Ken

I wait until the water tests tell me the biological filtration has caught up. It varies, but isn't very long. As soon as the ammonia and nitrite go down again more fish!

Nice and easy. Don't borrow trouble.

IMO the star of this production is @JimmyGimbal, well done! The shots in the corner of the screen with the fish in a specimen and the name of the fish they just caught are great.

Nerites do a good job of cleaning up. In my case I just played musical tanks until I figured out who was putting the white dots all over (I have not embraced them 😉) and when the culprit was identified they to the LFS to find a new home.

I have Gold Ring Danios. The LFS brought them in at my request. They are very active but not skittish, quite pretty, school nicely and no heater required. The internet says they need soft water but mine are doing fine in my liquid rock.

Yeah, I kind wandered down the whole pet keeping ethics hole.

My neighbor has Dobermans, they cut off their tail, cut off their ears, cut off their dewclaws and then spay or neuter them. Apparently all that is what is normal for that portion of the pet ownership world. I'm not sure where I personally draw the line, I think I'll leave it up to those involved.

I would be willing to bet my lunch money that you're local water treatment facility is set up to take care of any unwelcome plants that happen to go down the drain. Come on, think about what goes down drains.

The whole world uses PVC glue for water pipes for people.

I'm pretty sure you can put the heater wherever the heck you want. Early on I carefully placed them according to instructions with nothing nearby. Then I noticed that in quite a few videos done by people that had more experience than me @Irene they were tucked out of the way and and not even placed at the proper angle!? I've seen snails crawling on mine while the light it on. They must not get overly hot while in the water.

I hope you love it there. You deserve it. Thank You For Your Service.

This song has been running in my mind since you posted it. 🙃 I'm not sure why. 😁

Well, it wasn't as horrible as I thought. A nice tight root ball. I did it just before the water change so had the python hooked up and ready but didn't really need it until it was over. I just went very slowly.

Get a handful of male (only) endlers. They are pretty, active, hardy and won't make any work.

Thank you. I have now read that post at least a dozen times. It answers exactly what I was asking. I hope others read this post, there is a bunch to be learned here. You, my friend, are a great asset to all of us on this forum.

I wasn't clear in my question. A plant that only grows out of water is called ______. A plant that only grows under water is called ______. Plants that do both are called ______. I have seen immersed (under water) and emersed (above water by our own expert above). And maybe my ignorance is making it hard, There are plenty of plants that will do both, so they could be called either depending what they were doing today. For our uses I think it would nice to know if there are, and which ones, plants that naturally do best living under water their whole lives.

How does it average out? I keep seeing really pretty pieces of wood on the interweb and can't bring myself to throw the dice.

First, what in the heck are the proper words for plants that grow under or out of the water? We're all over the map on here. Second, are there some plants that are commonly available in the freshwater aquarium trade that are naturally fully under water their whole life? BTW thanks for responding.

That makes sense. So if you wanted plants that were really well suited to life in an aquarium you would populate it with plants that were naturally fully aquatic vs plants that can be grown under water. I just spent a minute trying to find the right single words for those conditions and gave up, if anyone knows chime in. I thought it was immersed vs emmersed, that ain't it.

I wonder why I haven't posted this before. My little black sports car is named Betty, after this song.

Where's @ARMYVET? He knows about these things.

How can a plant need more CO2 than is normally available in water in a natural setting? 🤔

My plants do better using the siesta method, root Tabs and plain 'ol Easy Green. I have a 20# bottle of CO2 with a really nice regulator on my welding cart out in a shed that will not be getting anywhere near my aquariums. It's not necessary for nice planted tank. Take the advice about trying one each of the easy plants, something will like it at your house.

Just for the fun of it I just looked on the local classified ads. Around here nice clean food grade IBC totes go for $80-$120. Either 275 or 330 gallon. Not so nice non-food grade ones as cheap as $35. They all seemed very up front about what the previous contents had been. Happily for my married future I don't have an appropriate place for any.

I'm setting up a new 10 gallon tank. Got the rocks and sand in tonight. The planting plan is epiphytes only, tucked in everywhere I can. Maybe some floaters if I can find something that appeals. The fish will be a handful of Pygmy Corys and Kubota Rasboras. The rocks and sand came from the hill up the road. Filtration is going to be the two nanos tucked into the corners. I probably broke all the "rules" of aquascaping so any suggestions are welcome. Has anyone else noticed that spellcheck hates this hobby?