[KH and CO2]

The dissolved CO2 does help your plants, and I wouldn't be too concerned if your fish are doing well as is.
Keep in mind that the tap water holds lots of CO2 when it's first put into the tank, but plants use it all the time.

Anyway, changing stuff around too quickly can only do worse, so if you want to raise pH or something similar, make sure you do it slowly.

[Can You Cut the Plastic Tube in a Sponge Filter to Install an Air Stone?]

15 minutes ago, Chris287 said:

I want to install a air stone in my sponge filter but it has that plastic tube could I just cut it off with some wire cutters and install and air stone.

I did it with mine and it's working.

[Yeast based CO2 not generating enough pressure]

Hey!

I wonder if anyone has had any experience with the yeast-based system.
I'm using MJ's recipe and it's working, and releasing lots of CO2 bubbles - 1-2 per second, and it should be enough for my 10gal tank.

The problem starts with the diffusers.  I don't know how much pressure needs to be in the system for them to work, but I definitely don't have enough. I I let the pressure build up and now my bottles are holding so much CO2 it's hard for me to even squeeze them. From the water bottle I have an airline tube that goes straight to the diffuser.

Bubbles just won't come out.... I've tried 2 different diffusers and the result is the same. The pressure builds up so much that it's hard for the CO2 bubbles to keep coming out of the bottles, and still no luck with getting that CO2 in my tank. For the last few days I've been experimenting with this and it seems to be the diffusers. Both are brand new.

Is it just that this system is not meant to be used with diffusers? I know others have success with it, so I wonder what's going on.

Right now it's connected to an airstone, and the bubbles are pretty small, but nothing compared to a normal diffuser.

Edit: Trying manually to blow air as hard as I can into those diffusers also does nothing (I don't know if it's useful info though.)

[(Captain) Blueberry's Finished 5 Gallon Tank!]

9 minutes ago, Chlo said:

They seem to be doing fine. I haven't seen Blueberry nip him yet, but he sometimes swims close to him and stares at him like, "Who are you??" 🤣

I'd give them 3-4 days. From my experience that was enough. 🙂

[(Captain) Blueberry's Finished 5 Gallon Tank!]

2 hours ago, Chlo said:

 

Thanks! Yeah the frogbit has been growing pretty fast! I'm still not the best at taking care of plants, but at least they are still alive! 😅 A few days ago I got a yellow mystery snail who I named Mr. Eggy (lol) to clean the algae, but unfortunately Blueberry was nipping him, so I moved him to my 20 gallon.

 

My sister's betta was nipping on the mystery snail I got her the first few days. He then realized her antennas are not worms and they are now living in harmony for over 3 months. I'd give it a few day and see if the betta leaves the snail alone. Snails can grow back their antennas and even their eyes, so it should be okay.

[Female Betta lost color and hitting against plants and walls]

12 minutes ago, CalmedByFish said:

Hmm. Were they sharing the same water, or just had tanks side-by-side? 

Side by side. They were on a Betta rack.

[Female Betta lost color and hitting against plants and walls]

2 hours ago, CalmedByFish said:

If you're not already, I'd suggest keeping the lights dim until she's acting healthy. It will help her feel like she's safely hidden, and being calm is a benefit to health. Sorry I don't have more ideas. 

She's a pretty little fish. 

Thanks for the tip. I know the picture look as if I'm blasting the tank with light, but actually it's much dimmer, so I hope it's comfortable enough.

And yes, she is. Hopefully pretty soon I can update this post and show her true color. She's a beautiful Betta Mahachai - she was as colorful as a male the first time I saw her at the LFS, very dark overall, and covered with a lot of sparkling blue scales. I originally wanted to get the male that was presented next to her, but he developed ich by the time I could go back and get a fish, so I have decided to skip on him.

[Female Betta lost color and hitting against plants and walls]

3 hours ago, Hobbit said:

Any updates on your betta? Perhaps she was just getting used to new water? I’m hoping she’s settled in and doing better now!

She is still alive, and still no physical signs of any disease. I hope it won't be too late when I get the ParaCleanse.
She is still flashing but less frequently, and she is slowly regaining color, although it's far from her original color.
She is also getting stressed pretty easily, but she calms down quickly. She now eats almost comfortably when I feed her directly with my tweezers and she hides less.

So overall I think she'll be okay. My only fear is that she has a parasite and I will be too late to apply the medicine.

[Plant Failure]

Are the plants newly bought? If you have them for less than 2-3 months melting is normal, and it takes time for them to get used to your water. For me, the tiger lotus was also the first one to come back to life, and it was doing really well even in a temporary bowl it was in, without any consideration/work towards ideal parameters.
I'd give it some more time and see what happens.

