Comradovich

Here's a pic of an MTS for comparison. This is one of my breeders, some shell dissolution is present near the end of the spiral. There are a few different types that get lumped together as Malaysian Trumpet Snail. If it's close, it's usually one of these similar species. Mine are in there by design to keep the sand aerated. Much less souring if something is moving mulm into it regularly. Can be helpful, can be worrisome. If you get too many Dwarf Chain Loaches/Yoyos and Assassin Snails are good control measures. PH crash will also clear them out. PH crash gets rid of all sorts of snails.

These are some little pit bull oto/plecos I got in from Dan today. They're about an inch long. I have them in the dark to help them adjust. When they came in they had their stress coloration, which for anyone in the service would be a light "sand camo". Usually as they settle they start to darken up like the one in the foreground who's gone with an "urban" or "night" camo. Everyone seems to be coloring up well except for that little runt of the litter on the left. I'm going to have to watch him. As they settle in they're like otos, who try to match themselves to whatever your dominant tank colors are. So they should start trying to match my substrate... except for two siblings that found the back end of my terra-cotta pleco cave. We're going to call their current pattern: "Wow, you guys really suck at this" orange.

Well, you're not alone in keeping a tank to help out with your mental state. I think you'll find this is a pretty common reason to have a tank or three. For maybe the same reason, it also isn't that uncommon to fall behind on your maintenance. Lighting is the main factor that will help with the algae. Cutting down your light period will reduce the number of hours the tank can photosynthesize, that'll slow down the plant growth. Since you said you'd be cutting back on the fert/CO2, this'll mean less is available in the water column for algae to use. Without a lot of extra light/nutrients in the tank, the plants should out compete the algae. You have some floating plants that are water column feeders, but a lot of your stem plants and crypts are root feeders. Adding stuff to the water doesn't always get nutrients down to where they're using them. I agree with @nabokovfan87, you should start treating maintenance like a meditative exercise. Think of a Zen garden. You've gotta pick up leaves in that, and then re-rake all the little paths into the rocks. Sometimes trim a branch or three. If that sounds like maintenance, that's because it is. Having to re-establish order on the space at regular intervals in the point of a Zen garden. To do something similar with your tank, try breaking down your maintenance tasks into discrete intervals. By "discrete intervals", I mean pick something that'll take you a set amount of time, and just do that one thing. For instance, algae scraping the glass. It'll take you about 20 mins or so. Once you're done, the tank will still look messy overall, but you can immediately see that at least the glass is clean. When you start to despair, focus on that glass and remind yourself that you finished that particular task. Pick a new task, put the time in on that, then repeat until the tank is done. Little tidbit I learned to deal with anxiety: break the problem down into smaller chunks, then focus in on just one chunk at a time. Chunks are doable. Another handy tip is to pick up a cheap set of aquascaping tools. Keep those tools near the tank. That way, if you notice something is getting ugly, you can fix it with a few minutes work. Fixing an algae problem is simple if there's an algae scraper next to the tank. If a java fern's got a leaf that looks in really bad shape, well you've got these scissors. Snip, toss, done. While I would suggest going with @nabokovfan87's suggestion on the amano shrimp, I'd stay clear of new fish. It's tempting to grab some otos but you don't have a lot of flow in a betta tank, and an SAE would outgrow you. Something like some small nerite snails would be better for those crypt leaves. Mystery snails are good for glass and hardscape, but mine always seemed to panic when their weight pulled down the java fern leaves. I had pristine looking driftwood, and half-cleaned java ferns. Speaking of the crypt leaves... look on the board here for a guide on "Reverse Respiration". If I remember right, that'll require you to buy a bottle of club soda and a ziplock bag. Supposedly gets algae off plants like magic. There's a few other posts on this board of people's before/after pics that seem promising. That's a thing you could do overnight, and it'd make a difference.

