MichelleN

I see the exact same behavior with my Bronze and 3-stripes. The 3-strips are all about the plants. Especially under the Tiger Lilly leaves. Darn Bronze are all over the glass. They even covered my drop checkers with eggs! And those Bronze lay a crazy amount of eggs, daily. I'm glad they get picked off as snacks or we'd have Bronze corydoras in the thousands.

@John Henrythanks so much for your kind response. I'm definitely going to increase the fertilizer. I've been manually adding after water testing the past two weeks so I'm ready to bump up the auto dosing now. Then maybe bump up the CO2 a touch while holding the light steady. We moved the diffuser into the sump right below the pump shortly after my post and we're getting a better distribution of bubbles throughout the tank this way, seem closer to 10ppm than 15pm. It's hard but I'm trying to stick to a two weeks observation between alterations rule. 🙂 I do have Nerites (4) and Amono (5) plus a small heard of ramshorn. I'm going to get more Amono when I see them in stock. I haven't the heart right now for adding Ottos. I love them, and currently have 4 in my 29 in the living room, which are entering year 3. But those 4 are the survivors of two batches of 6 purchased. Poor little wild caught critters. I was forewarned losses are heavy the first month, but that was painful😢. I'm not even brave enough to move the 4 I have. My plan someday is to start a tank outside to get tons of algae going to quarantine my next batch of Ottos in. That will be a project for warmer weather. Lol

Oh no! Cliffhanger. I'm late to this thread but what happened?

2 Fluval 3.0 48" on a 120 g high, 48×24x24 tank. I think it's an Aqueon, bought it used. Short question is how close to 100% should I go with the two lamps on this tank for a medium light level. Longer version below with pics. We have a DIY weir box (the original two overflow boxes removed by prior owner) with a full siphon, open chanel and emergency standpipe and a DIY 40g breeder sump. The tank is planted with a mix of low to medium light plants, three rather large pieces of Manzanita, basalt rocks for support, shaping and rounded beach gravel. Stocked primarily with Tetras and Corydoras. Most of the plants were originally from Co-op and had been growing in our other tanks, these include Annubias, crypts, Val, Java fern, PogoO. Along with frogbit and hornwort as floaters. I picked up hopefully medium light tolerant from LFS: Cabomba, g loydellia, filigree Myro, trident java and Bolbitis H, a banana plant and a tiger lily just for this setup. We'll see what makes it. And pathos growing from the weir. They are rather big because they were in our 75 g for nearly 2 years before it split a seam. The really big new thing for us is that we have the co-op C02 regulator set with a 10lb tank, we started ar 1 bps and increased a bit each week so we now set to 4bps. I have my drop checkers filled with 2dk water with aim to hit light green at 15ppm. Last water tests suggest I'm hitting near that goal with kh at 5 and ph at 7. We have the Neo diffuser on the side of the tank with higher inflow. The opposite lower flow side is where the Annubias are clustered under a protective floating ring of frogbit. Tank is now at 2 month (post cycle) stage. So it's new, some algae is expected over the the next year, especially has some was already present on the plants. But I'd like to keep it reasonable. BBA that was on Annubias is reducing nicely. But we're getting some string now and a bit of stag. So my current goal now is to hold the C02 at 15ppm and balance out the lights and nutrients. Since it's a new tank I only started dosing last 2 weeks ago at 1ml Easy Green per day. Will probably increase this next week if water tests continue to come up under 20ppm nitrates. We started the lights at about 50% with longish ramp up and ramp down periods. I've increased intensity twice now 2 weeks apart to 60% in the back and 55% in the front. Would really like to hear suggestions /recommendations on the dual lights and this size tank for medium light goal.

Thank you @Odd Duck, @TheSwissAquaristand @TOtrees. Very helpful and encouraging responses. I'll leave them floating for now. About ready to lay the new floor and we're going to look at a 120 tomorrow so if all goes well those Crypts won't be unbound for too long. 😀

Our corner tank had a seam split. We've torn it down and placed everything: filters, rocks, Gravel (in bags and fry boxes) plants, and fish) in a big tank in the garage while we first replace our flooring and then replace the display tank. Question on the cryptocorynes, should we leave them floating until we have the new tank setup (maybe a month, my husband will do all the work himself) or is it important to get the roots back into a substrate right away? I'm thinking of getting small hydroponic pots for the Crypts if they need to be planted asap. I hate to plant them now after just ripping them up only to replant again shortly if they can take floating. I've read a few comments on random threads (not here) that suggest the roots can fail quickly left floating. I trust this forum more.