[Female Betta lost color and hitting against plants and walls]

Hey,

I just got that betta yesterday. I actually saw her a week before the purchase and she had a very dark blue color.
A week after, she was still very active, and she was doing great compared to other bettas on the show wall, so I picked her.
The moment the worker took her out she lost all color, I assume due to stress, which I guess is normal.

My tank is planted and I've made sure it's cycled. It has some hiding places so I was hoping she will color back up pretty fast.
She did get some color back but she gets stressed again every few minutes and goes back to her stress stripes coloration.
She's very active and was very curious, exploring her new tank when I put her in. Her only tank mates are 4 shrimp that were there from before, and 1 Otto I got along with her.

A few hours later, she began acting strange. She started hitting her side against the plants and walls. I waited overnight and she is still doing that so I decided to try and treat with Maracyn and I ordered Fritz ParaCleanse as well (sadly, this item is no where to be found here in Israel so I had to order it online, and it might take up to 2 weeks to get here). Hopefully this either passes by itself, or the Maracyn helps that.
I don't see any signs of Ich, or fungus so maybe it's something I'm not yet familiar with.

She is not used to feeding yet, but I did manage to get her to eat at least a bit of flake food.

Water parameters:

• pH - 7.2
• Nitrates - 20
• Hardness - says 400 mg/L on my test strips
• Nitrite - 0
• Ammonia - 0
• Water Temperature - 25C

Tank is a 10gal.

I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience. What would you do next?

[High pH and very hard tap-water possibly killing my plants?]

1 hour ago, Koi said:

For now get nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (NPK). Flourish trace is essentially micronutrients and since you already have bottle for that, you could skip getting that bottle . Flourish excel is an algaecide which could be useful but it might cause some problems for your valisneria and it's not necessary. Before buying the Seachem line, Nilocg has an all in one fertilizer as well but I'm not sure if that is available to you.

Trying looking around first and see whats available if you would prefer an all in one fert. I usually don't like telling people they have to buy specific products. Fertilizers are fertilizer no matter where it comes from as long as its aquarium safe. Look for something within your price range find something that works for you wether its an all in one with a pump head or the specific NPK bottles.

The only 2 brands I could find here are a very limited variety of Seachem products, and the brand of the fert I already own. So I'll be getting them soon. Hopefully that works and saves my plants. Thanks!

[High pH and very hard tap-water possibly killing my plants?]

24 minutes ago, Koi said:

Hi @BaRanchik sorry to hear your experience isn't going as you'd like. To answer your main question, I don't think water hardness is your problem, neither ph. From what I understand somewhere around 90-95% of easily available aquatics plants can be grown in a wide range of hardness. I find that its very few plants that need more specific gh/kh values and they often tend to be harder to get anyways.

I read your other post but just wanted confirm that your setup is a fish bowl right?

I don't think lighting is your issue, since its a bowl I think almost any kind of light would be able to reach such a short distance. Even if it wasn't deep enough, you would still be able to see some growth. If I'm wrong please tell me but from what I gathered your tank is fairly new, 2-3 weeks by now right? It is too be expected that your plants will go through transitioning period where it needs to adapt to your water and your lights. I think you should know this to at least understand it will take some time till you see any progress but my main concern is your fertilizer.

Is that the only fertilizer you are using? From the looks of the bottle, it seems to be a micronutrient fertilizer. Unfortunately if that is all you are using you are half way there. You will have to find another fertilizer to go alongside with it because that bottle alone won't be enough. To keep it short fertilizers will be categorized as macronutrient or micronutrients. Your macro nutrients (the main nutrients plants need) will be broken down generally as NPK or nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium and your micronutrients (nutrients that are required at very minimal amounts) are generally different types of metals.

I assume you are expecting the dirt to be your main source of nutrients which is totally fine but you still need nutrients within your water column for your other plants. This could explain why your tiger lotus seems to be growing and others are not since its roots are reaching past your sand and feeding from the dirt. But for your other plants, nutrients need to be in the water. Seems like you have some nitrogen in your water (nitrates from fish) but without phosphorous and potassium, the plants won't be able to use it up. The fish food you use probably has some phosphate and potassium in it which could explain why your valisneria grows for a bit then dies because it has already used up all the nutrients from the food.

