BaRanchik

I see now. Very helpful, thanks!

You got a lifetime customer right here! 😉

Oh my, now I see why you decided to make your own product, haha. Mine is called Nutrafin Plant Gro. Right now I use it twice a week (5ml for my 10 gal every time), and its contents are:

I have a bunch of different stem plants, anubias, java ferns, a crypt, tiger lotus, dwarf sag. All of them are doing great and are growing nicely. My light is a Nicrew light, currently only 1, but I'm actually getting some high tech plants soon, so I ordered a second one which I'll be using alongside the first one. The light is about 2.5 inches away from the water surface, and I have a clear acrylic cover. The duckweed is currently covering my whole tank, but the problem is every few days it starts disintegrating, just like this article from Co-op states is happening due to a nitrogen deficiency: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/plant-nutrient-deficiencies I can't get Easy Green or any of the Co-op products because unfortunately they don't ship here. Amazon doesn't ship those products either, and ebay's price is 3x higher due to shipping. I found 1 place that sells the Seachem Nitrogen on the other side of the country, so I ordered it. So unfortunately I have to rely on products that are either being shipped here, or they have a local distributor. This hobby, as far as I can tell, is not as big here as it is in the US, mainly for cost reasons - so even the local fish shops don't get too much of the well known brands and products due to the lack of customers.

I just ordered a nitrogen specific fertilizer to compliment the all-in-one fert I'm using. I have duckweed (by choice) covering my whole tank, and it's sucking up WAY too much nutrients. The tank is 2 months old, under stocked 10 gal. Ammonia and nitrite are 0, and I'd love to have nitrates stable on 30ppm. I'm doing water changes every 2 weeks, and about 25%. I get very little algae so far, just a bit of diatom and green hair that my cleanup crew is taking care of for the most part. My tank is heavily planted, and everything but floaters is doing great so far. The problem starts with nitrates - my fert includes them, but I guess it's not very concentrated, and this is the only one I could find around here. Within 1 week, nitrates dropped from 30ppm to 5-10ppm or less, and old floater leaves began dying slowly (the tips begin disintegrating slowly). This has happened before and as suggested here I now dose twice a week. For a bit it seemed great but now nitrate levels are super low again! So I ordered Flourish Nitrogen, hoping it will solve the problem. I checked their website as they have a dosing calculator and it tells me I need to use 10 caps to raise it to that level?! This seems weird so I wanted to hear some more opinions here. Also, I don't want to get a whole bottle of this fert every 2 months.... I am thinking of trying a new dosing schedule: API Leaf Zone for potassium and iron twice a week, Flourish Nitrogen once a week, all-in-one fert once a week. Right now it's 2x API and 2x AIO. I'm afraid to lower the amounts, I don't want to kill my healthy plants! I'd appreciate any suggestions regarding this situation.

I'd assume, just by seeing how much content on TikTok alone there is of a woman/girl with bettas, that it's not really the situation. However, I guess guys are more prone to the multiple tank syndrome because many of us are materialistic people, and we want more of the things we enjoy. I know for sure I'm never satisfied with the amount of tanks I have. I've been into this hobby only for a few months, and I already have 3 tanks. I just want more and more aquascapes, breeds of fish, and different sizes of tanks. Basically I want to have the experience with as many fish and tanks possible. This is only me speaking about myself, but it has been shown on researches that men are more materialistic than women, so this might be the reason you hear of a wife who wants her husband to stop buying tanks more often than you hear the opposite.

Thanks! Hmm... Well I am keeping her with some snowball shrimp, and actually I don't really mind if she eats some of their baby shrimplets. What I don't want to happen is for her to eat the adults. So far she has absolutely no interest in them, and it seems like they know to be aware when she swims around. I won't be feeding live too often as I'm too lazy to hatch them on a daily basis - probably once every week or two. Plus, the tank is heavily planted and I'm always adding more plants, and replanting stems. I guess I'll find out soon if she stays calm - hopefully testing that just once won't make her kill every single shrimp in her tank.

I'm going to set up a brine shrimp hatchery, to treat 2 bettas every once in a while. How much brine shrimp should I use for 2 bettas and what ratios are recommended between water, salt and eggs? Also, do I need a specific salt, or will table salt do? Thanks!

