KyleKVK

I should have mentioned I can and have grown other plants 🙂

I don’t get it! I’ve never had such a hard time growing aquarium plants before. I put it in my tank with a root tab and some easy green, a weight loosely tied around the plant so it doesn’t float, and it just melts away sadly. I’ve gone through two of them already! What am I doing wrong? I wanna have pretty Vallisnaria in my tank. Apologies if I sound frustrated, I’m just confused.

To be clear, it looks nothing like Ich. It's one bump, and her feces is also clear and like a spiderweb. I don't know what's going on, but I think something else in the tank was aggressive towards her (probably one of the males). I can't really re-home her, I have a breeder box but that's about it (plus another one of my endler's is super pregnant and I might use the breeder box for that one). Is there anything I can do to protect her in the tank?

I don’t think I get how to trim aquarium plants. I realize that’s a super beginner question, but I have this Java Fern whose time has come. It still has some healthy leaves so I just trimmed the dead ones. I got close to the bottom of the stems of the leaves, but it looks like I gave my plant a bad haircut! Some stem is still visible! Is that okay? Am I doing this right?

… or do I have to carefully tweezer individual bits into the substrate?

I was hoping it’d be that simple! Is there anything special I should clean it with?

This is kind of gross, but I have just discovered a slimy type liquid on the underside of the glass where my light sits on top of my glass lid. A quick google search says it’s something called “Cyanobacteria”? I don’t know anything about it and would love any advice on what to do.

I have an apisto that has turned really pale after a water change. This was months ago, and he’s still fine, but still pale. Typically I monitor for nitrates and only do changes when they exceed a certain point which is why it’s been a while Aside from a little bit of algae due to it being summer, my tank is doing fine. Why is my fish so pale? I should mention his tankmates are all doing just fine. It’s strictly a one fish problem. He’s also still eating.

No. Should I just boil it or something?

I have an apisto cave covered in algae and I don’t know how to get rid of it. Can I dip it in peroxide or vinegar? It’s harmless but it’s an eyesore

My algae very well could be a different kind, I was assuming it was BBA!

I am dealing with an outbreak of black beard hair algae in my tank. This has been going on for a while, but has recently gotten worse due to me upgrading my aquarium light. Recently I noticed my Oto eating the algae though, which is strange because I didn’t think that they eat this type of algae. If anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with this type of algae, please feel free to let me know. But, it’s not as bad as I thought if my Oto is willing to eat some of it. Maybe all I need to do is buy another

Hi, I've never trimmed aquarium plants before. For stem plants, I should cut, remove the "top half", remove some of the leaves from the bottom of the "top half", plant the "top half" in the substrate (or throw it away if you want). For root plants, I should just cut dead/decaying leaves. That's it. Do I have it right?

Yes, totally normal

I got this assassin snail to deal with a pest snail outbreak. Its not really working but today I saw him ignoring perfectly good tiny food right there on the leaf he’s on!

I do have an Oto but he seems happy with algae and never eats my vegetables so I never thought anything of it. He’s got a round belly and has kept himself alive so far. But it totally is an Amazon Sword that he might have eaten. I’ll try again with the vegetables. My snail and Oto do not seem to know how to deal with them at all!

Hi. I woke up the other morning and one of the leaves on one of my sword plants suddenly looks like something ate it and left all the "bones" of the leaf. It doesn't look like any rot or plant nutrient deficiency that I've ever seen. I can't post a picture at the moment but hopefully someone can visualize what I'm saying.

I actually tried that, none of my pest snails were interested. I’m thinking about ordering an assassin snail and removing my mystery while he does his dirty work. But then I wouldn’t know what to do with him if it meant I couldn’t keep both snails

The common recommendation is clown loaches or assassin snails but a quick google tells me they think all snails are delicious and not just the tiny annoying ones. I have a mystery snail that I'm very fond of. I'd like it to be unharmed while dealing with my pest snails

Do you guys take fish that need to be rehomed? I have an Apistogramma that I recently found out was a second male (sneaker) and I don’t have the tank space for two males. I’d love to trade it for a female if possible.

Oh my goodness, I’ve never noticed that every other female I’ve ever seen didn’t have that purple stripe. You’re probably right, my female is a sneaker male

It’s a 20g tall! I’d consider my tank to be moderately planted, but no leaf litter. I’ll look into that. Same thing with the houses, I’ll look into some with tiny holes (like the ones from the co-op, this one is from my LFS). There’s a coconut behind the wood too.

Here’s a video: https://share.icloud.com/photos/01GUQ3Hd3uNveIu4UE_Z6XdQQ please ignore background noise!

I can’t post video but I just took these two photos. Female is the smaller one hiding in the plants, male is the brighter orange one. I’ll find a way to upload a video and link it here

My LFS is knowledgeable and I’d usually trust them to know a female, but I’ve called and they’re out of stock at the moment! You think that would explain why he chases her a lot?