Odd Duck

Snail.

Did you get some?

@Sombat The app didn’t hit it in this case. The plant the app choose is different with a deeply cleft leaf. I’ve grown those and they reliably have the cleft leaf like other water lily type plants. Water poppy like @Nuggets Beardsays looks right on a Google search.

@anewbie So sorry! I didn’t read closely enough and you are very correct about the regular sword!

@ARMYVET Wheels are a must have! That’s the whole reason I get the brutes. But I only have room for the 32’s. The 50’s are just sooooo big! I have to wrestle them over a carpet edge. 🙄 One of these days we’ll get all our floors redone with waterproof composite planks. Easier rolling and cleanup of spills. I’ve come to hate the carpet, for sure!

Might be a little koo koo. I’m not even going to bother with most of those. You’re pointing them out because you probably already know they’re incorrect. I don’t use bottled pH adjusters as such, but have used RODI and remineralizers as needed for certain species. I’ve also used crushed coral in bags in filters to keep calcium up for snails and such. Most fish are less sensitive to pH than the books would lead us to believe. They can accommodate as long as there aren’t rapid changes. I am a *huge* believer in quarantine tanks and therefore rarely have to use them for hospital tanks for treatment after the fish gets sick. I only rarely have to treat fish while in quarantine with the exception being pea puffers. I probably should deworm fish more often, but if they’re eating well and nobody in the group is skinny, then I don’t treat with no specific indicators present.

If you’re feeling it’s too slow refilling from your brute barrel, you need a bigger pump and hose. Mine refills the tanks pretty quick. Takes about 5 or so minutes to pump around 25 gallons. Mine is a 32 gallon barrel that I don’t fill completely so I can still roll it around and I still have a gallon or so in the bottom after pumping everything it can. I’m using a large powerhead I've had for around 20 years (not used for about 10 years). I just bought, but haven’t yet tried, a replacement pump since I know it’s got to be on borrowed time.

As long as you’re only burying roots, it’s fine. When the plant let breaks off the bulb, and you bury the roots, it looks like you’ve buried the bulb. But sometimes there is no spoon, errrr, bulb.

Not sure what that is but it absolutely is not Amazon frogbit. This is Amazon frogbit. Grows with paired leaves and I’ve never seen them over about 1.25” wide.

E. parviflorus is a rather small sword, typically only getting to 6” tall and a proportionate root system. Still extensive for the size of the plants (it’s still a sword) but not insane like the bigger swords will get. A couple months in pots should be OK for this species.

Pretty much any kind of container would work. Depending on how big your swords are now and how long you expect them to be in the container should help you decide what size container. There will be at least a little set back with any transplantation, but swords will usually deal with it OK. Make sure to get some root tabs in the pot and give the plants enough room. I have gotten tissue culture plants of several kinds and often pop them into small cups/pots until they get big enough to stand up to the fish or snails that are in the tank where I want them, or the tank they’re going into is ready. Don’t use a tiny pot, but a fairly small one should be OK if they’re really small now, especially for parviflorus. If they’re already decent sized, go bigger for the pot. The sooner you can get them to their final spot the better they will do in the long run.

@Collette It was a nice gesture. 😳🙄😧 I’m not sure I could have been so kind if my hubby had infected a bunch of my fish! I’m so glad my hubby also has some fish experience and has listened to me talk about fish being in quarantine for decades and knows that I always have a quarantine/hospital tank. Good luck with your Ich treatment!

I can’t quite tell if that’s hair algae or staghorn algae. When you rub it between your fingers is it soft or does it feel kind of gritty? Soft hair algae will be eaten by young Otocinclus and several other fish but otos can be tank mates for pea puffers. Apparently adults are less reliable about eating it. Staghorn algae is harder, literally. It will feel gritty between your fingers. Some Nerites will apparently eat it, but not many other snails (or fish) will. Nerites also relish hair algae. Amano shrimp will potentially eat both. The staghorn algae is a lot more likely to get eaten (by either Nerites or Amanos) after a peroxide treatment. You can use about 3 mls (of standard, 3% peroxide) per gallon of water in the tank, although I’ve heard up to 10 mls per gallon, but 3 mls per gallon is a LOT. You shut off all filters because you want still water. Pipette or syringe the peroxide directly onto the algae you want to kill (also works on hair algae or other types of algae), let it sit for 5-10 minutes, then turn your filters back on. Personal experience has shown me that it’s very hard to keep algae under control in a pea puffer tank. They are carnivores, so they naturally have potential for higher nitrates in the tank. Plus they are very sloppy eaters, sometimes leaving half the snail in the shell or half a dead worm laying around, causing more nitrates. They are limited in who they will tolerate as tankmates (unless you have your shoal in a large, busy community tank). Last, they are beggars, triggering overfeeding by those of us in the Overfeeders Anonymous category. My sympathies if your pea puffer addiction is like mine.

