buildingaqua
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Posts posted by buildingaqua
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On 4/10/2024 at 7:58 AM, JeremyChristian said:
Thanks for the update.
Sorry! I did end up getting my water tested, and it turns out that the ich x I used in my tank 100% crashed my cycle, and my tank had 2.0 ppm of ammonia. I kind of feel like an idiot for not noticing it, but all you can do is move forward so I took out ~80% of the duckweed that was dead. I was able to completely restart my cycle to normal again, and now the small patch of duckweed I have left looks very green and healthy and is all floating normally. Most if not all the algae that was in my tank died off and is now at a completely reasonable level.
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On 4/1/2024 at 12:22 AM, Odd Duck said:
Personally, I’m trying to get rid of duckweed since it’s a nuisance when trying to net out fish, move plants around, clean the tank, etc. Aquarist glitter as they say since it sticks to everything, shows up where you least expect it, etc. It has its good points just like any other aquarium plant, but I like plants that are easier to control instead. Frogbit, red root floaters, etc.
As far as why you’re having issues, we would have to see your water parameters to give you a better idea of why it isn’t prospering as any parameters too far in any direction could cause it to not do well. Are you testing your water? Do you use test strips or drop tests like the API Master Test Kit? Can you tell us your typical results please? And if you have a series of them, make a chart of list for us if you can.
Ammonia: X, Y, Z . . .
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
GH:
KH:
Temperature:
Plus your tank size (is that a 5 or a 10 gallon?), type of filter (or rather what your HOB is packed with - carbon cartridge, sponge, Biorings, other.
How often you add your fertilizer? Do you check your nitrate level afterwards to see if you’re getting to the level you need / want?
I can’t find the nutrient analysis info on your fertilizer. I do have this handy chart for comparison for others including Easy Green (which looks very good in this comparison chart). To get more precise nutrient control you have to start mixing your own. If you can get Easy Green from ACO, it’s a very good fertilizer as you can see for yourself on the chart.
Thank you for this response, I was considering getting seachem flourish, but looking at this I will probably go for easy green instead.
I ended up getting my water tested at my LFS, and turns out the ich X medicine I was using to treat my new cardinal tetras completely crashed my cycle, and my tank is full of ammonia, and no nitrites or nitrates. It explains why my duckweed grew very well for a couple of days because that was before I started treating with the ich x. I am dosing seachem stability and prime every day, and doing 30% water changes every other day while I wait for my new master test kit to show up. Another contributing factor to why I didn’t notice this at first is because I was using test strips that I now know are terribly inaccurate. I will probably not dose any more ferts until the cycle stabilizes again.
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On 3/28/2024 at 7:12 PM, Tanked said:
You have a lot of algae, and it does look like it is on the roots along with the debris. Because of this, it is reasonable that the algae and Duckweed are competing for nutrients. The browning could also be sunburn. It may be just an illusion, but the algae on either end of the aquarium looks healthier.
Surface tension is holding the bubbles in the duckweed because that water is not moving on the surface. It could also be from a contaminant, your water conditioner, ammonia, etc.
I don't think your water is as stagnant as you think it is. Some of the sideways Duckweed could be trapped in the surface film or actually moved by the water. Your side mounted filter is moving water down and across the tank until it circles around. I don't know if the DW inside the ring is left over from when you installed the ring, or it got blown over or under the ring. Either way it looks good, and I'm a big fan of the side mounted filters.
Take all of this with a grain of salt, because it is coming from someone who struggles to grow Duckweed. My best efforts so far are inside a protective ring, behind a floating mass of Hornwort.🦆
I ended up taking out some of the duckweed today, and it seemed to help with the problem of the sideways ones, but I did notice a lot of dead white leaves among the duckweed so I’m gonna take some water to my LFS to get it tested to see if I’m lacking in any nutrients.
The duckweed inside the ring is just from times I’ve accidentally bumped the ring down for a second and some of the DW got through, but this doesn’t happen super often luckily because I’m pretty careful.
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Anyone know what could be causing this?
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On 3/27/2024 at 6:23 PM, Odd Duck said:
I think you might have more than duckweed there. Those “roots” are very thick for duckweed so I suspect you may have some staghorn or hair algae growing among your duck weed. Could even be some Riccia.
How would I go about fixing this? My tank already has somewhat of an algae problem, but for some reason I can barely grow anacharis or duckweed, the two plants that are supposed to grow like crazy. Maybe a fertilizer issue? I dose with Fluval Plant Gro+ micronutrients
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On 3/25/2024 at 5:16 PM, MattyM said:
Do you have a picture? Does the ring move around or is it anchored?
