PonyPlantedTanks

Absolutely!

Haha I get it - bigger tanks = 5x the amount of dollas! It’s rough! Personally I would say something different, like chili rasboras! But that’s just bc they’re a big bucket list fish for me 🙂 If you’ve already had a betta why not try something new? Or you could try a plakat betta to switch it up!

I love seeing pictures of this tank - the chilis and green neons look stunning against the black water. You’ve done an amazing job with it! But it makes sense that you’d want a change. I love the idea of a strait crypt garden - or even crypts and an absolute GALLON of Anubias just to make it a low light, super easy tank. But I do have to say, seeing the crypts go gangbusters with co2 would be insane! Youve probably kept pretty much everything under the sun😂but maybe there’s a species of fish you haven’t kept yet that would be fun, just for something new? Barbs? Different gouramis? I think cherry barbs are epic and can’t wait to add a handful to my 29g. But they also prefer a little cooler water from what I’ve read (now is it super duper important? Couldn’t tell ya) so likely wouldn’t work out with the Rams or Apistos. What about Bolivian Rams? They’re cool when they’re all colored up and might be a fun breeding project? Idk, not that I’ve kept much - just my two cents 🙂

^ exactly - excess iron causes major hair algae. Don’t dose it unless you see the need for it. Most plants don’t need extra iron, and the plants you mentioned aren’t any of the big names that want lots of it. (Example would be red plants like scarlet temple, ammania gracilis etc)

Oh yay! Thank you for that! And those shiners😍

Hello plant people - I’m looking for more info on this plant (or just other similar Hygrophila species in general). There’s not a whole ton of info out there about this guy. Half the people say it needs medium - high light and CO2 or it’ll grow pretty slow. Some people say it grows like a weed in their low tech tanks. I’ve heard it’s also a potassium hog. True? False? I love the look of it and want a nice big, bushy background plant for my 29g. I’m not planning to run CO2 but am hoping to run medium light. I use Easy Green. I just want lots of fairly easy plants to make this bad boy an absolute jungle! Also - I’m going to try out floating my stem plants for a bit before planting them. Would this plant benefit from that? Or would it benefit from being planted with root tabs right away?

I probably wouldn’t plant anything closer than 1” between each plant. So your spacing looks good 🙂 And if you’re using Fluval stratum, why the need for additional root tabs?

I use a colander/strainer and it works very well to distribute the water and not disturb the substrate. Plus, they usually are the perfect size to sit on the rim of the tank while you pour water in. In my 10g I literally pour water into my betta’s floating log so it doesn’t mess up the gravel😂 Not practical but hey, it works😂 I believe there’s also a 3D printed contraption I’ve seen on Etsy for this exact purpose. I bet if you typed in water change distributor it would pop up

That’s the end goal for me anyways! Thanks @Lennie for the suggestion! Definitely might be able to make that work. I’ll play with it a bunch today and see what happens.

Hey everyone - This is my first actual attempt at a decent scape. I have no idea what I’m doing! None of the LFS near me carry any hardscape (weird, but it is what it is). As such I ended up ordering a 3pk of spider wood from Amazon. Ordering online without seeing the exact pieces is definitely a gamble but it’s all I could really afford at the moment. I’m mostly budgeting for plants so there wasn’t a ton left over for rocks and sticks😂 I ordered the biggest size they had but the pieces are still quite small (7-11” ish). For a 29g I can’t figure out how to make it look halfway decent. Example; here are two of the pieces stacked on top of each other and looking absolutely ratchet. I’m wondering if there’s any way to make this work? Am I better off going with no hard scape at all and doing only plants? I know scaping is a lot up to personal preference but I don’t know if small pieces of wood in a taller tank are going to cut it. I’m planting a lot of tall background plants to hopefully help things out. All three of said pieces. I boiled the poop out of them because not going for a black water tank this time. And don’t mind the bubbles from the air stone - not entirely sure what’s going on there but hopefully it’s just a new tank thing and will figure itself out with water changes. Thanks 🙂

There’s a billion tetra species that do well in softer water you could try instead of more livebearers!

