Daphnia, and the three gallon finally clearing up
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Turn the light on over the three gallon and the Daphnia all migrate straight to the top. They go right for it. That's what you're seeing here.
The tank is finally clearing up after what I'm fairly sure was a bacterial bloom. I did almost nothing about it. Gave it time, put a tiny sponge filter in, and that was it. It runs off a small hygger air pump that is fairly silent. It sits in a bedroom and it does not keep anyone awake. It literally sits right next to my bed, so that is pretty impressive. It is the quietest that I have found. Interestingly, it did not sound as quiet when I first got it. It is almost like it got quieter over time, or maybe I am just ignoring it now. I am not sure.
I tested the water throughout with the API liquid kit and never got a measurable reading for ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. The plants are clearly doing their job, and that's most of why I think this was only ever a bloom.
It was cloudy for more than a week, and it came on fast, within a few hours. It was literally while I was recording the tannins video that I started to notice it. All the comments saying the cloudiness wasn't tannins: yeah, you were right. It never got as bad as it could have, but at one point it was genuinely difficult to see into the tank.
The three baby guppies have gone back into the five gallon now that they're bigger. They're doing well in there, just growing very slowly. We did lose one of the male guppies, and I'm not sure what was going on with that.
The five gallon has been clear the whole time. I used aqua soil in that one and it has never clouded up. Same story on the test kit, nothing detectable, and it's even more heavily planted. Plants are the way to go. Put in as many as you can.
So the three gallon is shrimp, snails and Daphnia for now.
I got the Daphnia from a local hobbyist selling them on Facebook Marketplace, @nicefishtanks on Instagram. Fantastic guy, gave me a large amount in a decent sized bag. I may end up going along to a local aquarium group he's part of. Some went into this tank and the rest went into the culture outside.
He told me he just feeds his Daphnia tank water. Whatever comes out of a water change on another tank goes in with them, and they eat whatever's in it. I'm going the other way for now and feeding dry yeast, just enough to make the water slightly cloudy, to see how quickly they turn it clear again. I've never kept Daphnia, so I don't know yet whether it will clear completely or how often I'll need to do water changes. I got the idea from a YouTube video. I'm also in the process of making green water for them.
The real point of them is food for the fish, and I've already given some out. They go straight into predator mode. You can see the switch flip, hunting all over the tank for them, and they're remarkably ruthless about it. I need to get that on video.
Still undecided whether any fish go in the three gallon, or whether I just leave it as a shrimp colony.
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