Plants

I ordered my plants from SweetAquatics and couldn't have been happier. The plants arrived quickly, and looked great. I only found three snail egg sacs, and all the plants had roots -- even the bunch plants.

• 1 x Pennywort Pot (Hydocotyle Leucocephyala)
• 2 x Cabomba Caroliniana (Cabomba, Green)
• 2 x Ludwigia Natans (Ludwigia Repens)
• 2 x Vallisneria Asiatica Var. Biwaensis (Corkscrew Val)
• 2 x Hemianthus Callitrichoides (Potted) (Dwarf Baby Tears)
• 2 x Echinodorus Barthii (Red Melon)
• 1 x Cryptocoryne Walkeri Pot
• 1 x Anubias Barteri Var. Nana Pot
• 1 x Bacopa Monnieri Pot

Of all the plants, the dwarf baby tears are the ones I was most excited about and the ones doing the least well.

After putting the plants in the algae took over. I understand that this is normal for newly planted tanks but with only 4 female guppies I felt something needed to be done. I went out and got 10 glass shrimp and 4 albino cory's. On Saturday, I changed 30% of the water and trimmed the vals back, and moved the nana to the front. Between all of these steps, the algae is toning down and the plants are looking good again. I also, set my light timer to toggle every 4 hours (I read that this will help kill the algae because it needs lots of light).

While surfing the net, I couldn't resist bidding on 20 Cherry Red Shrimp. I won them for $20 and they should be here by Wednesday. That will be 30 shrimp to suck up the algae.