While I love how this tank looks. the piece of wood really does take up a great deal of space and impede water flow. While the shrimp living in this tank are quite active and healthy looking, they still haven’t taken to breeding. Thus, I will probably be making some significant changes in the near future that might allow me to begin a shrimp breeding colony in this tank.

Sadly, a large portion of the lace leaf java fern plant became discolored. After some research, I found that such browning of the leaves in java ferns can be caused by nutrient deficiency, or, more commonly, by lack of water flow around the plant’s rhizome (the meaty part at the base of the leaves that isn’t just fine, hairlike roots. Some of my java fern had been weighted down with pebbles or under a piece of wood. Having my filter near the rear of the tank compounded with the anchoring method, created little flow around the rhizome, resulting in browning leaves. I removed the browned portions to a recovery tank, and didn’t have much remaining to weave between the jutting wooden pieces near the front.

I also changed the filter intake to be fully in front of the large piece of wood (though it was pushed back when taking photos here) while the outflow was behind the wood. With less java fern obstructing flow, I’m pretty sure that all of the dead flow areas have finally been removed.

I’ll really miss this tank, but I’m excited to create a whole new world in this tiny little shrimp tank!

This little tank, the smallest I currently have running, is doing surprisingly well! I’d been scared about the upkeep such a small tank might require to maintain its stability, but it has been on of the easier tanks in my current collection. Water changes are fast since I usually change out under a gallon at a time. The lace leaf java ferns are very low maintenance plants, and the shrimp have been keeping everything clean. My one battle with this tank is currently being waged against the snail population. At first, pond snails were a huge benefit to keeping the tank clean and balanced. Now, they mostly obstruct my view!

This is the first time that I actually prepared the tank ahead of time for a photo shoot. I made sure to complete a water change and glass cleaning the day before taking photos. I also pumped as much light into the tank as I could without letting light bleed out into the room. This way, glare and reflections off the front surface were greatly reduced.

I am still having trouble finding a lighting setup that will illuminate both the tank and protruding piece of wood equally, but, for now, I’m quite happy with how well these photos came out. Some of the later shots really show off the wood breaking the surface of the water.

I also removed the floating plants about halfway through the shoot. After, when looking through all the photos, the floater-free shots all seemed to come out much better! I added them back in after the shoot, since their sudden removal could possibly cause a sudden swing in tank conditions, but I’ll be trying to slowly phase them out in the future.

I’m quite happy with this tank for now. I’ll update on how it progresses as the javas grow and hopefully Orange Sunkist Caridina shrimp begin to breed!