Superjoepez

@Maggie That is so exciting! I love hearing someone else getting excited about water lilies in aquariums. Personally I think they are so much better than floating plants. Im planning on testing a bunch of other dwarf lilies as I get more tanks. This actually gives me some confidence to try cutting some of my surface leaves and seeing if i can get more base leaves going.

Forgot to mention, I have pretty regular water parameters. Nitrates stay between 20 and 40 ppm, temp at 76, ph right at 7 to 7.1 and gh around 100 and kh at 80.

I have a group of 4 Corydora Aneus and 3 Balloon Mollys along with a group of 7 Molly fry in a breeder box in a 29 gallon planted tank. One of my Balloon Mollys keeps getting infections. At first I thought it was Ich and treated for that twice with Ich-X. Then treated for Columnaris once with Marycin. This was all in the 29 gallon. When the Columnaris came back again it also came with a swim bladder issue and thats when I finally got a 10 gallon hospital tank. I moved her and the other female to that tank and did a back to back treatment of Marycin while fasting. Thought she was good and then a few days back in the display tank a new infection popes up, this time its fin rot and something that looks like columnaris by her eye. She is now back in the hospital tank with a 2 tbsp per gallon does if salt. My question is would it be helpful to add salt to the display tank? Could she be getting sick again and again from the tank or is more likely she is stressed in that tank? If it IS a good idea to salt treat the planted display tank what doesage should i do not to kill the plants? The plants I have are Java Fern, Anubias Nana Petit, Dwarf Aquarium lily, Tiger lotus bulb, Moneywort, Bucephelandra, and some Red Root Floaters. Im just really trying to get this girl healthy. Thanks!

Now i have not personally tested this yet but from what I understand you should trim the surface shoots at the max height you want underwater leaves before it reaches the surface. Do this until its filled out as much as you want since once they hit the surface that is all they will do from then on. I think it is a safety thing, they know danger is at a certain height so they make shorter shoots till they get to the surface and “know the coast is clear.”

When you say soil you mean nutrient fortified substrate i assume. You really only need that if you plan on having fast growing root feeders and a lot of them. If you are using mostly rhizome plants don’t worry about the soil and just fertilize the water column. Be careful with fine sand as roots do not like pushing through them and the fine sand will fill in the space between the lava rock. I recommend looking at aquarium sand and trying to match a grain size to that. Try to avoid play sand or pool filter sand.

Make sure you want your leaves at the surface. If you want it to fill out more around the bulb clip that surface leaf before it gets there. Once they get to the surface thats all they will do. I LOVE water lilies but i really wish my dwarf aquarium lilly had more leaves around the bulb and now will am waiting to do a full rescape before i trim it and try to retrain it.

It would be helpful to know what plants are in there. Is that a java fern or crypt in the middle? What substrate is that? It looks like pebbles. Also what light are you using? It looks like a Fluval Plant 3.0? Making some assumptions I would say that pebble substrate with basically no CEC would mean a lot of the root tab nutrients are leaching into the water column but that also means that if you are dosing just the water column your slow growing root feeders should be getting enough nutrients from that. Now the big issue i see is your light. You say its on for 12 hours but you really have 5 hours ramp up, 2 hours full, then 5 hours ramp down. Which equates to less than 7 hours full (the times at very low light don't really do much for your plants). Your light program mimics the sun but that is a VERY HIGH light situation. For low light setups the ramping is really to just keep from shocking the fish. Try a 1hr ramp up then 6hrs full and 1hr ramp down which would equate to roughly 7hrs full. Leave this setting for 2 weeks to a month and keep a close eye on your Moneywort new growth. You already have small new growth which tells me its getting enough light but could use more. So i would definitely use your Moneywort as an indicator as to what your changes have done. I had similar issues balancing light and nutrients but i have an Fluval Aquasky on a 29gallon (A lot less light in a deeper tank). Take one variable at a time starting with light and make it easy on yourself, dont mimic the sun use 1hr ramp up and down times.

That does seem like a lot of time. do you have other plants? Also what light are you using?