A good start is to see if you can find some kind of aquarium fertilizer wether its an all in one or just buy the macronutrients. I think buying a macronutrient fertilizer would be a better option since you already have a bottle of the micronutrients. I think you said you live in Israel so are Seachem products available to you? If so I think buying  the Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium bottles would be a really easy solution to get your macros. If they aren't you might have to resort to buying the chemical compounds. I know that compounds like potassium nitrate and monopotassium phosphate can be almost found universally and are much cheaper options but being that you have such a small tank, measuring those amounts can be rather difficult. For instance in a ten gallon tank you would need 1/64 of a teaspoon for an adequate amount of phosphate in your water. If it could be helped, try finding a macronutrient fertilizer sold for aquariums but I did give you at least 2 chemical compounds you could use if something like Seachem isn't available. Let me know if there is anything I missed, and hopefully we can figure out what is going on (if not me, there are plenty of smart individuals on this forum who might know something).

The tank is now about 4-6 weeks old. Everything else is right!

I really wish I could get the Easy Green fert but the shipping is SO expensive through a third-party vendor.
I managed to find a store where I can get: seachem flourish potassium, seachem flourish excel, seachem flourish trace.
Other than the Potassium which you did mention, is any of those really beneficial?

I can get the others you mentioned from Amazon, so I'll be ordering those.

[High pH and very hard tap-water possibly killing my plants?]

25 minutes ago, Solidus1833 said:

I've got pretty hard water and I dose Co2. PH is 7.6 I've never been able to get hornwort to grow it only dies. Ammania Gracilis (i think its called) always dies, and scarlet temple always dies. The only plants I've had much success with are crypts, anubias, val, and that (octopus) plant. My substrate is just sand and Seachem Flourite mix. 

You can control your ph. with Co2 injection and keep the ph. lower if that's what's causing the die-off.  A table like I've included below can give you what PH you need for around 30ppm co2. You need to know your KH and use the table to see what PH you need to drop to in order for 30ppm co2. Not sure if any of this helps, but it has worked for me. I start with ph7.6 and drop it to around 6.8 at the highest point for my lights. then by the time my lights turn off for the day my ph is around 7.0-7.2. By the time the co2 kicks back on in the early morning the ph doesnt rise past 7.2 and the cycle begins again. 

 

Not sure if any of this helps, but it can be another avenue. Do you need to dose macro-nutrients? Wouldn't hard water kind of have that already? 

I'd really prefer avoiding CO2 dosing, especially since it's such a tiny tank and everything here costs 3 times as much, so you can imagine how much such a system would cost. Maybe I should try the plants you had suggested. I will definitely be trying more of them, since I'm doing a DIY project - building my own 10g betta tank.

The situation with the Hornwort is very confusing because I have it in 2 other nano tanks and it seems to be growing - with the same tap water and parameters, just different rooms (one of which doesn't even have tank lighting, and very little sunlight comes in). This is why I think something is terribly wrong with that specific bowl I'm talking about in the post.

Anyway, I'd love to hear more suggestions! 🙂

[High pH and very hard tap-water possibly killing my plants?]

Hey everyone.

To start with, I'll link my last post about my situation:

 

It's been a while and I have to say I'm getting more and more frustrated.
The only progress I see is the Anacharis is slowly coming back to life with new sprouts, as well as the red plant (pretty sure it's called Nymphaea Tiger) that's grew 3 new leaves. Everything else that starts growing new leaves just dies the next day. Shrimp are still alive and seem okay.

Dwarf Hairgrass made absolutely no progress, can't see roots under it as well.
Vallisneria keeps growing new leaves but they lose the color and die quickly after.
Hornwort can't recover (which is very weird because it seems to be doing fine in another bowl which has a betta in it).
Java moss is brownish, with VERY little new vibrant green.
Water Lettuce doesn't multiply anymore, lacks color and dies quickly.
Mystery snail died a few days after moving him there.
The tiny pond snail you can see attached to the floating airtube (in my old post) grew almost 3 times bigger, and mysteriously died today.
 

I went on and got different lighting (with more red and blue in it as suggested), moved the bowl to face a window (no direct sunlight is reaching it, but it's very bright during the day), bought a liquid fertilizer (can't get EasyGreen as I'm from Israel, so I got the one my LFS was selling, picture included), added an airstone which runs during the night, and lowered the temperature to 24C.

Tap water parameters (tested with test strips sold at the LFS):

pH - 7.8ish
Total Alkalinity - 160 mg/L
Nitrite - 0 mg/L
Free Chlorine - 0 mg/L
Total Chlorine - 0 mg/L
Hardness -  400 mg/L
Bromine - 0 mg/L

It's the same measurements inside the bowl, but the pH is slightly higher at around 8.2.
From what I read and understand, very hardy water is really bad for plants, but I can't really change my tap water.
I have no idea about what I should do next - nothing seems to really thrive in that environment, which is very frustrating.

