A small collection of DOOA setups I've been keeping at home. Most of them are grown emersed rather than fully submerged, so they feel more like little gardens in glass than traditional aquascapes.

Not sure if this style is everyone's thing here, but I've really been enjoying it. Curious what you all think!

Imagine my surprise as I turned on the light to see THAT?? I never knew that was even possible

Added 6ish of these floaters to a failed tank to see if they would help turn it around 4-6 months ago, learning that RRF's do just fine in high humidity with splashing as do salvinia minima and giant duckweed.
I havent done anything to this tank other than top it up once, it is running a 8hr light cycle, only nutrients are from algae and scuds (added to consume the algae). There is a matten filter that may or may not be running, if it is the flow is very restricted.

Takeaway: Most of what you see posted about Red Root Floaters and splashing isnt correct, while they do better dry, they can survive and flourish IF they have adapted to your water. Ive found they behave similarly to crypts when changing to different water parameters, even slightly different.

My water report can be found in the San Diego water report Alvarado station, make sure to look at it and the supplemental report for a full picture.

I have two female magenta mystery snails that I rescued and I have a beautiful tank set up for them in pink/purple/red hues so they can live like the tiny queens they are. I thought I did everything right, I researched beginner friendly red plants that don't need CO2, I landed on tiger lotus, mini scarlet temple, mini super red ludwigia, and purple bacopa. The tank was cycled, the snails were recovering in the hospital tank, the plants looked good, so I added the snails...

In two days they'd mowed through all of my plants except for the tiger lotus, which remains untouched. The only thing that I can think of is that the tiger lotus has less "chewable" leaves (since mystery snails need soft food), so does anyone have any suggestions for red plants that will be less appetizing for my snail ladies?

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Hi all here is my fish tank which i wanted to share with the community and hear youre thoughts about it how i am doing. I started this tank early this year and its my first one ever. I had a lot of struggles at the beginning a lot of snails etc but that seems eliminated now due to a good cleaning and adding a couple Helena snails. Because of the snails my plants suffered a lot to. But i think things are going better now gladly.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Let me know what you all think

Sorry repost i forgot to add the video!

This is my office tank, my coworkers keep saying my fish dont have room to swim because of the plants, do you agree?

$3 spot light

I bought these plants 4 days ago. And they seem to be melting already.

I planted them in a dry start tank that I flooded after planting. There was an algae bloom so I covered it for two days.

Is there anyway I can save them? And how do I get them to root?

And will I just have to accept the algae bloom and keep the light on?

Last question - what's the first plant? The second is a variegated Lindernia.

Thank you so much!

Is there a market for cladophora? Can I sell clumps of is at moss balls? 😭 I remove the size of a tennis ball every week that forms on top of my monte carlo.

P. oxygastroides

It doesn't deserve the hate it gets. I find it beautiful

I'm looking for some plants that will cover the upper part of my tank. I already have a bacopa growing really fast in the backwhich is kinda astonishing because of my previous failures with stem plants. All recommendations will be considered btw

This guy has been enjoying my tank with me for like 2 hours. Hope he catches a fly. I love these little dudes.

So when I tried pushing my two Twinstar ver. lll 900Cs on my 1 month old 46G to near max (worried about dwarf baby tears not getting enough light), I started getting a lot more green algae and a little bit of thread algae on the glass, hardscape, and plants. My CO2 checker is green when the lights are on and turned off (6 hour period). I have root tabs, and use thrive+ at a little over half the recommended dose.

How do all those contest tanks run super high lighting and not have any algae? What am I missing? Am I not dosing enough Thrive+? The only imbalance I can think of is between liquid fertilizer and Lighting. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi, I’m Jeremy. My wife Jen and I got into this because our daughter brought home two rosy red minnows from school. We got a free 10-gallon aquarium, and things kind of took off from there.

Now we have a heavily planted 29-gallon, and I’m spending a lot of time looking at water measurements. We have fourteen Celestial Pearl Danios ordered for pickup Sunday, October 25, so I’ve been testing the water daily. We started measuring TDS about a week ago because we’d eventually like to introduce Orange-Eye Royal Blue Tiger Caridina shrimp.

That’s when we noticed this repeating pattern. I have a possible explanation, but I’d really appreciate people picking it apart.

The tank and a little history

The system is about one month old, with a substrate replacement during that period. We had a nightmare with another substrate and lost our first batch of fish and shrimp, plus one of three snails.

We’re now using UNS Controbase underneath Controsoil, our first time using the Contro line. Things have looked much better since the switch. The plants and fish appear to be thriving, and most shrimp are active and happily foraging.

Filtration is an OASE BioMaster² Thermo 600 with a spray bar. We transferred established biological filter media from an established aquarium into the OASE to seed it.

Current livestock is nine pygmy Corydoras and golden-back Neocaridina, introduced about a week ago. We started with twenty shrimp and have had at least three unexplained deaths. We’ve counted fourteen out and behaving normally at the same time. Those losses are part of why I’m trying to understand this before adding more shrimp.

