Opulent Marshmellow

So, my biotope project started out in September of this year.  The biotope I wanted to create was the one with a Shigaraki ceramic water lily bowl.  Shigaraki is a name of a town in Japan where some scholars suggest that they used to have a capital or a metropolis prior to 742 AD before the capital moved to Kyoto.  Much more solid origin of the Shigaraki wares appears towards the end of the 12th century.  Shigaraki wares are much more famous due to the tanuki or racoon fugres.  But I found out they make some water lily bowls, too.  They are amazing looking, especially more expensive ones.  I couldn't afford fancier ones.  So I settled with this beautiful tiny bowl.

I started out the Shigaraki biotope with a few white Medakas or Japanese rice fish (Oryzias latipes).  I washed Akadama (red granular) soil several times and embedded it in the bottom.   Then poured water treated by a chlorine neutralizing agent.  After that, I put some water plants, some ceramic shelters and ceramic floating balls called Ukidama.  I also put some Ishimaki snails (Clithon retropictus) so they will eat up some algae.  

In September this year, my biotope project had gotten going. I knew nothing about biotope but I got curious.  So did a bit of research.  And bought a water lilly bowl, put some waterweeds, amazon frog bits, and hornworts.   Also got few Japanese rice fish or Medakas...  The ones in the photo are some white Japanese rice fish or Medakas.  They are supposedly good for water plants growth....Turns out, keeping them isn't such an easy task.  They are amazingly stimulating and fascinating.  On the other note... it is important to balance the quality of the water in the highly unstable environment...

In between September 18-20, I found eggs on my Medakas.   I took them out with a wet paint blush.  For about a week, I kept changing the water.  

And the eggs were hatching in between September 26-28.   From September 29th, I started feeding them. The photo above was taken on September 29.  You can see a tiny thing swimming....

They’ve gotten a bit bigger on October 2...yet they were still tiny....

On October 10, I moved them into a bigger container in order to increase the amount of water...

But on October 11, I moved few smaller babies into another container again because they were still too tiny compared to the ones that were born earlier.