Just Renee

Java fern windelov perhaps?

LOL!! