Libby

Don’t throw any equipment / decor away. I learned the hard way and I could always have used it, even years later!

Thanks all. @kammaroon it does look like potassium deficiency! I will try more root tabs, oh dear I haven’t been giving them enough then as I’ve only popped new ones under there every few months or something, I couldn’t find much info about how often to put root tabs in, so I will up the amount. Maybe that’s why it’s just affecting the swords because they feed at the roots, and everything else is sucking stuff out the water column... I wouldn’t be surprised if the hard water doesn’t help, it’s so rubbish for everything! Maybe one day I’ll move to an area with lovely soft water and all my fish keeping troubles will be sorted! Certainly I think plants would grow better and I could keep a wider range of fish more successfully. I think soft water has higher levels of dissolved co2 in it. Are there any benefits to hard water apart from being able to keep livebearers (which I do love!) 😂

I love ramshorn snails, they breed lots if you are not careful but you can buy them in lots of nice colours like I have a leopard blue one and that looks pretty cool. They eat any algae too so my tanks are spotless. Just don’t overfeed as they know it’s a sign to reproduce!

I have a 60 litre aquarium that has some Amazon swords in it, along with some crypts, anubius and limnophila sessiflora. Everything is doing well, apart from my Amazon swords won’t grow tall. They grow lots of new leaves all the time, but never get bigger in height, it’s weird. I have fairly hard water, I use root tabs and dose once a week with seachem flourish comprehensive (no getting easy green in the UK 😢). I’ve noticed that on some of the leaves there are small brown spots, but the majority of leaves are very healthy. I prune the unhealthy ones occasionally and I took a picture that I hope has attached of the brown spots. Has anyone an idea on what it could be? I was thinking perhaps the light needs to be on longer as currently it’s set to like a sunrise, gets brighter, then dims then goes off at night in a gradual way. So I was considering turning it up to full brightness and just having that on for 8 hours a day, however I don’t want to ruin it for the other plants that are doing well. Stocking wise I just have a few neons, a betta and lots of ramshorn snails. Any ideas would be welcome! Thanks.

I did think about pygmy cories, I think they would be the only ones small enough as the tank isn't that big. Plus they are super cute 🤩

Hello, I’m a newb on here but love aquarium co op vids. I live in the UK and wish we had a branch here! I currently have a US 7 gallon cube with a betta called Big Tuna and a nerite snail, 3 ramshorn snails and 3 amano shrimp. I want to move them into a new cube which is about 17 US gallons. (Our gallons are different in the uk which is annoying but I’ve checked with an online calculator so I’ll speak in US gallons here!) I’d like to add something else when the tank can handle it in the future, but I just don’t know what! I have pretty hard water so need something that will do well, but that is also happy with a betta. BIg Tuna is pretty chilled as it happens, he doesn’t bother the shrimp or snails and is pretty lazy, but I need something that will not nip him either. I was thinking endlers but I’m not sure if I have enough space to have an impressive shoal as I’d have to get quite a lot of females which are pretty dull. I do love livebearers though, but have heard guppies are a bad idea with a betta. I was thinking neons or ember tetras but not sure how well they’ll do in hard water. I love bottom feeders, but I don’t want my shrimp and snails outcompeted for food, plus I can’t seem to find much that can handle hard water. what ideas do others have? Thanks !

Well...I did see two if the snails in a suspicious embrace this morning so yes I'm assuming they'll soon multiply ! I can definitely see differences sometimes in the type of fish I see sometimes, so we don't have Glo fish (I think they are illegal here) and there are definitely less people keeping tank busters. You'd find it more difficult to buy a pacu here but from what I can tell you can buy them easily in the US. I guess it's much colder here than in some parts of the US so I think it would be harder to keep fish outdoors in tubs even just in the summer as I've seen lots of people doing there. Other than that I haven't seen lots of differences but I'm not a very experienced fish keeper really so I expect there are more ... I just don't know them!

Hi I'm Libby from the south West England. I love aquarium co op videos and learning about fishkeeping. I have a Betta called Big Tuna and 3 amano shrimp, a nerite snail and 3 Ramshorn snails in a 7 gallon but they are about to get an upgrade to a 17 gallon soon 🙂