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My Planted Aquarium (June 2025)

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June 9.

Here we are again on my quest for the most beautiful planted tank in all the lands! As you can see, I like to soak my air plants in my aquarium. This way they get chlorine free water along with some nutrients. Just don’t do this if you use anything with copper in your aquarium, as it will kill air plants.

I’m starting by trimming and removing melted leaves

I want to give the sword plant more space, so I’m removing any Vallisneria that is too close.

If I wasn’t so tired, I would try selling the plants I pull out and trim.

Now that it isn’t tangled up, the sword plant looks much better.

I tucked some of the Vallisneria behind the branch.

I stuck in some blanched cucumber, topped up the water, and added liquid fertiliser.

June 17.

With each week I’m happier and happier with how it looks! My mystery snail, Steve is about 1.5 years old now. Personally I think he’s adorable.

I’m removing some algae this week. I used to have trouble with hair algae, but this is a new one. It’s slower growing and feels very sticky. Unlike hair algae, it attaches to surfaces very well. I found the easiest way to get it off is to use my fingers and rub it into a ball.

I’m trimming this plant and propagating it. I also trimmed the Rotala to give it more light.

I removed a bit more of the Vallisneria, added 2 broken up root tabs, liquid fertilizer, and left it at that.

June 24.

I’m doing a quick parameter check with some strips. I’ve checked these against the API freshwater test kit and they do pick up the nitrate fairly well.

I checked to see if the pH was high enough for the snails.

I’m removing some pups and trimming some jungle Vallisneria leaves.

Removing more algae (mostly growing on my pre-filter sponge).

I was tired so I just finished by topping up the water and adding liquid fertilizer.

“The Look”: When I Failed to Mask My Autistic Traits (Pre-Diagnosis)

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There’s this thing I call “The Look”.

It’s a certain way people have looked at me since I was a child; and still sometimes do. It usually happens when I’m in a social interaction and I “mess up”.

By mess up, I mean I do/don’t do something neurotypicals aren’t/are expecting. Basically, my Autism is showing.

It’s the look I get when someone is done socialising with me and is waiting for me to break it off, but I don’t know how. Or when someone expects me to return small talk, but I can’t figure out what to say.

They’re often smiling, but the smile feels false, forced, and uncomfortable. Occasionally they are visibly taken aback. And their eyes, they are not smiling. Sometimes its brief, they adjust and quickly conceal it.

Very rarely this look has the quality of a predator, that has just identified new prey. It’s like they’ve detected a disturbance in the atmosphere; they’ve discovered an imposter. Aka an Autistic gal masking, just trying to fit in and feel comfortable.

I get it a lot less when I’m unmasked, because I’m not hiding anything. Instead of being anxious from slipping up, and somehow violating the secret social laws of the neurotypicals, I’m just me. And if I’m with the right people, unmasking and being my delightful self is very rewarding.

It’s how I’ve found true friends.

Making Digital Art (“The Look”)

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I have some posts I was going to publish soon, but I randomly decided to wait and make my own art for the thumbnails. I sometimes like to make digital art on my tablet using the Sketchbook app. I knew I wanted something with an eye, so I took a picture of mine.

I set the canvas dimensions to 1200 x 630 pixels and arranged my image how I wanted. Though now I realised I have all my blog thumbnails set to squares and next time I should do a square.

I didn’t have any idea of what I wanted, (I have a difficult time picturing things in my mind’s eye) so I just started tracing.

I added a few more lines and adjusted the face shape.

For fun I tried seeing what cross-hatching would look like (A skill I’m still working on)

I realised I wanted to keep it simple. I tried a black background with white lines, then settled on a coral pink instead. I changed my brush size to a 7, and started tracing over the lines I thought were most important in white.

I put a question mark in the pupil, which goes with the content of my post.

I added some dark grey in places.

After cleaning up some lines I finished! It was pretty fast and satisfying to make! I can see a lot of possible variations on this too.