I have a 20G with DWL, frogbit, RRF and salvinia minimus. Most of it is contained in an airline tubing corral like @Odd Duckjust showed you. I've found pretty much the same thing to be true. DWL doesn't like to be moved around the water's surface, but seems to be okay if the below the waterline flow is still decent. The airline corral provides an anchor point, and the increased flow seems to promote bigger growth. I have a HOB in one corner of the tank, so the flow is high on one side and low on the opposite. I find that my DWL grows toward the higher flow, it's also a bit fuller on that side of the corral. Most of my DWL is about 7" across. This is pretty good spread for the "dwarf" variety. If I transplant any of the babies to my 5.5G with a sponge filter they don't get anywhere near as big. But also helping is a weekly dose of Easy Green and Easy Iron. I also have a decent, (not spectacular), LED light. The Easy Iron seems to have triggered the biggest growth spurt. They were doing well with the EG + light, but as soon as I hit the right micro-nutrient... BOOM floating plants everywhere. I wouldn't write that water lettuce off solely because of the increased flow. Try giving it something to anchor to, then seeing about your light. If it responds well to that, then see about a cheap fert. I'm doing about two floating plant culls a week. If you're getting it what it needs, it'll handle some flow.

Here is an amazon link to a kit for a "moss wall". I use something like this for my susswassertang. Luffy Moss Wall kit When I had Red Wag Platies breeding in my tank, I used plastic coated garden mesh with java moss. This was one of the best ways to keep the fry alive, because once they made it to the mesh the adults were too fat to fit between the grid. I would usually see some little orange puffs darting around behind the mesh. It's not quite "set and forget", because you do occasionally have to watch for someone hunting on the outside of the mesh. But when you see that, you just have to sprinkle a little flake in another part of the tank. Looks good once the moss or susswassertang grows in, preserves your fry while they grow out, and requires very little of your attention.

I suspect your frogbit is actually from the same cultivar as the old one. (Did your local aquarist maybe also get his original plants from the LFS? What about the LFS's plant wholesaler?) What makes frogbit really take off is some type of full spectrum lighting, good fertilizer, and not having an inquisitive fish knock off the roots its feeding from. The new clumps have had that. Full spectrum in the form of the sun on its pond. Good fertilizer because most pond fish are goldfish or koi varieties and making fertilizer is kind of what they do best. So, really just making sure the roots are semi-protected is the missing element. I have to trim the roots of my frogbit, because otherwise there's just a screen of green and yellow in my 20G's mid-water. Too short, and the plant dies back a bit. Maybe improve your lighting a bit to check if that helps with the growth over a month or so. Bettas are also not poop factories on the same level as a goldfish, some fertilizer would be good, but don't go hog wild. Maybe dose on the same schedule you use for water changes, but be prepared to dial it back. You want to add just enough that the plant has time to absorb it all before the next water change. Too much is like pouring that liquid fert right down the drain. That second plant? 90% sure if the frogbit came from an aquarist's pond, then it's a submerged hitchhiker from the easy to grow pond varieties. Looks a bit like a hornwort that's maybe seen a bit too much love from some goldfish or plecos. I'd hit up a pond plant distributor and browse through their submerged plant pictures for a bit, see if something looks like your leaves. Those stems are pretty bare, but that can happen if it's trying to grow out from under some floating plants, or the fish are showing it too much love.

