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More New Fish for the 5.5 Gallon

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  We lost the smaller of the two Rams. They got along fine for the first few days but once they settled into the tank, the larger Ram began to torment the smaller one. After a few days, he disappeared.  I'm pretty sure that all but one of the Ghost shrimp and all but one of the Cherry Caridina shrimp have also perished. I only ever see one of each. It's kind of hard to believe that so many shrimp can disappear into, and be absorbed by, such a small aquarium, and without any detectable traces of ammonia or nitrites/nitrates. I didn't see any evidence that either of the Rams ate any of the shrimp. So... we got some more fish. We walked over the pet store near our house. It's a chain store that mostly caters to dogs and cats and has a small, small animal and fish section. Of the three stores in town, this one is in the middle in terms of quality. The tanks aren't dirty, but they're very uninspiring and the fish never look their best. But... we can walk there in fiv
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New Fish and Plants

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  We went to two of our town's three pet stores: the "good" one and one "bad" ones. Not really "we" - Sprocket didn't go. He can be a pain in the ass at pet stores.  We got some new tenants: Microgeophagus Ramirezi (Electric Blue Ram) $18.79 x2 Caridina sp. (Cherry shrimp) $5.99 x5 Cabomba $7.99 x1  
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Time for the First Trimming

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  Some of the plants are growing out of the water now, with one burning itself on the light. We're going to have to trim them. I ordered a spool of plant weight tape. When it arrives, we'll trim the stem plants, bundle and weight them, then plant them. Many of the plants are growing fast and they're all putting down roots.  Observations: Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 pH: 6.4 Temperature: 78.5 F Water is clear and smells good. Very small amounts of green algae on some of the plant's leaves. We've been blasting this tank with light. 100% brightness for about 12-hours per day. We're going to try cutting down on the brightness and seeing what effect it has on algae and plant growth.
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Stem Plants are Growing

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Some of the stem plants are already growing and made it to the surface of the water. We weren't expecting such quick growth.
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Snails & Shrimp

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Went to the "good" local fish store and picked up the following: Mystery snail Nerite snail Zebra snail Ghost shrimp x6 The shrimp are sold as feeders. One shrimp died almost immediately on release into the tank. The rest quickly disappeared into the plants.  
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Everything's Good

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  Everything seems to be going well. The water is nice and clear. No sign of algae yet and no detectable ammonia. The pothos has new leaves sprouting.
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New Tank Setup

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    The plants from AquaticMotiv arrived today. They were very well packed and look great. Sprocket helped get them unpacked, then chose where to place each of them.    We used Fluval Biostratum and we didn't think to buy any plant weights. The aquatic soil was very difficult to plant in. This will be the last time we do this without weights. One bag was the perfect amount for this little 5.5 gallon tank and it didn't cloud the water. Our plans for the tank are to do a fish-less cycle with whatever bacteria are in the substrate and rode in on the plants. We're not going to test or change the water and instead, just be patient and wait about five weeks before adding fish. We're also adding some Pothos to help with ammonia uptake. The plant load is pretty heavy and we're thinking it should be more than enough to handle a light bio load. To help further, we've got a small foam air-driven filter in the back corner. No heater at the moment. I want to see whether we n
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