is still a juevenille, but even so, you can see the brilliant irridescent coloration on his dorsal and pectoral fins. Blue, yellow, orange, and red are all represented on the same fish — who said freshwater fish aren’t colorful?

I have a much larger male Apistogramma baenschi “Inka” in another tank without a mate, but I didn’t want to put these significantly smaller fish in with him. That male, however, has a mohawk that is much more feathery and while it can stand straight up, he often lets it ripple to the side in the current. It’s very unique looking, and if the guy ever sticks around for a picture, I’ll post it.

For now, these fish are in my newly rescaped 20L, and pretty much have free reign of the aquarium. I have another pair of Botia sidthimunki loaches in there as well, but will try and fish them out when I can so that they don’t poach on any Apistogramma fry. So far, these fish seem rather straight-forward to keep, so hopefully they’ll breed for me. If anyone has any tips/experiences specific to this species, I’d love to hear them!

I’ll start by saying that this 54G aquarium is giving me more trouble than just about any aquarium I’ve setup before. It’s not the aquarium itself, but I just can’t seem to get the darn thing balanced and happy without ending up with beautiful views like the one below. I am using a few things that I don’t usually use in this aquarium. It’s my first time using a metal halide pendant, so I’m still figuring out the best light duration. Additionally, I’m using leftover parts for my CO2 system, and not the filter I’d prefer to use. So, those are my excuses.

Now, what I’m trying to do about it. At least according to my test kits, my nitrate is at 10ppm and phosphate 1ppm, which is exactly where I want them. Nevertheless, I’m not sure I can trust those values because the plants aren’t looking like they’re that happy, although the algae is. I also decided to rearrange the rockscape that I did have in this tank, adding a large rock with much more character than the previous one. This allowed me to add a bit more height to the rockscape than I had before. Before repositioning, I pulled all of the rock out, and scrubbed them to get as much of the black-brush-algae as I could. I’m sure it’s a matter of time for it to return, but hopefully I can get my water parameters inline before then.

I may be forced to bend a few rules for this tank if I can’t rectify the situation entirely through water/light/CO2 adjustments. Unfortunately, there are no native plecos (or other suitable suckerfish) to Maryland, and grass shrimp are just quick treats for the bluespotted sunfish. If I have to add some bristlenosed plecos, it probably wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I’m going to try and avoid that for the time being. Comments welcome!