Thank you. I've been lucky with this tank. It holds its balance pretty well. The LED light that comes on this cube is bright. To keep the Annubias from getting algae on the leaves I taped a piece of white translucent paper/velyum to the light. It softened it nicely. I run the light 8 hours with a Siesta. C.T. is my office buddy.

"C.T." and his plants have been in this 6.8 cube for a year now. His Crypts are happy and crowded now. I removed one plant several months ago. Debating is it possible, or more importantly advisable to trim his Crypts (two large, taller variety in back) back or best just to pull more out again. We'd have to hold them outside or in a spare 10 gallon for several more months until we set up our next tank. But C.T. needs a bit more open swim space I'd think.

"C.T." and his plants have been in this 6.8 cube for a year now. His Crypts are happy and crowded now. I removed one plant several months ago. Debating is it possible, or more importantly advisable to trim his Crypts back or best just to pull more out again. We'd have to hold them outside or in a spare 10 gallon for several more months until we set up our next tank. But C.T. needs a bit more open swim space I'd think.

@Torrey, and no, he's always eaten what I give him right off, unless he doesn't see it right off. And then I can usually point at it till he gets the point. And he visibley appears to be chomping it right down. I give him betta pellets during the work week, and a treat of frozen Daphne/brine shrimp on a weekend day. Took him a bit to understand they were food, so kept it light, but he seems to understand it now. Hiding food, huh? What a ton of personality these little guys can have. 😀

Oh wow! Last night I did three things. 1. Hand picked out some of the algae. 2. Added a dose of easy green. 3. (And I suspect this was the kicker) I removed the pre-filter I had off of the water return, increasing the water movement. I was a bit worried as I had read several reviews that the movement in this tank setup could be too much for a betta. So I followed a tip adding that pre-filter on the outflow. But, with it gone, the tank looks so much better this morning and in just one night, most of that ugly white mess on the drift wood is gone! @Torrey I didn't notice a smell, and it looked fluffy but felt slimy. My betta has only 5 blue velvet neocardinia (experiment, I've tried to make sure they have several hiding options) and a few common pond snails. He seems ok with them, but I tried baby rice fish once, admittedly in his prior smaller tank, and removed them quickly as he wasn't even going to let them try to hide from him, He was incensed! I haven't yet come to a feeling if the increased flow is bothering him, but it sure seems to have quickly improved the looks of his home. I'll keep an eye on his feeding, responsiveness to me and those fins.

Your chickens eat it? Cool. Mine won't touch the water lettuce or frogbit we have to toss out. We run regular "free" ands sometimes locals come get it for tortoises or Koi ponds. I'd love to try red root but haven't seen them locally.

6.7 Betta cube, completed fishless cycle June 13th. The driftwood in question went through the cycling and came from another tank, where it did not have this growth. About 10 days ago I pulled it out, scrubbed off the white stuff with a toothbrush and peroxide, avoiding my plants and roots, a couple good rinses and short soak and placed it back. The white stuff came right back. It doesn't seem to bother my betta, but its a small world he's in so I'm concerned. I haven't seen this in my other tanks. The oldest of which is just approaching the one year mark, so I'm not that experienced. The tank is otherwise in a that "hey let's try out some hair and staghorn algae" stage I think is to be expected for its youth. LED that came with the tank runs 8-11am , then 1-5pm. The betta is my home office buddy, and I've had him a bit longer than his new home, about 8 months now. Parameters today: ph (7.2 by strips, I guess. 7.5 by drops? 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 1 nitrates (will be adding some easy green) Hardness I get 7 drops or 300 on strips, kh I get 6 drops or 150 on strips. Phosphate 1 (picture of tests is after the 3 minute mark so it looks darker). Both the nitrates and phosphate are now lower than my tap water so plants are taking hold I think. This scary looking white dotted webby stuff? Thoughts, advice?

Excellent topic for me. I have a 6.7 gallon with a single betta, a few cherry shrimp and a couple pond snails. Cycle completed June 13. (no fish, seed gravel and media plus some Fritz starter). My nitrates had been running between 5 and 10 and in the last couple weeks also dropped to zero. Which is odd as right now nitrates are high from my tap. I guess the plants just took hold and I'd best start dosing too.

They're a type of Impatien (sp) called "Sunpations" that I saw on someone's blog they used in floating pond islands. There was some debate about their tolerance for bog life in the comments, but they were $3 a small pot so we gave it a go. What we found is the white is still fine & growing. Both the colored ones seemed OK for several weeks but then slowly passed away. We noticed the leaves are smoother on the whites, so even though they were sold as just a color variation we suspect there's differences in white vs colored. We'll keep that white as long as it lives, but not buy more. Kinda like your Lilly experiment 😉