JettsPapa

I have a 65 gallon low tech (no CO2 or fancy expensive lights) tank, so it's approximately the same height as your tank. Anubias and vals, as mentioned above, do well in it. Mexican oak leaf also does well and gets tall. Same for water wisteria. I struggled with bacopa. The bottom leaves always die and fall off, probably due to light intensity. I've removed it all and moved it to shallower tank. There are many varieties of crypt out there. While I haven't tried all of them, the ones I have tried have done well in the 65. Most of them don't get very tall (with crypt spiralis being a notable exception), so you'd want to plant them more toward the front. Water sprite did well floating, as did pearl weed and hornwort. Those are the only floaters I've tried in it, but I feel confident guppy grass and other common floaters would do well also.

While following this and other forums I believe I've seen reports like that about every commonly kept aquarium fish except otos, and maybe corys.

It may set it back a little, but it doesn't kill mine.

I treat the whole tank. The only time I've removed a plant and treated it separately was when I was trying to kill hair algae in a clump of java moss (it didn't work).

Snails, shrimp, and a wide variety of fish and plants are doing just fine in my 8.2 pH hard water. Unless you're targeting something that absolutely won't tolerate the high pH, like caridina shrimp, I wouldn't mess with it. If that is the case, I'd start with RO water and re-mineralize to the parameters that species needs instead of trying to alter your faucet water.

I've used Excel a number of times and haven't noticed it harming my shrimp or snails. I've found it to be fairly effective on black bearded algae and staghorn algae, and completely useless against hair algae. Persistent removal by hand combined with regular water changes seems to be most effective against it (at least for me).

As mentioned above, it will send out runners, with a new plant at the end. Then that plant will send out another, etc. As far as I know there isn't any other way to propagate a single plant.

As mentioned above, go slow. You will almost certainly make mistakes and fish will die. Accept that, don't beat yourself up over it, and learn from it. Other than adding de-chlorinator, don't throw a bunch of chemicals in your tank.

Those should all be fine. Water sprite does better floating for me instead of planted in the substrate, but I know it does fine in substrate for some people. Water wisteria is another one you might want to take a look at. As far as I know replies are always listed in the order they're posted. I've been on some forums where you had an option to have posts arranged with all replies to a post directly under it, but I don't think this one does. When replying to someone I always try to hit the "Quote" link at the bottom left corner of their post so it's obvious what I'm replying to. Not everyone does that, so it can get confusing.

Yes they were. By the way, it feels weird being the same age as old people.

Crypts are good. Shrimp also like places to hide when molting or releasing babies. Pearl weed, susswassertang, hornwort, and Java moss (or other varieties) are good options.

You didn't ask me, but that's probably about right. I have one in a 10 gallon tank. The leaves reached the top and then across the width of the tank. Crypt usteriana might be another option to look into. It's a very attractive plant. The leaves are green on top and bronze on bottom, with ruffled edges. It will send out runners to make new plants (which the Crypt spiralis doesn't do, at least not for me).

It's my understanding that 0.25 ppm is within the margin of error on the test. As far as the 0.50 in your tap water, unless you're doing massive water changes (50%+) it's diluted by the existing tank water, so I wouldn't worry about it. I don't believe adding any bottled products is necessary (other than something to neutralize chlorine, assuming you're on a municipal or other water system).

Allison Krauss is on my Top Five Female Vocalists list.

I like Brian Burns, Charlie Robison, and Wayne Hancock also (though Wayne Hancock may be too much old-school for some people). And then there's Ray Wylie Hubbard, who's still going strong. Edit: Chris Knight is another good one.

Most of mine have black poster board. When I first started keeping fish I used plain brown craft paper. It looks better than you'd think, but of course if it gets wet it needs replacing pretty soon. I still have it on a couple of the older tanks.

If by old masters, you mean country music from 50 or 60 years ago, I agree, but there are some contemporary artists putting out some good music. Cody Jinks is one that comes to mind. His song "David" is one I particularly like (see below). I doubt if I'd recognize any of them either.

Is it anacharis?

I'm glad you're planning to get a shrimp tank, and happy you found the information useful. I really enjoy keeping shrimp. If I had to choose between shrimp and fish it would probably be shrimp.

. . . and don't get me started on "hick hop."

There's a lot of good country music out there, but you won't find it listening to country top 40.

You said you're going to add more hiding places. You probably already know this, but adding dry fallen leaves from hardwood trees like oak is one of the best things for shrimp. They do double duty by providing hiding places and food for the shrimp.

You can often find it (at least here) in the garden department at big box home improvement stores. It's with the potting soil. I have cows, so I haven't had to buy it, but I've seen it at those stores. The reply from @Rube_Goldfish popped up while I was typing the above. Yes, that's the stuff I meant might be available in or near Brooklyn.

I don't believe I've seen any information from MD fish tanks, but I've watched quite a few Father Fish videos, and he makes a lot of sense. The last few tanks I've set up have had a layer of old cow manure at the bottom capped with 2" of either pool filter sand or Black Diamond sandblasting sand. Plants are doing very well in them.

I can't speak to the others, but guppies breed well in my 8.2 pH hard water.