100 Tiny Paintings #21-25

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Here we are again with 5 more paintings! The idea is to simply practice, not try for perfection (OCD I’m looking at you!). Like most of my other paintings, these are just small objects from around my room. I’m using Staedtler watercolour pencils and a fine tip Sharpie.

21. A small glass jar.

22. An old green leather book

23. A small felted pumpkin I made.

24. Scissors

25. A tealight candle. I think this is the hardest to make look right, because of the shades of white. I know how I’d try it with regular watercolours, but pencils I’m not sure. I did try adding some depth on the white part, but it doesn’t really show.

Trying New Paints: Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolour Sketchers’ Pocket Set

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Well that titles a mouthful.

I’ve never used “the good” paints before. I used Crayola watercolours and Staedtler watercolour pencils, neither of which I loved. For my birthday I got this sweet little palette with all the basic colours. I tried it out painting a picture of a pond.

I haven’t used regular watercolours in a while, there’s definitely some things I would do differently. But overall I’m pleased

I used to watch a lot of videos of loose watercolour and ink. I decided not to add ink to this one. I wasn’t trying for realism, I just wanted to make the impression of the pond. I’m so happy with the plants! Though I think I need to watch some tutorials for trees…

I’m really excited to start painting more with this palette!

The Clickening: My Teeth Clicking OCD Compulsion

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I have OCD and in my experience it can show up as the weirdest things. I’m also Autistic and likely ADHD, so it can be hard to tease apart and categorize my behaviours. Not that everything needs to (or should) be pathologised and categorised; it just helps me find the words to express myself.

For a while I thought it might be a stim. For me, stimming is soothing. I feel my emotions very physically, and stimming helps me move them out of my body (if that makes sense). But stimming feels good and this teeth clicking doesn’t.

When I tried finding information on this compulsion, there wasn’t really much. Once I found out I likely had OCD, I tried asking about it in a forum. And yes! Other people have this compulsion too. Like me, they also didn’t know of anyone else with it.

I am not a doctor, therapist, or mental health professional. Everything in this post is based on my own personal experiences and opinions. It is not medical advice. If you think you’re struggling with OCD or any mental health issue, please speak to a qualified professional.

For at least a decade, I’ve had this overwhelming urge to click and grind my teeth. If I try not too, I end up biting my cheek, tongue or clenching my jaw. I feel very uncomfortable in my chest, around my collar bone, and in my arms (as said before, I feel emotions physically, and also have a difficult time identifying them). If I had to choose I’d say it makes me anxious and stressed.

For me, this is combined with a specific counting ritual. I am very aware of any squares and rectangles within my space. As a teen, my room had a wall which divided into a group of 6 squares. I followed this pattern:

  1. I start from the largest square and I click each corner, starting bottom right, to top right, bottom right to left. (e.g. the entire wall)
  2. I repeat the pattern going down 1 size of square. (e.g. the wall minus the base board, then minus the window frame)
  3. I repeat this until I reach the smallest one, count that one twice, then work the pattern from smallest to biggest.
  4. I repeat the whole process until it feels “right”.

The problem is the relief is temporary. If I mess up the pattern, I have to start all over again. Overtime the urge builds up again and it feels deeply unsettling not to do it.

There is a wall in my bedroom that currently has a set of 12. 12 x 4 is 48. Do that a minimum of 3 times (usually more) and that’s 144 clicks. Now think about the number of rectangles in your computer, tablet and phone screen.

Also road signs! I feel the urge to click every road sign I see (which sure makes road trips interesting!). I also click the tiles of my bathroom floor in rows of 7. At the end of the day I’ve clicked and gritted my teeth hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Sometimes I’m not really aware that I’m doing it until someone asks “What’s that clicking sound?”.

This wasn’t too problematic at first, but it got to the point of having tooth and jaw pain. I tried stopping on my own and I ended up biting my tongue, cheeks, and clenching my jaw all the time.

The good news is it has gotten much better. With medication and therapy, the urges have faded a lot. They’re still there, but the feeling is mostly tolerable. I still click my teeth, but not nearly as much.

