Daniel

Rhizome is a technical term for a thickened, usually horizontal, plant stem. You could make the case that an Amazon sword has a stubby rhizome, but you could just as easily call it a stem. It is a pretty fuzzy area. Amazon swords often propagate from runners. Where do the runners originate from? The leaves, the roots, the stems, the rhizome? But still this isn't the same sort of rhizome you have in an Anubias or Cryptocoryne. And yes ferns have rhizomes too, but rhizomes are not restricted to ferns.

I don't know the answer to whether it is beneficial to have a day night differential. I know that when I take temperatures out in the wild there is a mild day and night swing. The only two benefits that come to mind are: a lower temperature at night would lead to a lower metabolism which would conserve energy for the fish a day night temperature cycle might help regulate the fish's internal clock (but this is rank speculation)

Talk about a centerpiece plant! That is one healthy sword plant.

I haven't found any heaters or heater controller that are accurate. It always a compromise with heaters. If your heater is set to let's say 78 °F and goes off when it reaches 78 °F and turns back on when drops below 78 °F, then the heater is constantly turning off and on, which eventually will wear out the thermostatic controller on the heater potentially sticking the heater permanently on. It is probably better to have the heater over shoot a little, then turn off for a set amount of time (hysteresis) before it comes back on again. The reason I use external controllers is to safeguard against the heater's thermostatic control failing in the on position and boiling my fish. I have had that happen and it is very discouraging. But heater controller thermostats are just as likely to be off a degree or two as the heater thermostats. You just have to find out how much and in what direction the thermostat is mis-calibrated. One way to do this is measure with several thermometers and take the average and use this as the most accurate temperature. Or personally, I bought a NIST traceable thermometer accurate to within 0.1 °F and I use this to calibrate my other thermometers. The strategy I am also using (besides heater controllers) is to use under-powered heaters. I use 50 watt heaters in 40 gallon aquariums (or larger). The heaters are set to 80 °F but the heaters are too weak to ever get the aquarium up to 80 °F. So they end up running all of the time and never, ever shut off. The aquariums end up staying between 75 °F and 78 °F My belief is by never thermostatically cycling the heater, it prolongs the life of the heater. And I am also protected from the heater ever sticking in the on position as I have already caused the heaters to run all the time anyway. Using these strategies I haven't had a heater problem since the 1990's.

One of the other pairs have been mating. There has got to a chemical signal in the water, something like a hormone because three pairs mating at the same time in the same aquarium doesn't seem like chance. The pair mating today has larger fish than the pair in the photos above. Also, all the males are orange and all the females are blue, and all the fish are siblings.

Those are called adventitious roots. It allow plants to propagate vegetatively from leaves and stems and is completely normal. Many plants propagate almost exclusively from leaves and stems and almost never from seeds.

I sure I am about to jinx it by saying it but I think I last medicated a fish in the 1970s. My fish deaths are mostly 'accidental'. I killed a fish last week by leaving it outside in a bucket in freezing weather (without realizing he was in the bucket). I have fish jump out of aquariums occasionally. I had a nice swordtail female jump out of the pond she was in and died on the lawn this summer. In the 1990s I had a heater failure that killed a dozen Heckel discus, and a house fire in 2013 that killed everything in the big aquarium. No fin rot, ich, velvet, red splotches, fungus, popeye, etc. since the 1970s. I also don't try and get rid of planaria, detritus worms, hydra, etc. algae or mulm as these are signs of a healthy ecosystem. I know my discus have external parasites because occasionally they will scratch themselves on a piece of driftwood (I think it is called flashing now), but I haven't seen them do that in several months. That is not the sort of thing I would treat for as it doesn't seem to hurt the fish and goes away on it own eventually. I am far more dangerous to my fish than any disease apparently.

I have lights, feeders and pumps that Alexa controls some organized into groups so that I can tell Alexa 'Turn off Science Room Lights'. and all the lights not otherwise on timers go off all together.

@gardenman I have a center standpipe. Is that like a weir? I have 4 holes drilled in the bottom of my tank. Looking South: Looking North:

Everyone loves mollies! Some people like balloon fish, others not so much, nothing wrong either way as it is just an aesthetic choice.

Yes, it is permanent. I mounted it to the wall to save space. All the daily RODI water goes in to the big white holding container in the photo. And the black pump at the bottom sends the water to the big aquarium when needed. @Tami You mentioned you figured out your water issue? What was the solution?

There is some research that shows fast growing plants like hornwort and water lettuce are the best at removing nitrates

I have never had one. Like @Roko mentions above, I would refer to: How to Care for a Dwarf Aquarium Lily WWW.AQUARIUMCOOP.COM Wish you could put lily pads in your aquarium? Check out the dwarf aquarium lily or Nymphaea stellata. Compared to your typical green... which says, 'If you see no growth after one to three weeks, try turning the bulb over and give it another one to three weeks to sprout. Plant bulbs actually have a top and bottom side, but we cannot see it until it starts growing leaves up toward the surface and roots down toward the substrate.'

@Blurb OMG that is stunning! Thank you! What light cycle (if any) do you run?

That's sounds like good advice! The UV sterilizer only reduces free floating algae (like green water). UV doesn't have any effect on attached algae in the aquarium because none of the attached algae is ever exposed the the UV light.

Thanks @RyanR, I never knew what those black things that came with the Stingray light were for until now.

My go to native fish plant is hornwort. But if you are looking for something more stylish, the native plants I find in the same ditches as the native fish are, Vallisneria, Bacopa, Sagittaria, Myriophyllum and banana plants. Of those I think only Bacopa is salt tolerant (but I don't really know much when it comes to salt).

Under your account settings:

@Jdogtrainer was having a similar problem, but it now winning the battle: I think @Jdogtrainer cut back on light and fertilizer? Maybe they can let us know what worked for them?

No, no, not you @Cole, I knew what you meant. What I was thinking was that people refer to 'fish police' on forums. But here is a situation where there are armed law enforcement officers whose actual job is to be fish police and just the thought made me laugh! It is one thing to fuss at someone for keeping a betta in a too small container, but quite another to have to power of the State to be able to enforce behavior.

Thanks @Patrick M. Bodega Aquatics (I like the new profile logo 🙂 ). The vision is a pair of proud parents herding a school of baby discus from place to place and protecting the babies from predators. I don't know how many I will keep. My main goal is to have discus breeding in a community tank and successfully raising babies in a community situation. I was able to get this to work with angelfish, but this is my first try with discus.

@Paul's suggestion is what I would do. It is very important to give them something so attractive that they cannot resist it. Bloodworms, or any live food like blackworms or Daphnia (both of which I realize may be very hard to obtain). Sure they may not eat for a few days after being moved, but you can't let this go on too long or they can begin to decline. What food are they not eating? Is there a way to find out what they ate before you got them?

Real life fish police.🙂

This has to be one of the most common experiences on the forum. Vallisneria either grows like a weed, or no amount of coddling will coax it to grow?

Keep the top part. It is the part that might grow best.