CalmedByFish

Did you accidentally pour in an aphrodisiac with the water conditioner? 😂

@Jungle FanWhat a great explanation! Thank you! It makes a lot more sense to me when translated into human biology like that.

It's adorable until it's not. And once it's not, you're stuck with it *forever.* I wish I'd eradicated it from the first speck I saw, in hindsight. I do still think it's cute. It's just that it's not worth the work work work to tame it. It quickly shades other plants and blocks the water's surface from air. When you try to get it out, it sticks to your hands, net, cup... the inside of the tank, the outside of the tank, the floor... every form of filter intake. It's like getting mildew in the shower. You could use a blow torch to clean it, and it'd still come back. *Forever.* Do I sound like it's driving me nuts? Mm hm.

It's fun to pause and imagine what each combo of fish and plant would look like together, perhaps with our "desert island sand" as the substrate. They all make very interesting, simple tanks. ❤️

That makes good sense. I see a few reasons it would also make moderating ridiculously hard. I think it's a smart rule. The one and only glitch I've seen from the rule is that I can't tell people, "No! Don't buy from [Certain Affiliate]. They treated the animals I ordered and myself unethically. It was so bad that I will never order from them again." I want to give people a heads-up to protect the pets they want and themselves, but I can't warn them. That feels awful every time.

Is "leaking nutrients" an aspect of "decay?"

I was thinking plants "eat" their damaged leaves, and use that nutrition to make new leaves. No?

Why were you in my house?! GET OUT!

I did exactly that! Ended up throwing away the can.

On behalf of hundreds of people, I'm going to get "buying a livebearer who isn't pregnant" out of the way.

Welcome! Cool tank.

Though it may not be what you're looking for, I'm confident pothos would grow in next-to-nothing light. (Roots in water, leaves above.)

That's good thinking ahead. Maybe you could name it... Wilson?

Ditto - but for me it looks like gray dust. Following.

In the next few days, I should be able to do a water change and add vallisneria. That'll be a good "watch what it does" start.

How have I never heard that cyanobacteria is toxic?! I even thought is was good for shrimp, as fresh food. 🙄 Just recently, someone else on the forum warned me that green water can suffocate fish overnight. (I love this forum.) I lowered the water level an inch yesterday, so the HOB's waterfall is shoving bubbles all the way to the gravel now.

@Biotope Biologist Are phosphates dangerous for the animals, or just an algae-causing nuisance?

@KBOzzie59 and @Steph’s Fish and Plants I have one tank with breeding endlers. Because of the preggy females and the fry, I feed it more than any other tank. It also is the only tank with a consistent algae problem. It sounds like I can assume it has phosphate? If so, I guess the solutions would be more plants and water changes? Anything else?

I have no idea why people monitor phosphate, and can't seem to find it on the various Co-Op sites. What's the good and bad of phosphate? Does it actually need monitored, or is it not really a big deal? (I try to keep things as easy as possible, so if there's not really a reason to monitor it... )

I was just looking at your walstad/Vader set up! 🙂 I have hornwort growing out of control. My favorite plants are an Amazon sword and vallisneria, so I'm prioritizing on getting them healthy atm. To me, the Walstad method seems... dirty... no pun intended. I am slightly interested in putting a shallow layer of one of those "dirt ball" substrates on the tank floor, underneath my usual gravel, just to help the plants establish. Then I'd just treat it as a gravel substrate, adding root tabs as needed. But I'm concerned that any substrate that isn't inert could cause a nitrate spike or some other glitch while I'm away and can't do anything about it.

I was thinking about the microfauna thing, too. I'm guessing it would help to identify the part of the substrate that has the lowest flow, put a loose pile of rocks there (so microfauna can move freely but adult fish can't get in), then regularly drop a small bit of sinking food into the pile. Only the ones that venture out of the rock pile would get eaten, so the population wouldn't be decimated. (Now as to how to obtain microfauna? For me, it was luck. I think some can be bought online.) Interesting thought on the algae ferts. I'll roll that idea around. I know for sure that I need to keep maintenance simple, but it might work!

Lighting and ferts are tricky for me. I want to grow green algae that my critters will peck at, but I end up with "yuck" algaes like staghorn, green hair, or annoying green water. The plants need plenty of light and ferts, and giving it to them should help them outcompete the algae, but instead, that just gives me yuck algaes, and no desirable algaes. (I wonder if there's a way to seed a tank with desirable algae.) The micro crustaceans rode in on plants. So did micro worms, but their numbers have dwindled. Both species seem to be most numerous when they have places to safely get away from the fish, with very low water movement. The crustaceans do best with snail poo to eat. The worms seem to do well with snail poo and rotting food.

Funny, that was my best guess for a next priority! (I even have that other thread going about struggling with plants right now.)

Since my life requires that I sometimes unexpectedly ditch my tanks for a week, I'm trying to have all the components of a stable ecosystem. Please see if you're aware of anything I'm missing: inert gravel substrate (for stability) 2 sponge filters bacteria micro crustaceans snails: 3 small species neocaridina (will start breeding soon) breeding endlers 1 angelfish plants: planted in substrate, epithytes, floating, pothos My thinking is that if I'm suddenly gone, all the animals have some other animal (or detritus) that they can eat. Even if the angel died, every other species would teamwork to "clean it up." Plants would help with water quality. Am I missing a link in the food chain? Or in the "water quality chain?"