speepy

thank you guys again for the comments added!! 🙂 i really do feel a lot better with my plant trial and errors lol, knowing that sometimes it's just out of my hands. i wanted to show a little update! again, my tank is algae covered, but i have a water change upcoming on saturday! i added 2 pogostemon stellatus octopus, and i'm still waiting on the hornwort to come in! hopefully this all balances out my tank a bit more. lastly, and not relevant to plants at all, i added a nice black backdrop! 😁 i also wanted to add, does anyone have advice for increasing my nitrates? since i only have 1 betta obviously i have a low bioload, i was searching online and people suggest adding MORE fertilizer but i'm kinda nervous to add more than i already am while i'm in an algae war. i'm also nervous about 'overfeeding' as other suggestions online showed, because my betta is a fiend i don't want to make him sick because i know he'll eat it all... i was considering maybe getting a snail or 2?? not sure if that would even help at all?? any advice appreciated! edit adding more info: my betta is a very assertive and territorial guy so i don't think adding community fish or shrimp is a good idea either.. i tried adding a ghost shrimp with him to temperament test him, but sadly, knuckles made a snack out of him 😭 thanks!!

sorry for my late reply, but i really appreciate everyone's advice!! it was really encouraging! i will try to increase my nitrates and add more fast growing plants! i tried pogostemon stellatus octopus before however it unfortunately also died 😞 but that was back when i first started the tank so maybe i'll have better luck this time. i'll get a pogostemon and hornwort/maybe water sprite 🙂 i also changed my lighting schedule to be on for 8 hours at 100%. thank you everyone!!

so do you do 6 hours full 100% and the other 2 are the ramp up and down? 😮

hey everyone!! you can call me speepy! i'm 24, and my dream of fishkeeping began when i was 16! like many others, i started off completely unprepared, uneducated, and with a betta in a 2 gallon uncycled tank. i realized he was not living a good life, but i had no money or resources to give him a better one unfortunately. it was really heartbreaking once i realized he was suffering. after that i wanted my next betta experience to be a proper one, so i daydreamed about it for 8 years until i finally set up my first proper tank in october last year 🙂 i want to share the story of how i got my current betta! i started off with a little plakat koi betta who unfortunately passed away to what i believe was extreme stress from being shipped to me. because i was brand new to the hobby, i failed to notice the signs he wasn't doing well. i was completely destroyed by this because i was SO excited and i felt like i failed him. i didn't get another fish right away because i needed time and was really reconsidering if i should try again. december came around, and one of my ex coworkers texted me out of the blue asking if i wanted a betta. she heard from my friend who works with her that i might be able to give a home to the brand new petco betta she was given as a white elephant christmas gift. (along with a 1 gallon tiny plastic bowl, i was mortified) i was shocked but i took him in because after all i did have a cycled tank ready to go! truly the global fish distribution network at work here. and that was how i met my fiesty guy Knuckles the Echidna 😆 (red veiltail) and i'm also happy to share that he is thriving!! anyways, i love the ACO community and the forums. i read them every day! i love seeing everyone's tanks and learning everything i can. i find out about a new type of fish every day and it's awesome. (my current favorites i've found out about are red whip catfish and black skirt guppies) thank you for reading and i'll see you around!

i currently have my light on for 5 hours at 80%, are you saying i should increase the time and fertilize more then? i'm confused because you said "less light" but said i should do 8 hours when i'm only doing 5 right now thank you for the reply also!

hello! i was wondering if anyone could offer me some guidance on keeping my plants alive... this is my first tank and i'll be honest, the chemistry(? lol) part of taking care of plants confuses the heck out of me so if someone can put their advice in dummy terms i would appreciate it so much!! tank info: 10 gallon up since october 2023 1 betta substrate: 80% this soil, 20% this sand aco light on from 7AM-12PM (80% brightness) water change every 1-2 weeks my plants: anubias barteri (small but my only plant that's NOT dying strangely enough, not even browning) 3 small bundles of windelov java fern (doing okay, i still get brown leaves from them often but they are alive) i bought 2 aco java ferns, both died completely 😞 (yes i cut the strings on them and roots were above soil) 1 amazon sword barely hanging on 1 mystery plant i was told is an amazon sword but it doesn't look like one? i USED to have vallisneria which was alive and spreading but i had to remove it sadly hair algae. so much algae water info: nitrate usually 0-10 nitrites 0 very hard water ~300GH (i live in colorado) buffer 80KH pH 6.8-7.2 ca/mg unknown, i don't have a test kit for them 😞 i fertilize every time i do a water change. 20 drops of the aco fertilizer per the instructions. i tried fertilizing twice a week for a month before but all it did was give me a MASSIVE amount of hair algae. my plants were still dying. 😕 i attached a before & after pic (feburary this year vs today) i know my tank is a mess i thought it would probably be useful to have a picture of what it looks like before a water change!! TLDR: plants dying with fertilizer every week. also dying if i fertilize MORE than usual. but i get hair algae galore. what do?