@Collette I don’t run CO2, but I’m sure those that do will chime in at some point. But it only makes sense to me to discontinue. CO2 is for the plants and any excess can harm the fish. I would say discontinue during treatment and make certain that levels are appropriate when you restart. Chronic borderline levels could likely be enough of a stressor to make a fish more vulnerable to Ich. Sometimes it’s stress that causes fish to break with symptoms.

I want some gold bladder snails, too!

Have you tried cleaning the outside at the same time *while* you’re cleaning the inside? Maybe the distraction of pecking at your arm will keep them from freaking out? How do they feel about a magnetic algae scraper? You could spray a paper towel with your glass cleaner and sandwich it under the algae scraper on the outside and do both sides of the glass at once.

Well, somebody did “take out” the rummynoses, so clearly there is danger around. 😆 My *chicken* is my adult Jack Dempsey male. 10 freaking inches of fish and he hides more than any of my plecos (well, except my clown pleco, but I don’t think it’s fair to count that one).

My lfs is about 3.5 miles away. Both PetSmart and PetCo are closer, but . . . .

@xXInkedPhoenixX Thanks so much for your time and the pics. Very helpful! I’m going to try to document as I go if I can remember to take pics as I go along. I tend to get too absorbed and just dig in and go. It could take weeks for Val to establish, so it may be a long time before I’m fully done with it.

Left to right, front corner looks like it might be a Crypt of some kind but I’d need to see the whole plant (not worth uprooting it, just give it time and have us guess again in a few weeks). Back corner looks like a sword but too many similar ones to be sure which species variety. On the wood, does look like one of the narrow leafed Anubias, maybe congensis, frazerii, minima, or jalapeño? Behind the wood looks like water wisteria. Back right another sword, maybe the same type. Front right is an Alternanthera reineckii but I don’t know which variety. For sure you’re going to need more light, especially for that AR. It will grow slowly with moderate light but won’t have good color except the underside of the leaf. If you can get enough light, it will have better color. It will have the best color with CO2 and if I remember right, this is one gets even better color with very low nitrates in the water column (somebody please correct me if I’m wrong). Be sure to trim it before it breaks the surface since emerse growth can trigger leaf drop on the lower stems. That’s the best I can do for you. Others may have other thoughts.

Good to know! Gives me hope I can use fairly small pots and hide them behind rocks.

@xXInkedPhoenixX Do the roots stay short? Or just start short?