My First Planted Aquatic Vase

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In 2024 I got some cash as a Christmas gift and decided to spend it making an aquatic vase. I had been long developing an intense special interest in shrimp keeping. But, I had never had an aquarium before and read snails were more hardy, and easier to start with.

I spent hours watching videos, reading forums, and looking at setups of Walstad method tanks. I had a 1 gallon vase and decided to try it.

I started with plain potting soil and capped it with aquarium gravel. I went to the pet store and got some java moss and bought a small clip on USB light. I tried tying the moss with clear thread to a rock.

The vase is bigger then it looks because distortion.

I tested the water over the next month with test strips. They showed the tank had cycled, and my tap water parameters were great for keeping snails. After some research, I got some more plants and a Mystery Snail; a choice I later regretted. (That sounds way too ominous, no mystery snails were harmed in the making of this vase!)

“Steve The Poop Monster”, at only 2cm the little lad took over his new realm nicely. He hid for several days before exploring.

The vase stayed nice for the next few months, and I tried adding 3 shrimp. Unfortunately, within 2 weeks they had died. I also was reading a blog for aquatic snails, which I then found out they recommended a tank of at least 2-3 gallons per mystery snail. I immediately ordered a 3 gallon online to start over and fix several issues that were forming.

The Problems:

  1. The plants started rotting at the base. Steve dug them up to eat the rot. The java fern developed galls and the growth stunted.
  2. The proteins from the rotting plants and lack of water movement made scum build up on the surface.
  3. The light I was using wasn’t powerful enough.
  4. Plants kept floating away and they had a potassium deficiency.
  5. My tap water had 0.40 ppm ammonia in it. I didn’t detect it when doing tests because the bacteria had cycled it. But these spikes probably caused the shrimp deaths.
  6. Steve was growing quickly and I was worried the tank couldn’t handle his bioload, plus I think he was bored.

The Solutions:

  1. I put a layer of sand before the gravel to help anchor the plants betters. I replaced the struggling plants and replaced them with different ones.
  2. I used root tabs and liquid fertilizer to fix the potassium problem.
  3. I got a stronger light.
  4. I used a sponge filter to create surface flow and filter the scum.
  5. I got a new water conditioner to bind the ammonia into a less harmful form until the bacteria could process it.

Planted Aquarium Microorganisms

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I have had a 1 gallon, a 3 gallon, and finally a 10 gallon aquarium. It’s fascinating how microorganisms seem to spawn from thin air. I’m slowly looking at water samples and trying to identify and document all the types I find. I don’t have the best setup for microscopic photography; I’m just holding my phone up best I can. Some of these are also screenshots from slow-motion videos, because some of these critters move fast!

These photos are from November-December of 2024, when I didn’t have proper microscope slides or covers yet. I just put water samples on any clear plastic thing that would fit under the lens.

Nov. 26 2024 An ostracod, also known as a seed shrimp
Nov. 24 2024. I’m not sure what this is. Perhaps some type of small nematode? My aquarium has a bunch of these on the glass, they grow to only a millimeter or 2. Note that the dark spots are not eye spots. I think it’s food being digested; I watched it move all around the inside of the body.
Dec 24. 2024. An unhatched leech inside of an egg sac. I found it on a piece of Vallisneria I brought home from the pet store. There were 3 leeches inside of it, I think they’re called snail leeches.
Dec. 24. 2024. A baby bladder snail, the natural prey of the leech above.
Dec 24. 2024 A cyclops copepod.

100 Tiny Paintings #11-15

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11. My favorite lamp; I tried to make it look like the light is on. I mostly used broken nubs from my pencils like regular watercolours for this one.

12. My medusa air plant.

13. A daffodil, I used an old sketch from my pen sketchbook. I tried a wet-on-wet background.

14. My twisted lipstick plant. This one is my favorite! I love how the colours and slight shading turned out. I think I liked this one without the pen too.

15. Pteris cretica fern.

Overall, I think these paintings turn out a bit better when I put down more paint right from the start. My first batch I let each layer dry and then put more on, but I like this effect better.