I've only been able to grow duckweed in areas of a tank that are practically stagnant, and have access to plenty of nutrients and decent lighting. Then again, my betta tank has these conditions and all the duckweed went away (which I'm actually fine with, I never wanted it, it just showed up one day - prob from a plant purchase). My betta tank is also 81F and has a lid that drips condensation all day, maybe duckweed doesn't like that either.
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On 3/25/2024 at 5:16 PM, MattyM said:
Do you have a picture? Does the ring move around or is it anchored?
I've only been able to grow duckweed in areas of a tank that are practically stagnant, and have access to plenty of nutrients and decent lighting. Then again, my betta tank has these conditions and all the duckweed went away (which I'm actually fine with, I never wanted it, it just showed up one day - prob from a plant purchase). My betta tank is also 81F and has a lid that drips condensation all day, maybe duckweed doesn't like that either.
The ring is hooked around the intake pipe, and because of its square shape it usually barely moves. The water the duckweed is in is completely stagnant, even to the extent that a film starts appearing in the spaces on the surface of the water after a day. The duckweed seems to be getting more than plenty light as well, so it must be the nutrients. I’ll make sure to dose some more fertilizers.
On 3/25/2024 at 6:46 PM, buildingaqua said:The ring is hooked around the intake pipe, and because of its square shape it usually barely moves. The water the duckweed is in is completely stagnant, even to the extent that a film starts appearing in the spaces on the surface of the water after a day. The duckweed seems to be getting more than plenty light as well, so it must be the nutrients. I’ll make sure to dose some more fertilizers.
I will send pictures shortly
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The only other thing I was worried about is that the color of the duckweed is starting to fade, and there seems to be algae growing on some of the roots, could this mean it’s dying out?
I have been treating the tank for ich recently and it may be entirely possible that the daily 30% water changes could be lowering the available nutrients…
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I just recently added this floating 3d printed ring to keep the duckweed out of my HOB filter stream, and now the duckweed won’t float upright, and there’s a lot of debris attached to the roots of it. I can tell it has to do with the floating ring I used, but everyone says that having surface agitation is bad for duckweed… Is there anything I can do to fix this?
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I just recently added this floating 3d printed ring to keep the duckweed out of my HOB filter stream, and now the duckweed won’t float upright, and there’s a lot of debris attached to the roots of it. I can tell it has to do with the floating ring I used, but everyone says that having surface agitation is bad for duckweed… Is there anything I can do to fix this?
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https://streamable.com/lqayde
Update: the cardinal tetras I brought in may have ick. I noticed these small white spots on them and I’ve heard that that can be the first stages of it. -
On 3/13/2024 at 11:00 PM, Colu said:
It's highly unlikely that your plants bought in parasites it can happen you wouldn't see any symptoms in two days it can take a couple weeks for parasite to get a level were you would see symptoms in your fish other thing can cause flashing such as poor water quality such as ammonia or nitrite cholrine do you use a water dechlorinator when doing water changes low GH or KH your KH is fine have you added any new fish in last month how you noticed any other symptoms such as rapid breathing hanging out near the surface lethargy spitting food out sunken belly white stringy poop @buildingaqua
I use seachem prime, so the water parameters should be ok. The GH is a little on the harder side tho. I haven’t noticed any other strange behaviors or signs recently that could indicate an illness, just the one weird one.
I added some cardinal tetras at the same time as the plants, so maybe they could have brought some parasites with them. -
https://streamable.com/o4365s
- pH: 7- 0 Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates
- KH: 150 ppm
I just put that anubias and a couple other plants in 2 days ago, and now my platy is doing this odd motion against it and I’m worried it could be parasites. I can’t visibly discern any parasites on his skin, but he has been doing this once or twice every ten or twenty minutes.
Forgot the water temperature! It’s 78 on average.
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I recently stopped by a new local fish store in my area and they gave me a scoop of duckweed in a cup for free. As you can see in the picture, there are a lot of small snails and other tiny white organisms in the cup, and I was wondering if there was something I could do to assure that I don’t introduce these into my tank as well when I transfer some of the duckweed from the cup into my tank.
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On 3/2/2024 at 2:13 AM, Abby said:
it depends on how much your filter can handle. I have a FX4 on my 60-gallon goldfish tank with 10 goldies. I would recommend having a bigger filter than needed and/or adding airstones if you think you would need it. also, another thing to think of is how much hiding space they have. (EX- plants, wood, decor). because you would want to have more hiding space with that many fish in a 10-gallon. so you can do it if your filter can handle it!!!