Such a nice guppy!!

Great! I have that one, so I just ordered another one. 🙂

I was wondering if getting 2 cheap lights will do the same job as an expensive light will do in terms of light intensity. I want to add some high-tech plants and I'm sure my NICREW light won't be enough for that, especially considering I am aiming for a layer of duckweed at the top (I'll have a floating ring clear of any duckweed right above the high tech plants). I have yet to find a place that sells well-known brands' lights here, and if they do - the price is usually 50%+ more than it is in the US. I'm also hesitant to order it online as it's not cheap and if it breaks quickly for whatever reason - I'll have a nightmare figuring that out and will probably just have to buy a new one. Amazon is really the only site I can trust with online orders of expensive stuff when it comes to shipping to Israel (sadly Aquarium Coop doesn't ship here yet ***😉***), and they do not ship any of the ones Cory is mentioning every now and then in his videos. I have a timer on my socket so timing everything shouldn't be a problem at all. It's only the right light intensity I am after, to achieve very deep reds on some plants (I do use CO2). Will getting another NICREW light replicate the intensity of something like the Fluval 3.0 or Chihirios WRGB? My tank is a 10gal, 30cm high (11 inches). Edit: Each NICREW light is using 11w.

Oh no, I can only imagine how thick the layer of duckweed will be in my tank.

I have 1 adult male, 3 adult females and about 4 tiny shrimplets. Originally, I had only the 3 females and I got the other ones because I hoped they'll start breeding. Within a few hours from putting the newly bought ones in the tank, look what happened. I was sure it'd take more time, but I guess shrimp have needs too! Hopefully in a few days or so the other females will carry too. Can't wait to see tons of shrimplets everywhere.

I'm sorry about the fish. In case you are still thinking of getting a new goldfish, I'll tell you my experience with this. Anyway, this looks to me just like normal growth of the fat layer fancy goldfish like Ranchus and Lionheads have. It looks like pimples and if you watch it carefully for a few days, you'll see it's 'healing' and it's now normal colored and a part of the fat layer they have on their face. If it's somewhere other than on its head, I'd be careful and look for a different answer. My lionhead had these many times and he is healthy and fine, without any medication.

I am by no means an expert, but I've had a similar problem and people here sent me this link that really did help me figuring out what was lacking.

Where can one find these deficiency charts? I've been looking for something that can point me better to what exactly is missing in terms of ferts, so I don't overdose on other stuff.

This is Miley, my wild female betta!

I used to love them until 1 single pond snail sneaked into my tank on a plant. 1 month later I had the whole substrate covered with snail poop, and the whole glass covered with babies.

If you can please tell me if something is missing from this list, I'll definitely get it: iron potassium phosphorus nitrate boron copper manganese zinc Would you suggest I double the amount of Leaf Zone then? Or maybe double is too much?

New growth seem to be VERY pale. Duckweed is spreading very slowly and new growth is whitish, and I'd actually like it to grow quickly. Anubias Barteri new growth is also somewhat pale compared to old leaves. Crypt Wendtii Red is now brown but healthy. Tank is moderately planted, at least until everything begins to spread. I'm using API Leaf Zone for iron, Seachem Phosphoros, and Nutrafin Plant Gro for other nutrients. I also use Aquasoil. Using DIY CO2. All of these I dose once a week after a 25% water change, at the recommended amount suggested on the product. Do I need to dose more? How often and what amount of which product if so? pH: 7.2 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 20-30 Temp: 25C

I saw on a specific YT channel that some types of plecos love destroying amazon swords, so this might be the cause for the swords having trouble. What other plants do you have that are having trouble?

To add to this, my sister owns a betta for a few months now and it's doing fine in close to 8 pH (tap water here is super hard and high pH).

` So after reading both your comments I have decided to get a pressurized system, with a decent canister to replace the plastic bottles, and I'm going to use the baking soda recipe. Hopefully either the diffusers I have will work, or the one that comes with the canister will. I have given up with yeast because for some reason there just isn't enough pressure for me.

Really? That's strange. I guess it's the diffuser's fault. I'll have to get even more of those. How many hours/days before bubbles began coming out of your diffuser?

This has to be the cleanest scape I've ever seen. I love it!