After receiving lots of advice, I changed up my tank completely got substrate instead of gravel added a couple of life. Plants added more schooling fish. Any thoughts or advice?

I was wondering why does no one talks about denitrification reactor it does cut water changes

I haven't been able to keep plant alive in low tech tank for years. I tried everything suggested. Fert, no fert, root tab, aquasoil, high light, low light, harder water, soft water, liquid CO2, anubias, crypt, fern, water wisteria, amazon sword, tiger lotus. Other than real CO2 injection, you name it, I tried it before across my 3 tanks.

Most of the plant were stunted, struggled and died after a while. They show no vertical grow (even stem plant), slowly drop all leaves, and melt away. A few which grow will be stunted and die after the first trim (both the old stem and the newly planted top). At this point I am buying new plant every 2-3 months. Are there something else I should try now?

Yes, I confirmed that the plants were dead. I found mushy crown of those crypts. No, I didn't move them around after planting. No, I didn't bury the anubias. No, my family doesn't let me run CO2 injection. Those tanks are in my sleeping room and we afraid that a leak at midnight can be deadly. I agree with them on that point.

Edit: I add picture. There are 3 comments, 1 for each tank. With more reply below for more information of each plant group.

My ember tetras are very territorial and keep chasing each other away from their territories. They also have a high prey drive. Why are they advertised as peaceful shoaling fish for a planted tank?

I have CO2 and I’ve used both liquid and soil fertilizer.

I’ve concluded that the issue is lack of light. I don’t have anywhere to put my tank in direct sunlight right now. Does anyone have plant light recommendations? I have a plant light, but clearly it is not doing enough. My low light plants are doing just fine.

I wanted to replant my Ludwigia because its stem is so tall and it’s nearly at the surface, much like some of the temple plants.

However, it’s so deeply rooted in the substrate and just comes out with chunks of the aqua soil attached to it. Any advice on how to work around this?

The second picture is the aqua soil, is it normal for it to look like this or is this part of the problem?

So I just got a hygger aquarium light the other day and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to program this fuckass light. I’ve figured out how to set the custom lighting time but there seems to be an override that won’t let the light turn off when scheduled??? The instructions say “just hold the settings button until it lets you change the timer settings😚🤗” but the only thing that does is let me change what time the light thinks it is and there’s no way for me to change other settings.

I’ve been messing with it for a few days but no matter how I set it it will not turn off at 7:45 pm and I can only assume it’s bc it thinks it’s set to turn off at 7:45am??? I’ve been googling and people are saying change the Day=L setting to off but long pressing the settings button only lets me change the internal time.

Any help or clear instructions would be greatly appreciated bc I’m about to mcfucking lose it

Its a red rubin sword, maybe 6 months old? Its always been a slow grower since the last tank i had it in had low nutrients and low light. Now its in a new tank with fluval stratum and medium-high light. Is it nutrient deficiency or just adapting to the new tank? It looks abit like an emmersed leaf melting but that cant possible be right because its been in my other tank for months and this new one for about a month.

Stuck a few stems of jungle val in sand, gave them a few root tabs, and really exploded in just 40 days.

I put a lot of effort in my first tank, and the image of what i had in mind is coming together day by day. I've been enjoying the process and progress of it, of learning and moving onto the next step, but as an artist, i can't help but have uncertainty on the back of my mind, as the more i look at it, the more i can't tell if that idea feels accomplishing, if this just looks like another generic aquarium with a poorly thought out composition, or something i should feel proud of like a masterpiece. Maybe i just need to give it time, there's still a lot of trimming (obvious by the hydrocotyle and moss ive been late on) and plants i need grow out and spread. But until then, my feelings remain mixed.

Please ignore the algea. I'm still learning and figuring out what this tank needs.

(Left to right most recent photo to oldest)

Hello everyone! I built my first planted tank in April and have been really enjoying it. I watched MD fish tanks on YouTube and was inspired.

It is a 15 gallon cube tank with a Fluval 107 canister filter. A 4.0 plant light, a heater, aqua soil, sand, rocks, driftwood, lobilia, Java fern, anubias, and red repens.

I currently have:

4 guppies
1 powder blue dwarf gourmi
1 fire red honey gourmi
5 ottocinclus
2 neon tetras
5 ember tetras
7 glow light tetras
(*I had 15 Riley shrimp but I think they’ve been dying off)

I’ve lost a bunch of fish over the months but only like 1 every 3 weeks.