 

[2 weeks old planted aquarium - plants dying]

22 minutes ago, Daniel said:

I'd say the culprit is the LED desk light. Some water movement and fertilization would also help.

Can you explain what's wrong about the LED light?

 

16 minutes ago, kammaroon said:

You will need to add fertiliser. Most of your plants are mainly water column feeders, except the hairgrass and probably the red plant. Your dwarf water lettuce, especially, will appreciate it.

I would lower the temperature. 27C can on the high side for some plants.

You need patience also. It may take a little bit of time for your plants to adjust to your water. Two weeks is a short time to expect really good growth unless you are running a high tech tank. Your water lettuce should do well though, once you add fertiliser.

So should I just get a random fertilizer at my LFS and shove it into the substrate?

Also, I will lower the temp to around 25C, I'm just afraid that if I ever add a Betta there it will be too low of a temp.

[2 weeks old planted aquarium - plants dying]

Hey everyone,

I've been having some problems with my planted tank. The plants I've added are:

- Dwarf hairgrass - been in the tank for 2 weeks.
- Anacharis - been in the tank for 2 weeks.
- Hornwort - newly added a few days ago.
- Vallisneria - newly added a few days ago.
- Java moss - been in the tank for 2 weeks.
- A floating plant which I don't know the name of - I think it's dwarf water lettuce. - been in the tank for 2 weeks.
- A red plant which I don't know the name of - bright pink leaves, short, somewhat similar to Anubias. - been in the tank for 2 weeks.

This is my first planted tank, and I was planning on adding a Betta there when it's been established.
So far everything is going wrong. Not a single plant is sending its root, and none of them are really growing. Most of them seem to be melting.

The hairgrass still looks exactly the same as I first got it, the Anacharis have completely melted (I can see some tiny growth though, it's sending new leaves on 2 spots now), the red plant has one of its leaves melting, the Hornwort lost most of its needles and yet to grow any back, the floating lettuce has been multiplying but extremely slowly, the Java moss hasn't spread one tiny bit, and the Valisneria is melting.

Tank parameters:

- pH - 7.6
- Ammonia - 0
- Nitrites - 0
- Nitrates - somewhere between 0 and 5 on the test sticks.
- Temperature - 27C (80-81F)

Additional information:

- Light is a LED desk light, on for 12 hours a day. No filter and no ferts.

- Substrate is regular dirt from outside my house that's been in the oven before adding (which I've seen people use on YT and wanted to try it myself), covered by black sand.

- When I first set it up I've used a few rocks from my goldfish tank, an "Active start" solution sold at the LFS, and live bacteria from a solution. To raise the ammonia level at first I threw in a few sinking pellets. Seeing the snails that came on the plants thriving I later added a mystery snail from my goldfish tank (I made sure parameters were fine before adding) but he began acting weird yesterday, so I had to take him out today to monitor him closer - he might be dying. I added a small number of Amano shrimp yesterday to eat the algae and dead plant material - so far they seem to be always full with food, but they aren't as active as I've read they usually are.

- Haven't done any water changes yet, since nitrates seem to be under control - only adding the amount that evaporates.

I've been trying to figure out the reason why the tanks appearing on YT show so much progress so fast, yet they do the same thing. I hope it's only a matter of patience, but the shrimp behavior alongside the mystery snail getting sick got me very worried.

What should I do?

[Betta nipping on a newly bought mystery snail's antenna]

Hello!

I just bought a mystery snail for my Betta tank after reading they can coexist happily, and it seems like my Betta is not really fond of having a tank mate.

It's been nipping on the snail's antennas multiple times, and it even had a taste of them. Once the Betta has actually tasted the snail, is there any chance for them to just live calmly together after a few days? I love how well those snails are cleaning, and I don't have any other snail types for sale around my location.

I feed my Betta twice a day, so I'm pretty sure it's not hungry, so my guess is it's a territorial situation. I got the biggest snail I could find in the store, thinking it might make the Betta not think of it as a food source. What's weird is that the snail doesn't seem to even be bothered by the Betta. It won't hide when the Betta is near - it's only hiding for a few seconds after actually being attacked but then it immediately goes back to work.

Is there something I should do? Should I wait and hope for them to get along after a few days, or should I just move the snail to a different tank immediately and keep the Betta alone in the tank?

Also, does the snail's antenna grow back if it's been nipped on?