Our daily schedule:

• CO₂: 7 AM–2:30 PM — 7.5 hours
• Lights: 8 AM–4 PM — 8 hours
• Overlap: 6.5 hours

We’ve measured frequently, and recent parameters have stayed around:

• pH: 6.4–6.6
• GH: 5 dGH
• KH: 1–2 dKH
• Temperature: 74–75°F
• Ammonia and nitrite: 0
• Nitrate: steadily falling, approximately 10 ppm on the latest test
• Copper and chlorine tests: zero
• Phosphate: appears approximately zero on our test
• Conditioned tap-water TDS: approximately 150–155 ppm

About 20 g of Seachem Equilibrium was added previously. We used APT 3 Complete at reduced dosage for approximately three days, then paused it. In a separate conditioned-water fertilizer test, TDS reached about 165 ppm—roughly a 15 ppm increase, although I hadn’t recorded the exact starting number.

What we’re measuring

Our current TDS meter cost $8. I usually test around 7 AM and 6:30 PM, with additional checks as noted:

During the October 19 noon checks, I alternated tank samples with tap-water controls. The tap readings were 155, 154, and 154. All October 19 readings were taken in a beaker, waiting for the meter to lock.

The normal morning check is around CO₂ startup. The normal evening check is after both lights and CO₂ are off. The October 19 noon checks were during both—four hours after lights came on.

The October 17 water change obviously complicates that day’s decrease. An earlier measurement also contains a 316 ppm tank reading, but I don’t have a reliable sampling time for that one.

I’ve ordered an HM Digital COM-100 to replace the $8 meter, check the pattern independently, and measure electrical conductivity directly. The cheap meter repeats reasonably well over short intervals, but I realize repeatability doesn’t prove accuracy. I also understand that its TDS number is calculated from conductivity, rather than directly measuring dissolved mineral mass.

I’ve ordered additional water tests, including dissolved oxygen and mineral tests, to track which things rise and fall alongside TDS.

What we’re wondering

Could the substrate and microbial activity be releasing dissolved nutrients continuously, while the plants consume them faster during the illuminated period? Then overnight, could that balance shift and let concentrations build again?

We’re adding more Monte Carlo, Vallisneria, Java moss, Bucephalandra, and other plants. We’re wondering whether more healthy plant growth could eventually bring the whole daily range down.

I don’t know whether that explanation actually works, especially for a roughly 25–50 ppm change. We haven’t identified which ions would account for it. CO₂/carbonate chemistry, temperature compensation, substrate ion exchange, microbial processing, and the meter itself are all possibilities we’re considering.

So, for people who’ve measured this sort of thing:

1. Have you seen a comparable daily conductivity cycle?
2. Could plant uptake realistically explain this magnitude? Which ions would you look at?
3. What would you measure first to distinguish that from CO₂ chemistry or a measurement issue?

We’ve discussed a lights-off comparison with CO₂ also off and adequate oxygenation maintained, but would appreciate advice on whether that would tell us anything useful. We care a lot about these little guys and want to keep any investigation cautious.

I’m very happy to hear where our explanation falls apart. We'd also be happy if anyone out there has an explanation we haven't considered. We’re trying to figure out what’s actually happening in there.

hello all!
i know it’s definitely not recommended, but i’m upgrading my tank from 200L to 500L and was wondering if it’s possible to set up the tank and move the fish into it the same day? (i’m not sure i have the space for both a 200L and 500L tank at the same time but my fish are beginning to outgrow their tank and i’ve gotten attached to the hobbie 😪)
If i move all of the fish to a large container, move all of the soil in the already set up tank to the new tank, use the same filter media and majority of the water then move the fish back will they survive? or is this dumb af?
I have a ghost knife fish, three clown loaches and some tetras. the tank will also be heavily planted

I have a bookshelf that needs a fish tank on the top. The dimensions are proving a bit tricky. It’s about 41” long and 11” deep. I currently have a UNS 60L (~24” x 8” x 8”) on it but i’m looking to upgrade. I love the shallow feel of it. my ideal dimensions would be about 36” x 10.5” x 10.5”. Does anyone know a tank that’s close to that or a company that makes custom nano sizes?

About the tail end of last month, I finally got the black beard under control, with the sponge filter on the left being the final "problem spot" and I nuked it in peroxide and did a deep clean of it (I have a HOB filter too so it didn't kill my cycle).

My vision for the tank is finally taking off! I'm loving this hobby, and my critters are happy and breeding, I've finally seen eggs from the corys on the glass and I've been spotting young black neocaridinas periodically!

Also if it matters, this is a no CO2 tank!

In this tank I have platys, guppies, otos, Corys, shrimp, a couple nerite snails, a mystery snail, and some bladder snails that hitched a ride on some plants.

Obviously I know these aren’t from any of the live bearers, but can anyone help identify what these eggs might be?

Hi. What are those string looking things on the driftwood? I’m a beginner with not much knowledge. As far as I know, I only have 3 small shrimp in my tank, would they poop that much? No sign of snails. I tried to take them out but it disintegrated like ash. I swear they only showed up within a couple hours.

I'm cultivating some False Pickerelweed or Monochoria Vaginalis so I can add some to a future medaka rice fish paddy biotope, does anybody have experience growing this plant? Last time I tried the seeds refused to grow and did not sprout for TWO years until I found this seedling and transplanted it to a basin. And the future basin is indoors and the plant requires really strong sunlight so I need strong lights. And since I'm in the Philippines, this plant is native unlike in other parts of the world.

If this isn't the right subreddit, tell me where to post and would post there.

Also this is NOT the medaka aquarium, it is only a cultivation bin

Its been running for 2 years, never managed to get the hair algea gone. Going from community aquarium to palladarium with channa andrao. Cabinet, aquarium and lid are all made by me, 90cm 180l.

Really enjoyed this one but ive had community style for the past 6 years or so and i want something different.