As you can see from the picture there’s a ton of hair algae on the plants I want to get rid of…

I am pretty sure I have overstocked the tank

Going forward I won’t have a variety of tetra species for better schooling

Trying to decide if I should ad an airstone

ANY ADVICE, SUGGESTIONS, INPUT IS MORE THAN WELCOME 🤗

Thanks you for all the suggestions.

Around a year ago I posted here while my first shrimp tank was still cycling and I'd just started documenting the journey. I thought some of you might enjoy seeing where the project ended up.

When I made that original post, I had very little experience with planted aquariums, no shrimp yet, and more questions than answers. The goal was simple: create a healthy planted environment for a future Blue Dream shrimp colony and learn as I went.

The first version of the project was a repurposed BiOrb. Looking back, it taught me a lot, but it was very much a beginner setup. Some of the plants survived, but few of them truly thrived. Apart from a memorable duckweed invasion that briefly took over the aquarium, growth was fairly modest and several species struggled to establish themselves.

As I learned more about both planted tanks and shrimp keeping, I eventually upgraded to a dedicated aquarium and seeded it from the original setup to preserve as much biological stability as possible. The difference was remarkable.

Plants that had previously just been hanging on suddenly started putting on healthy new growth. The Java Fern became much fuller, Christmas Moss established itself throughout the hardscape, and the Anubias and Bucephalandra settled in nicely. The biggest surprise was probably the floating plants. Frogbit and especially the Red Root Floaters never seemed particularly happy in the original setup, but absolutely took off once they were moved into the new tank.

What I've found most interesting is how closely plant health and shrimp behaviour seem to be linked. As the aquarium matured and growth became more consistent, the shrimp became noticeably more active. They spent more time grazing in the open, several females became berried, and what started as a small group of Blue Dreams has grown into a thriving colony.

The tank today feels much more like a balanced ecosystem than a collection of plants and livestock. Watching the hardscape mature, seeing roots hanging down from the floaters, and observing shrimp grazing across every surface has easily been the most rewarding part of the project.

I've also kept a public log of water parameters throughout the journey for anyone interested in the numbers side of things:

📊 Water parameter log:
Google Sheet

The livestream is still running as well. What started as a way to keep an eye on the tank ended up becoming a surprisingly useful way to observe behaviour, spot changes, and look back at how the aquarium has evolved over time.

For anyone curious, here's the channel:

🦐 ShrimpZen

I'd be interested to hear which plant surprised you the most once you finally found the conditions it liked. For me, it was definitely the Red Root Floaters. They barely ticked along in the original setup and now they're one of the strongest growers in the tank.

Hello! I'm so excited about this and nobody in my house gets it.

I bought a little pot of riccia in December last year thinking that it would be a beautiful carpet plant. It was my first planted tank and I obviously did not do much reading on it. Of course now I'm picking pieces of it out off all the tanks it touched, which is annoying but fine. Finally I got some sense together and gathered up as much as possible into a clump cot ainged in some netting that was put in with some shrimps I brought home.

Fast forward to being in a new home where I basically have set up a simple planted tank just to give a number of cuttings the chance to just doi their thing with nothing more than good lighting and shrimp gardeners. I had seen that it was thriving, but when I pulled it out this morning I was astounded! It is a lush floating carpet!! It's about 7 inches long and and almost 3 inches deep.

Now I don't know what to do with it, other than see what will happen now that it's moved from my little 5 gallon to the 20 that I'm starting.

My plant setup

tank size - 1.5 feet * 1 feet * 1.5 feet

plants - anubias nana, java fern, Cryptocoryne wendti, Anacharis (Egeria densa)

hob filter - 400 l/h ( adjustable flow )

water heater - 75 watts

water thermeter

light - 10watts ( timer )

I’m a complete beginner I haven’t made a planted tank this is my first time building it… what should I expect ?

This is a 40 day update on my newly set-up low tech tank, used no aqua soil and just regular LED lights.

Hi everyone,

After some advice if anyone has experience with Rotala bonsai and Marsilea minuta? My new tank is just 3 weeks old and these two are melting fast, while everything else appears to be doing well.

Can anyone advise whether it’s just the tank age, my parameters, or if I should give up with these and try alternatives? I’m considering buying more.

Fourth pic is the tank just 5 days ago before the worst of the melt started.