1. As Cory has said in some of his planted tank livestreams, "if you're growing algae, then at least you've got something alive in your tank". Algae isn't pretty, but think of it more like a step towards what you actually want. You have proven to yourself that something you did created a result. We just have to refine that result a bit so that it becomes one you actually wanted. 2. Roy's probably got a good bead on your lighting situation, but I also think you might be overdosing your nutrients. You haven't told us much about your water. What's coming out of the tap? Can you test strip that and give us more to work with? Do your neighbors talk about any kinds of minerals in their tap water? Let me give you my main display tank as a comparison. This isn't a backhanded way to brag about how much better I'm doing, but to show you what a tank that grows a fair number of plants, but not a ton of algae takes as far as maintenance. First off, I suck at aquascaping. I'm probably also not doing a great job of planting things. But here's more or less what you're looking at in the picture: 1. One amazon sword in the back left corner. 2. A mostly hidden mesh wall of susswassertang (I don't have german characters on this keyboard), which is extending from the HOB on the right over. 3. Two marimo moss balls 4. Some Cardinal plant that was supposed to be "dwarf", but seems to have become five 7" stalks in the background. 5. Java fern tridens on a piece of driftwood. 6. Two clumps of dwarf Sag. on a second bit of driftwood. 7. Java fern wendelov on a third piece of driftwood. 8. Minor loose cuts of susswassertang that have "escaped containment" throughout the tank. 9. Several clumps of crypt lucens in the midwater, biggest piece is next to the pleco cave. 10. A red melon sword on the right, (currently mostly green, but I'm working on it). 11. More Java fern tridens grown from leaf buds off the other plant, which has been glued all up and down the driftwood on the upper right. 12. A small army of salvinia minimus. 13. A carpet of Red Root Floater. 14. Three tea saucer sized dwarf water lettuce, (these are the giant fluffy roots you see hanging mid-water). 15. Three amazon frogbit, (which are a bit yellowish after I cut their massive roots down last week). Slightly smaller in diameter than the DWL, although that was flipped before I added Easy Iron. 16. The brand new crypt "pink flamingo" front and center. 17. Two annubias barteri suction cupped to the left pane of glass. Now, coming out of my tap is softened water. (I'm not sure if the plumber actually installed a cutoff valve several decades ago, but we've all forgotten where it was if they did). It has a TDS measurement of 212. GH reading is "Very Soft". KH buffer is ~100 ppm? PH is between 6.8 and 7.2. I've yet to get a readable chlorine or chloramine measurement. Takeaway here is that what's pumping out of the wall is full of mineral salts. Nutrients would be locked away from plants until I break down these salts a bit. Algae cleanup crew is seven fat little otocinclus, one horned nerite snail, and two old amano shrimp. None of which tend to wander into frame when I'm trying to take a picture. I'm trying to point out that I am still growing algae here, it's just that something is usually eating it. What does it take to maintain this messy jungle of a tank? Well, I have a hygger hg-957, at er... 26 watts? This is full spectrum and programmable, but definitely a worse light than your Stingrays. I have a day cycle from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM, and a moon cycle from 6:00 PM to 10:30 PM. I am dosing Easy Green... ONCE a week. (Two pumps for a 20G). I am also dosing Easy Iron, on the same schedule as the Easy Green. I got a great improvement in overall growth from the Easy Iron, (I was just hoping it'd perk up the RRF, but it perked up everything). There are API root tabs under the amazon sword, red melon sword, and the crypt pink flamingo. I will need to cut the lighting schedule back on this tank. I am also thinking about taking my dosing down to maybe once every week and a half. At the current rate, I need to cull back floating plants twice a week. My tank is equally unbalanced, it's just that it's going in the opposite direction as yours. I'm getting more plants than I can handle. Now, I have no idea what your water tests as. I also don't know what your plant situation is like. It may very well be that you need all that Easy Carbon, and twice what I'm using in Easy Green. But I'd need more information to know for sure. It'd be real helpful if you could test strip what's in the water change bucket before you add any fertilizers. Equally helpful to know what plant you have that's trying to use all these nutrients you're adding to the water. Feeding plants is a bit like feeding your dog, there is a limit on how much you can give it and still keep it healthy. Thankfully, plants don't pass out in a bloated heap next to the food dish when you get it wrong.