I’m going to be completely redoing a 75 gallon that is currently a hot mess of plastic plants. It has a pair of rescued adult Jack Dempseys (10” and 8”) and 2 rescued common plecos (I know!) that are subadult at almost 10” each. All of these fish have been very bad about dislodging everything I’ve planted in the tank, no matter how deep the substrate and despite laying rocks over the roots. The plecos dislodge plants by just doing pleco stuff, but the Jacks (especially the male) will actively grab the plants and jerk them around. My idea (inspired by @dasaltemelosguy tank pic posted on another thread) is to use some extra tall lucky bamboo to go all the way to the bottom of the tank and have the spiral, leafy portion above the water line. I think I have a solid plan for securing the tops of the bamboo. My plan to secure the bottoms is to plant the bamboos in ceramic pots with screen over the bottom holes, dirt, then sand layers, then stack pebbles/rocks all around the stems inside the pots so they’re as securely held as I can make them. Then the pots will be braced with some large river rocks (4-6”) to keep them in place. Large river rocks will be further reinforced with smaller rock, then whatever large “pebbles” I have leftover after packing around the stems of the bamboo. The “pebbles” are about 1” to 2”. I would like to keep the tank as bare bottom as possible since this squad of fish are poop monsters. My real question is, how much room do the roots of lucky bamboo need? Yes, I know it’s not actually bamboo, it’s Dracaena sanderiana, but I haven’t grown this particular Dracaena before. The pics of the bamboo shows pretty short roots. I’m assuming these are likely trimmed for shipping? I have assorted size pots available from 3” to 12” wide. I’d like to keep the pots as small and low as practical. I’m also guessing I’ll likely need to go at least to a 4”-6” wide pot? Should I go bigger? I also have a rectangular pot that is about 5” wide by 17” long and 5” deep. The bamboo is going to be in the middle part of the tank (I have big, sponge-filled HOB’s on each end at the back). This rectangular pot may be just barely long enough to work or I may have to do one additional pot. Would it be better to use this single, large, rectangular pot? Should I just go to a full sand bottom and stack rocks around the bamboo without doing pots? I’m a little worried about the sand triggering breeding in the Jacks and I do NOT want that. I keep the temp down around 74 F to minimize breeding and never do cooler water during water changes. I’d also like to plant some jungle Val the same way as the bamboo, but possibly slightly larger pots to get more room for future runners. I’ll be starting these in a different tank until the Val is established. Open to ideas and suggestions, but I mostly need to know how much root mass I’ll need to accommodate.

Got me curious and chilling would probably be very wrong for Barclaya. I did only mean that as an example, not a specific for Barclaya. After some searching and reading, it seems they do tend to like it warm. Range most quotes was 73-82.4 Fahrenheit. One site mentioned they may not flower until it gets over 85 degrees. Maybe your bulb wants to be warmer? I did find this posting on a forum from 2003 by a guy that appears pretty experienced with them. He doesn’t talk about temperature but does mention sometimes storing them in damp peat. He also mentions a couple dormancy periods. Interesting plant! All of the following was just copy pasted including the authors name at the end. Thank you, Roger Miller! #3 · Feb 28, 2003 I've grown gobs of Barclaya, but I'm not sure that everyone sees the same pattern I get. Starting from the bulblets that appear around an old tuber, the normal life cycle seems to consist of: 1) a period of fairly rapid growth that lasts a few months until leaf blades are about 6 inches long and the tuber reaches about thumbnail sized. 2) a period of dormancy or near dormancy usually lasting 2 or three months. Commerically distributed bulbs are usually look like they're at this stage. 3) a period of "adult" growth when the plant blossoms and leaf blades can reach nearly a foot in length, with petioles extending the whole leaf to a length of 2 feet or more. The tuber at this point can be almost an inch thick and 2 or 3 inches long. 4) a long period of gradual decline during which the new leaves are progressively smaller and the plant produces numerous bulblets around the mature tuber. On reaching this point the plant is probably about 2 years old. I have seen plants go dormant at this point then come back for a second, weak adult season. Usually the tubers are pretty thin and wasted at this stage and I have so many young plants from the bulblets that I just discard the old tuber. The pattern is sometimes disturbed by transplanting. Other times transplanting doesn't seem to bother the plant. Maybe the difference depends on whether the plant is on the waxing side of a cycle, or on the waning side. I've seen periods of dormancy triggered by transplanting, and I've also seen plants that were in decline rejuvenate after being uprooted, trimmed and replanted. Your mileage may vary. A lot. In my experience dormant period usually last 6 weeks or more; I think I've had them stay dormant or near dormant under water for as much as 6 months. As long as the tuber is still whole and firm it can start back up again. I've also stored them out of water in baggies with moist peat moss for 3-4 months. They could probably last longer than 3-4 months if you can keep them from drying out. Rob, with your bulbs, I would probably replant them in the substrate somewhere out of the way and just wait for something to happen. I don't recall having much trouble transplanting them soon after they start a new growth phase. Keep in mind that when they do start again they could become "tank buster" plants at full growth. Roger Miller

Yes, that looks like the emerse form. I have some transitioning right now that looked just like this when they arrived. They’re coming in nicely with more typical crypt form and light pink color since I’m low tech and these are in a fairly deep tank and not a crazy amount of light. I can’t guarantee yours are Pink Flamingo, but they do at least look like what I got and those are transitioning nicely.