Jared Andrews

Levels looking good. Ph risen slightly but it causes me little concern. The nitrate has definitely dropped. In the last post I mentioned my difficulty with reading the testing kit nitrate results. I know it definitely dropped this week because there was no sign of red in the water, only orange. The plants are growing well so I suspect they are consuming it.

Added one pump of easy green after testing.

I have now confirmed 100% that the fish are not guppies but mollies. I looked at images online and while there are many types of guppies I couldn't find any that look like these fish. I eventually came across Mollies and they all look like minor variations of mollies. A few nights ago I had dinner with my dad and I asked him about the fish, he confirmed that they were Mollies, he remembers being with my Grandpa when some of the initial fish were purchased. It's interesting to ponder how many generations of fish I am looking at since they fish were bought from a store. Once I get a better handle on things I will attempt to introduce a fresh mollie from a store to freshen up the DNA. I feel like these fish are quite inbred at the moment. I recently spotted a fry that grew to about a half inch in size with a completely twisted spine. I was rooting for the little guy but I have not seen him for over a week, the last time I spotted him he was keeping very low to the ground. I suspect he died and is either fertilizing the plants or served as fish food.

Otherwise, the grown mollies all seem happy, though conventional wisdom dictates that there are too many of them in this tank. I'm still trying to give them away to people in my personal life. If you happen to be reading this and are in Central Mass, email me (jared at jaredandrews dot com) if you want some Mollies, I can probably give some plants too.

Speaking of plants, they are flourishing, I'm trying to let things get really wild in there for a few weeks, but I might be tempted to trim soon. The lily bulbs are sending out all sorts of offshoots and getting massive. The pennywort is still thriving and going all over the place. My Java Moss forest has started to grow up and is now visible at eye level when looking directly at the tank.

The carpet plants continue to do bad, but haven't gotten visibly worse since last week. I'm going to continue hoping for the best with them.