I recently realized that I am not a fan of floating plants like red root floaters but love the surface leaves of my dwarf aquarium lilly, so much so i just got a tiger lotus bulb also. My question comes from me wanting to switch up my filter and trying to plan for the outflow. How do lilly pads react to flow in an aquarium? I imagine they do best in still water but would there be any detrimental effect if I used an in tank filter like an Oase BioPlus?

so your lights are designed for a planted tank so you should be good there. make sure there is enough nitrogen in the tank. Your ferts dont add any so make sure the fish and your water change schedule is keeping nitrogen around 40ppm. Nitrogen is the main plant fert. try to find out more about those plants. If they are root feeders you will have more work since you have inert substrate. If those plants dont work out i would recommend starting with Java Fern, Anubias, and Dwarf Aquarium Lilies. I think those 3 are the best starter plants to help you learn how to keep you tank balanced. last thing, take things slow. It can take months to get a tank balanced and it takes weeks to see changes sometimes. Also only change one variable at a time. If you start adding more fertilizer dont change your light also. See what one change makes and then adjust accordingly. Dont make huge changes. Plants take time to get situated and they do die back but they will grow back given proper care and time.

Some more information would help. What light are you using? What brand of fertilizer are you using? What are your water parameters and water change schedule? Now from what I see already here my thoughts are these plants were grown out of water and if that is the case all of the leaves will die back and regrow with new leaves better suited for underwater growth. When you bought them were they stored in water in a tank or were they in packaging exposed to air?

This is an interesting topic. I would like to introduce a different thought though. Maybe the designation of heavy or light is not so much about the amount of plants but the nutrients required to keep them happy. For example you could have a tank filled to the brim with Anubias and Java Fern but that would still be moderate compared to a fully carpeted tank full of fast growing stem plants

Thanks for the help, i figured thats what i should do but i have another question. After i do a water change today should i add a full dose of meds or should I account for the meds added 36 hours ago and only add a 50-65% dose?

Hi everyone, So I know I should have a quarantine tank and trust me, after this I will but I need some advice in the mean time. Long story short I have been dying to get some new fish for my 29 gallon tank pretty much since the COVID quarantine started back in March (I had to rehome my goldfish as I was temporarily living with family to help out and could not keep up with their water changes). I recently bought 10 Rummynosed Tetras and 3 Balloon Mollys to add to my 4 Corydoras in a 29 gallon. The store I got them from was far from as clean as anyone would hope but I knew I had enough meds to an Aquarium Co-Op style "quarantine" in my tank. Initially 2 of the Rummynose died almost immediately and another 6 had died by the next morning, I took this as poor quality from the shop as well as water hardness differences (I have a TDS of 200 from the tap and the shop is in a coastal town on the water so they most likely have very soft water) but added the meds that morning. I started with a full dose of API General Cure and API E.M. Erythromycin. The day after I added a full dose of Herbtana Microb-Lift. Everything was going great, no more deaths and the only visible issue was one Molly showing what looked like a bacterial infection. After almost a week of fasting and being in the medicated tank I realized the issue with the Molly was going to need another round of meds to fully cure it. So I ordered the Quarantine Trio from Aquarium Co-Op. This is where the chaos comes. I did a 50% water change and added a full dose of Fritz Maracyn, Fritz Para Clean, and Ich-X. Everything was going fine until the next morning when I realized I had cloudy water. At first I figured it was from my hard water, as I live on the east coast in the DC area and I have seen that happen before since I switched to sponge filters. Half way through the day I noticed it got worse and realized it was probably something else and started doing water tests. My current Water Parameters are: Ammonia: 0ppm Nitrite: 0ppm Nitrate: between 40 and 80 ppm PH: 7.4 TDS: 400ppm (Water from tap is 200ppm) So I think I may have killed a lot of my beneficial bacteria in my sponge filters by mixing all of the anti-bacterial medicines which would explain the bacteria bloom I am now seeing. Here is my dilemma, I know I need to do some water changes to lower my Nitrates and TDS but I dont want to re-dose any antibacterial medicine. Should I let the bloom settle down first and let the plants hopefully mitigate the Nitrates or should I start doing small water changes now? What would you do? I have attached an image of the Molly with the infection (notice it on its lip and gills) and a picture of the tank. Thanks for the help.