The Fireplace Aquarium was looking pretty overgrown and I hadn’t done a water change in a couple of weeks so time to get stuck in for some maintenance. For me, once I get going on this kind of thing it tends to get a little more vigorous than first anticipated, but it has a way of working out.
overgrown
got to the surface
thin on the bottom
Stem plants can grow fast and if they get to the surface they can block a lot of light. Being exposed to open air can also change leaf characteristics back towards emersed form growth. You can potentially get a lot of adventitious root formation as well with plants looking to grab on to the surface surroundings.
Cleaning hardscape
Step 1 – very important – unplug your heater. Having the heater out of the water for any length of time whilst still active is asking for it to heat itself to destruction. You also don’t want live electrics in the water when your hands are also in the water messing around doing maintenance. Next, clean off the lid. In the Fireplace Aquarium even though green spot algae does not grow in the water column anymore, it does (for reasons unclear) grow well on the lid. Maybe something about the condensation being different chemically from the water column? Having algae on the lid blocks light and gives a green tinge to the light that does get through. Give it a good scrub with soap, water and a plastic scour pad (not metal!) followed by a really good rinse. I also like to take the opportunity to make sure the powerhead is in good shape. Sometimes the powerhead can turn into a black beard algae farm where it needs a good soak in hydrogen peroxide. Not this time though, so just a really good rinse. Wipe down the upper walls and surfaces too.
unplug the heater
pretty nasty lid
nice and clean
clean/rinse powerhead
wipe off walls
Sort the fast-growing stems
Next step, trim the fast growing stems. In this case that means the Bacopa caroliniana and also a bit of the Rotala rotundifolia ‘Blood Red’. The Bacopa is reasonably prolific, but it bounces back from being cut very well. You can always replant the cut stems if you want to fill in the bottom or make a more bushy amount of plant growth. I decided not to do that this time. I also took out the Microsorum pteropus ‘Windelov’ (java fern) which is easy to do since it is an epiphyte attached to a piece of slate. Trim off the ratty leaves, give it a good rinse, and cut off the overhanging parts and it’s good to go.
rotala and bacopa stems
bushy java fern
trimmed back
Remove ‘problem child’ plants
Sometimes you can have a plant that looks really great for a long time, but then just gets kind of ‘long in the tooth’ and looks not so nice anymore. Sometime plants will also considerably exceed their remit in terms of size. This can also throw off the look and unbalance what you were going for. In this case, the Cryptocoryne nurii which looked so great for so long, really got wildly out of control. I wanted something small for the foreground, and Tropica lists the nurii as ’10 – 20+’ cm (after two months in the aquarium). In my case it has been over a year and a half and the nurii had stretched out to 30 cm, so not really ‘foreground’ anymore. There were also a few small tufts of black beard algae on the tips. The thing with roseate plants like this, it’s hard to just ‘trim them back’. Instead you tend to wind up pulling them out, and since the roots tend to be all interconnected by runners you wind up pulling them all out. Probably that’s for the best. Do-overs can work.
30 cm of Crypt. nurii
Crypt. nurii
Polish the water
The problem with this kind of major surgery though is it can throw a lot of neutrally buoyant debris into the water; fine soil, root fragments etc. Fortunately this is really easy to fix with a temporary water-polishing filter.
lots of debris
upgraded filter pads
polishing filter at work
water looking much better
Freshed up look
And that’s it! Not too bad. I centred the java fern into the space freed up by the Crypt. nurii. Maybe I’ll try a smaller crypt in there? C. parva never did much for me, but C. lutea hobbit had some level of appeal. Or maybe try something new! The nice thing about this hobby is nothing is ever static. You always have a chance to change things around, try something you haven’t had a go with yet, or to go back to things you had a for while and want to get going again.