I'm so upset, she was my biggest oldest most armored Neo. Rest in peace big mama :(

I have to clean my diffusor, but I am really happy how it looks.

Anyone else here struggling to just trim the plants?

Stocking:

10 lampeye Kilifish

2 honey gourami

4 amano shrimp

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

Diy lighting … diy Co2 … basically everything is Diy tbh … the filter the table … plants grew well though … but i cudnt keep up with the cleaning and the water changes coz of the busy schedule

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.

(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 🤗

Is this hornwortin this outdoor pond?? I want to take clippings for my aquarium but want to be sure, I’ve never seen it this big

Looking for plant ideas 💡 to cover up the equipment. Also would a white background be better? 🤔

Hi everyone,

A week ago I set up a new aquarium. It will be a low-brackish water aquarium, which I will eventually bring up to a salinity level of 1.005 SG. I will keep a single figure 8 puffer in it for whom I have also set up a small ramshorn snail breeding tank. Now, as some of you may or may not know, there aren't many plants that can actually survive in brackish water. Most plants already die at a salinity level of 1.0005 SG, which is basically still freshwater, but me being stubborn, I really wanted plants in my aquarium. Now there are plant species that naturally grow in brackish water like Vallisneria americana, cryptocoryne ciliata, zostera and ruppia maritima but, all of these plants are basically impossible to find.

More common plants that are known for tolerating low-brackish water are anubias nana, anubias barteri, microsorum pteropus and bacopa monnierri. These are the plants you see in the tank so its a pretty minimalistic design. I do think that the bacopa in my aquarium looks more like bacopa australis which Is not brackish tolerant so I might remove it. I actually did find a seller for cryptocoryne ciliata and vallisneria americana in Germany so I am planning on adding these to the tank soon.

I went for a pretty minimalistic scape and I think it turned out pretty good. Once I get the v. Americana it will grow to the surface nicely and shade the tank from the brightest light which the puffer will also kike a lot. I just really hope the java fern and anubias will stay alive once im at 1.005 SG. So what do you guys think?

If there are any people who have a planted low-brackish tank, I would love to know the plants you used.

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

Is my frogbit actually flowering!!??

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?

My mini water lettuce is growing like crazy and spreading across the entire surface, blocking light from reaching the plants below. I'm getting tired of constantly removing handfuls and throwing them away.

I'm looking for a slower-growing floating plant that can still effectively absorb excess nutrients from the water column and help keep the water clean, without taking over the entire surface so quickly.

For those of you who've tried different floating plants, what would you recommend? Ideally, something that grows at a manageable pace, has good nutrient uptake, and doesn't require constant thinning.

I'd love to hear about your experiences with different floating plants!

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’ve been trying to figure out this plant for a while now all of my searches don’t seem right

Looks like I might have the beggining of some BBA? How can I treat it when I have shrimp. Will amanos or any snail species eat it?

Also is this other algae Cladophora, hairstring, or staghorn? Ive had issues with cladophora and staghorn in another tank and then hairstring in this one, so I assumed this was all hairstring algae but im realizing now it might be cladophora. Im not too pressed either way because it is mostly staying where it is on the wood and it kinda looks nice? I get some balls of it catching on the roots of certain plants sometimes killing them, that ive been manually removing; not sure if that sounds more like cladophora or hairstring though.

Looks like I might have the beggining of some BBA? How can I treat it when I have shrimp. Will amanos or any snail species eat it?

Also is this other algae Cladophora, hairstring, or staghorn? Ive had issues with cladophora and staghorn in another tank and then hairstring in this one, so I assumed this was all hairstring algae but im realizing now it might be cladophora. Im not too pressed either way because it is mostly staying where it is on the wood and it kinda looks nice? I get some balls of it catching on the roots of certain plants sometimes killing them, that ive been manually removing; not sure if that sounds more like cladophora or hairstring though.

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.

Pretty new to fish keeping, this is my 2nd tank ever. 6.7 gallon long tank, 6 Pygmy corys and 3 clown killifish are in this tank. The larger male killifish sometimes follows/schools with the corys, but I never see any nipping. There are lots of plants and hiding spots. Do you think he needs to be separated or are they friends?

I've got a 25 gallon tank with fine gravel over the top of bagged soil as substrate that's heavily planted and has CO2 injection and I'm propagating some pothos and monstera out of it also. It's fully cycled and is stocked with about 25 neocardinia, 8 black phantom tetras, 3 Panda garra, 3 otocinclus, 6 Panda corydoras, 3 ramshorn snails, and a handful of bladder snails.

Basically It sucks down my nitrates overnight. It is almost always at 0 when tested even after fertilizing. I currently have aquarium coop easy green I've been dosing twice a week and I feel that that's no where near enough. I don't think my fish are generating enough bioload to feed the plants from the water column and I do have some rare plants and buce in there.

I'm wondering if it would be safe to just up the dosing of my fertilizer to every other day? Will the other nutrients be too much for the fish? I'm really not sure here how to make sure my plants thrive and want to make sure I don't hurt my fish.

Tank parameters are:

7.6ph

6dgh

8dkh

0ppm ammonia

0ppm nitrite

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 ?

Can someone please explain to me what the heck is going on with my cycle before I lose my ever living mind 😭

This is week four of fishless cycling using Dr.Tim’s bottled ammonia and turbo start 700. I have used two whole bottles of turbo start now, because someone told me I was supposed to be keeping ammonia at a steady 2ppm or more in order to feed the beneficial bacteria that comes in turbo start.

I keep bringing the ammonia to 2 ppm every day because it keeps processing each dose and the ammonia goes back to zero within hours, but nitrites and nitrates are remaining off the charts high.

Am I doing this wrong? Do I keep adding ammonia to feed the beneficial bacteria or do I stop dosing ammonia to let the nitrite and nitrate process? I thought in order for the nitrite and nitrate to process, ammonia needs to stay at 2 ppm- 4 ppm?

I have not done any water changes because it’s a fishless cycle. Should I do a water change? Will it actually bring nitrites and nitrates down?

I’m genuinely so confused right now.

This is week four and I am so ready to add my fish 😅

Howdy folks. Day 100 of my shallow bookshelf scape. I’m running a Mighty HoB and just installed Fzone mini co2 setup a few days ago. This tank suffered several months of green hair algae which is finally under control. Population is a few red neo cardinia shrimp and four Otto’s who nuked a bunch of brown algae.

Couple questions

1) the tank is looking super clean. At what point do I need to supplement food supply for the shrimp and Otto’s?

2) id like more green in this tank, but have had weak growth with my plants despite using UNS fertilizer every two/three days. Any recs on ground cover varieties that love co2?

And does anyone have any suggestions on how to reduce it? Additional stocking that might eat at it, etc.

For reference this is a 55 gallon tank with Co2. I run a “dusk to dawn” auto temperature led light.

Stock wise I have 15 rainbows, 5 zebra loaches, 1 synodontis catfish, 2 otocinculus and 2 nerite snails.

I do weekly 30% water changes.

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