Good luck!
My tank has plenty of hardscape and plants to provide hiding spots, so hopefully this won't be an issue. What's the best way to know if there isn't enough oxygen in the tank?
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I have an established 10 gallon planted tank, and currently in the tank there are:
5 ghost shrimp
1 hifin platy
Would it be overstocked if I added a school of 6 neon tetras/black neon tetras? I am completely fine with doing more frequent water changes to account for it.
and in the case that I do get these neon tetras, would I need an airstone to account for the higher bioload? My filter has pretty decent aeration and surface agitation I believe.
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On 2/7/2024 at 2:01 PM, Tony s said:
And me as well. and this is also how most of us learn about ich, bloat and dropsy. mostly stress diseases from bad water conditions.
I've been praying not to see any of those issues yet... but luckily my little platy seems to be a trooper 😄
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Thank you guys so much for the help, I'm gonna start weening off feeding him to once every two days instead, and I'll go out soon to get some seachem prime and some turbo start if I can find it. Would it also help to get a better light for the plants or is the basic one I have okay for now?
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I've been wanting to get into aquarium keeping for years, and I finally sprung on it about 3 weeks ago today. I let my excitement get away from me and made the huge mistake of not doing nearly enough research beforehand, and disaster ended up striking a few days later. Initially, I purchased a 10 gallon tank with basic blue gravel, various fake plants, a fake rock cave, a basic rgb led tank light from walmart, an appropriate filter and heater for the tank size, a tank thermometer, some API tropical fish flakes, and a bottle of water dechlorinator/conditioner.
I set up the tank, and the same day I stocked it with two zebra danios, two pristella tetras, two hifin platy, and two assorted snails. Two days later, throughout the duration of the day, 5 of the fish and both of the snails died for reasons that were a mystery to me. Since then I have been doing research almost every single day, and it is apparent to me that after testing the water for ammonia and it returning a result of 3+ ppm, the fish and snails died to the high ammonia levels due to my failure to cycle the tank prior to adding them, and it likely didn't help that I bought two schooling species in such low numbers.
In an attempt to keep my last remaining hifin platy alive, about a week or so ago I added some Tetra Safestart, and a couple very small whispy plants from a friend's established betta tank, along with a couple bunches of rotala macandra and anacharis from the pet store. I've been doing daily water changes (30-50%) to keep the ammonia levels down and testing the water with strips every day for pH, KH, and GH which have all been in good standing since the start, for Nitrites and Nitrates which have not shown up at all yet, and for ammonia which usually hovers around 0.25-1.5 ppm between water changes.
In the last week, most of the rotala has turned brown and rotted away so I removed them. The anacharis has melted a little and doesn't seem to be growing, but looks mostly ok since it has a tiny bit of new-looking yellow growth on the ends. The platy continues to live, and I've been feeding him twice a day with a mixture of tropical flakes and dried bloodworms. I plan on getting a gravel vacuum to help with the water changes and clean up some of the detritus on the bottom, and might get some driftwood since I removed the fake plants when I planted the real ones.
My planned stocking setup for this tank in the future is 6 neon tetras, 2-3 amano shrimp, and the one lone hifin platy if he's still alive by then. I still haven't seen any nitrites or nitrates yet. Is there anything I can do to help my current situation or should I just keep up the water changes and wait for the tank to cycle?
Male Platy Chaos!
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by buildingaqua
I had a single male platy in my 10 gallon planted tank for a while, and I just recently introduced 4 new male platies to fill out the tank. I did this to avoid any offspring as I wouldn't have nearly enough room for them in the 10 gallon, so I heard getting only male platies could be a good alternative. I learned pretty quickly that the first platy I had in the tank is now a huge bully to all the other new ones that are smaller, and even when I remove him, the other 4 still fight a little amongst themselves. This has been going on for almost a week now, and I don't know what else I can do. They don't seem to have any fin or body damage, and all of them seem to be eating enough during feeding, so I was wondering if anyone could provide some tips on what I could do about this or maybe just some relevant advice, because for all I know it could just be a natural thing with male platies.
Videos: https://streamable.com/0absvm, https://streamable.com/bhxp6o, https://streamable.com/2zpu5r
(In the videos, the big orange one with the long black dorsal fin is the original platy I had. The first link is a video where I took him out and the other 4 platies fought anyway.)