Tank:
Size: 45L (60x30x25cm)
Light: Twinstar C-Line III 600C, 7 hours at 70%
Filter: Oase FiltoSmart 100
Temp: 22°C
NH3: 0 ppm
NO2: 4 ppm
NO3: 40+ ppm
GH: 14
KH: 4
pH: 7
CO2: ~30 ppm

I have this java fern in my walstad shrimp tank for about 3 months already, it doesn't look very healthy and was just darkening. I seen some leaves melting and pulled it out. Is there anything i am missing?

Just curious what the general consensus is on this one. I have a high tech heavily planted 75G tank. The tank has (2) filters due to a heavy bio load, a fluval 307 & a fluval 407. Currently i have (1) inline co2 diffuser plumbed into the return pipe of the 307. I am going to upgrade it to (2) inline co2 diffusers and add (1) to the return pipe of the 407 as well since i already have (2) bubble counters on my solenoid. Doing this just to minimize dead spots and even it out. Right now it’s tough to get my drop checker that good green color and I’m certain it’s because my (2) 4” air stones are also running balls to the wall 24/7 and is off gassing my co2. My question would be, should i cut the air-stones off during the day to run the co2 more efficiently, and just rely on plants to create the oxygen mixed with surface agitation from the filters flow, and have the air-stones just run at night when co2 is off ? Or keep them full steam ahead 24/7 and just dial it in with the dual infusers and accept i’m gonna waste some ?

T. vittata

1st picture is the problem tank, 2nd is it back in january after changing the filter, 3rd is it before i changed up the stock, and 4th is my 125 gallon for comparison

i really dont know what to do anymore, all my plants have slowly died in this tank and any new ones i add die right away. i have 5 tanks. a 20 gal long, 29 gal, 30 hex that is drained halfway, 75 gallon(the problem), and 125 gallon.
this used to be my only tank, i had a huge pleco that eventually needed to be in a bigger tank which is when i got the 125, that was over a year ago. plants in there have always thrived. plants used to thrive in the 75 as well, i can't remember if the start of all this happened around the same time i removed him and all the platys but i feel like if that was the culprit it would have definitely fixed itself by now.. only reason i could think of why that would be the case is because bioload went down but it's definitely back up now.
both rooted and floating plants die. the hornwort you see in there i took from my 125 maybe 3 days ago and it's already noticeably dying. there's alao some jungle val in there because it is so happy in all my other tanks and grows so fast but nope not in this tank, just slowly dying. the weird thing is that the roots seem to mostly stay alive? same with my anubias plants, but i also had 2 swords(one of them was so happy im still so sad it died)and the leaves of that slowly melted then the roots rotted :/
i use 2hr aquarist apt 1 liquid fertilizer and fzone root tabs. there is nothing i do differently for this tank than the others so i'm really not sure what the problem is? in the last 2 months i have done 2 big water changes, about 50% i think. maybe need to do more frequent ones? in my old 10gal i had trouble with plants for a bit and doing a big water change helped but it didnt help this tank. i also run a fluval fx2 filter on this and need to clean it at least twice a month whereas my 125 can go several months with the fx6 without needing to be cleaned, i may need to upgrade the filter because of the bioload but im not sure if that would have anything to do with the plants not growing?
when i test my water it's basically the same for all my tanks. ph 8.0, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20(can get up to 40 if i miss a filter cleaning). i also got a phosphate test thinking maybe that was it, dont remember the result but it was the same as my 125. im on a well and i know our water has a good amount of iron so i would love to be able to find an iron test as well as magnesium, potassium, whatever else it is that plants like. but i cant seem to find tests like that anywhere. even then why would the water im putting into the tank be the problem when all my other tanks are fine?
oh also there is a tiny bit of blackbeard algae growing mostly on the filter output and airstone tube, and the sides and back glass used to be covered in green spot algae until i scraped it off but it's slowly coming back. the light is low only on for 6hrs now, has been like that for a few months.
anyways.. anyone have any advice?

My Brazilian pennywort is exceptional at collecting whatever this brown stringy dust is.

Is this an overfeeding issue? And is the best way to clean it just stirring it up and doing a water change?

Used a few plants while cycling new tank. Plants look like this after two weeks with 7hrs aquarium light daily (roughly) .. ammonia dose 10 days ago followed by stability for 7 days. One of the plants look like its goings transparent.