If you like the mollies enough, I’d up their numbers. Maybe get like 4 more to give them a little school. But if you’ve got your heart set on Platys they’ll get along with the mollies well too! Honey Gourami will be a nice edition. You can get one for a centerpiece fish or - as @Tony s mentioned - 3 for a little trio!

Water changes will do it over time, but Mopani releases a LOOOT of tannins so you may never get the result you’re looking for. If you just don’t want to see the tannins, Seachem Purigen is your best bet (even though you said you don’t want to use chemicals, it’s the most effective way). But I do agree your tank looks a little murky aside from the tannins. How long is your light on every day?

Any kind of neocardinia (like cherry shrimp) seem to definitely be the hardiest. It’s kind of a gamble bc you never know if your white clouds will gobble them right up. It’s possible they’ll become an expensive snack lol. But if you have enough plant cover and hiding places you should be fine. Plus didn’t you say they mostly stay at the top? Hopefully they wouldn’t bother them. At the end of the day though, Nerites are much better algae eaters than shrimp will ever be (unless you have an absolute ARMY of shrimps!) So if your goal is to have an algae eater, a couple more nerites are probably your best bet.

Dwarf Water Lettuce, Salvinia of some sort, Brazilian Pennywort, Guppy Grass and Pearlweed (there’s also a dwarf lily in there sending a bunch of pads to the surface). I’ll likely move the guppy grass to the new 29g bc it’s taking over and I really want the Pearlweed and Pennywort to get a little more light! My dream nano is a 7g Aquatop cube with a bunch of chili Rasboras and some blue dream shrimp! I want to try using all crypts so probably parva in the front, wendtii in the middle and lutea and spiralis in the back 🙂

I’ve currently only got a 10g Betta tank (the classic, lol) but the most recent picture I have looks absolutely atrocious due to some hair algae… haha so instead here’s a pic of the gallons of floating plants I’ve got going on!

Yay!! They look awesome! Where’d you end up getting them from?

Water change whenever your ammonia or nitrite get above 0. If they’re both at 0 and you’ve got nitrate, no need to change water. Sometimes I still do a gravel vac to clean up the algae as kind of a “reset”. It’s still a new tank trying to figure itself out. Don’t stress too much about the hair algae. Just manually remove as much as you can and keep on rolling 🙂

Get some Wonder Shells or Seachem Equilibrium to pop in there. That’s what I do since my water is also incredibly soft. I didn’t think plecos would do ok in a 10g but I’ve never kept one, so can’t for sure say.

None except they dissolve quickly and you have to buy them more often. That’s why I switched to Seachem Equilibrium because it lasts much longer and does the same job.

I would check all over outside the tank again just in case. Two weeks is a long time for a snail to be missing inside the tank. Have you checked the lid or anything? I mean time will tell - she might just pop up in the next couple of days or might not 😞 Hard to know in these kinds of situations. But with soft ish water like that she very well may have been trying to escape the water to find harder water and just took a trip outside the tank. Do you have a long gap in the back of your lid?

Technically yes. Will they be thriving? Not exactly. A 5g is really not that much bigger and gives them a much better quality of life in my opinion.

I would definitely upgrade to at least a 5g for that setup. 2.5g isn’t good for much else besides shrimp. But it would make an excellent shrimp tank!

If you search for 10g stocking ideas on this forum you’ll find about a billion topics on here to give you more ideas! But your plan sounds very reasonable. For schooling fish I’d say anything that tops out around an inch. So green neons, chili rasboras (and other small rasbora species), ember tetras, and small killifish like the clown or rocket killis (but keep in mind they generally don’t live very long).

Even my betta will snack on the gelatin if I ever don’t plug them in deep enough. He’s a menace😂