Not enough time on my hands...

Right now I'm currently in my final semester at University, and oh boy, I don't have near enough time for anything.  The lack of free time is taking its toll on my plants, not to mention the nasty spider mite infestation that I don't have enough time to adequately deal with, I've just been trying to limp my plants along until I can dedicate some real time to the issue.  So far there is only one casualty and it was a baby spider plant that was probably much too small to be separated from its mommy.

Betta Fish Tank

Recently I decided to clean out my 10 gallon tank so that Duke could have room to stretch his fins (so to speak).  I cleaned it with bleach and used glass marbles for a substrate.

 I fixed the peace lily that was in his bowl to the side of the tank using an alligator clip and some fishing line (don't tell Duke that's what it is).  I also cut holes in the sides of a plastic pot and used more marbles and some cleaned gravel and this is being used to hold some baby spider plants.  During my research, I found articles that claimed spider plants could not be grown hydroponically for any significant amount of time.  While other articles said it was possible to grow them for an extended period of time in water.  Since I couldn't find anything conclusive about growing spider plants hydroponically, I decided to give it a try and find out for myself.  Philodendrons that were already in water were transferred to the tank because I know that they can survive quite nicely in water.  I also purchased some aponogeton bulbs.  There is currently no sproutage for any of the three bulbs I put in, but it has only been a couple of weeks.

Philodendron roots

Peace Lily roots

After about a week the water started to look pretty nasty even with a partial water change.  For there being ten gallons of water, the water got dirty very fast and I'm not sure why.  I cleaned up my old filter and had it running for a couple of hours yesterday and that seemed to help a lot more than a water change.  I'm currently trying to figure out why the water got dirty so fast.  I know that people have low tech fish tanks that use plants to keep the water clean instead of conventional tank filters.  I'm assuming that because I don't have any truly aquatic plants in my aquarium, but the water should have still been okay for that amount of time even with no filtration (Duke is just one fish and he's not even a dirty fish).

You know your avocado plant is happy when...

My avocado plant has been growing happily for weeks now, he's even got some new leafage showing up.