My experience with growing Java Fern is pretty much exactly what @Guppysnail suggested above. I had a fern with almost your exact look, brownish holey leaves, but lots of little babies on the end. So I did what @Guppysnailsuggested, I cut the babies off and super glued them to driftwood. Babies are now huge, original plant is looking... okay. I still have to trim off dead or dying leaves from it every now and again, but the babies are getting nice and full no matter where I place them in the tank. As I've been trimming off the dead leaves, I have noticed that my original plant is spreading out its rhyzome more, and also that the remaining leaves perked up quite a bit. It's by no means a perfect looking original plant, but it is better looking than when it was sprouting babies. Thing about the babies was that sometimes I could glue them to the exact same driftwood as the parent plant, and they'd do better than it did. Trim off some dying leaves, place babies on driftwood, see if that doesn't improve the colony. I don't own any houseplants that I don't prune at least once a year, and a lot of these are from the same cuttings I got 27 years ago from my high-school horticulture elective.

Pitbull plecos, (Parotocinclus Jumbo). Got it for cleaning up the 10G. I was always watching them work their way across a surface. Or cleaning the gravel. Once they got comfortable being watched it was a "What's it doing now?" fish. There's something comforting about an ugly fish that you can watch working hard. Worst: Bristlenose Plecos. Thought I would enjoy these after the pitbulls. Little bigger, but man did they destroy my plantings. Constantly uprooting things, always facing off with each other for anything cave-like. Got rid of them all one weekend to keep my sanity. I know people love these, but I just can't deal with them.

Looking at your bowl setup, it reminds me that there's a source of heat you may not be considering: your light. Every light is to some extent inefficient, we consider this energy inefficiency the production of heat instead of light. An LED is pretty efficient, but if I put my hand on my Hygger full spectrum, it's still warm to hot. For your eco-tank, try a no-fish test with various types of lighting. See how hot you can get it without actually installing a heater first, then consider other options to give you that extra boost to your desired temp range. Incandescent bulbs were pretty darn effective at heating all those EZ-Bake ovens we played with as kids.

I'm sorry, I hadn't realized my forum settings were only providing notifications of the first reply. Just saw all these replies today. Oh, better update! I took @Patrick_G's advice and moved it front and center of the 20G shortly after he replied, (this was the last reply I read until today). The pink leaf I said was growing in has now gotten to about an inch and a quarter long. It's been getting direct light from the Hygger HG-957 and my south facing window, (direct sun in the morning, indirect afternoon). The single emersed leaf is still green and going strong. The other two from the crown I mentioned are losing their greens and picking up more reds, (although one looks a bit whitish now). I just barely planted it, and my reasoning for the delay was because I have sand substrate. I kind of wanted the leaves to get stabilized before I made it spread out the roots. I mean, I've had an MTS colony plowing mulm into that substrate for going on 8 years now, but I'm not super confident that it's up to snuff. (My Crypt. Lucens probably disagrees, as it's been attempting a hostile tank takeover for the last two years). Either way, it was doing okay in the pot, so I took the plunge today and planted it. A thankfully much less "disintegration happy" root tab went in next to it. So far, so good.

Background: I bought Cryptocoryne (Pink Flamingo) from the Co-op about two weeks back. I noticed the leaves were green and on long stems, so I figured I must have the emersed leaves showing. There's a crown of reddish smaller leaves growing closer to the pot, which seems to bear this out. Nothing's short and pink yet, but it certainly looks to be growing in that direction. One emersed leaf did melt back, but the other is still green and looks fine. My plan for this planting was: Convert first, then start thinking of where to plant it once it's out of the rock wool. Since then, I've added an API root tab to the rock wool in the pot, (trying to use all these up). Within two days of that, it's added another reddish leaf to that lower crown. I've also got it in a lightly shaded area of the tank so the full spectrum lighting can't burn it, but it still gets plenty of light. I guess what I'm looking for is advice from someone who has successfully grown this. Should I stay on this course or are we now in: "Danger, Will Robinson, reverse course!" I've been dosing Easy Iron for the RRFs, not sure if that'll help this one. It seems to be doing alright, and the Otos are helping keep the leaves algae free. This is only my second or third reddish plant.