I have been waiting a week for my emperor tetras and ember tetras to color up so I can take photos. Despite all my other fish being SUPER happy, growing, and spawning within three days the emperors and embers were still stress pale. I’ve even broke my own rule and fed them some fish flakes to get them settled in. The rest went nuts but the emperors and embers SPIT THEM OUT. Divas! Today was the first day I successfully hatched some sea monkeys and oh my god these same fish turned into piranhas! And they look a little darker. Already they’re training me.

Meanwhile the other fish have been BUSY spawning under every plant. And the nerite snail that wasn’t supposed to breed in fresh water just left a massive trail of large hard white eggs that no one else could lay. No worries, I feel like I need more snails anyway. The shrimp took a while to get used to the fish but are now out and about pulling biofilm off everything at all hours of the day. There’s been another bloom of detritus worms this morning but far from seeing them as a pest or a sign of a tank with too much nutrients I see them as free fish food. The shrimps certainly like eating them and at least one neon tetra has caught on to what great snacks they are. My hillstream loaches have settled down A LOT and have grown a little bit although one of the 4 did die on day one I think running headfirst into the castle at 35 MPH. The puffers remained such a problem (ganging up my fully grown nerite snails 5x their size and nipping at the other fish) that I was forced to segregate them into my half set up 15 gallon hospital/quarantine tank. They have declared they will only eat snails and live blood worms both of which I am out of. In fact the blood worms were from the yard and there seems to be a national shortage of live ones if I were to buy any. Suffice to say the puffers may not become permanent residents. All the other fish, plants, and critters though are welcome and I am super happy with them. I will record a video when the embers change from the sickly orange they are the bright red they’re supposed to be and the emperors show their metallic blue/purple.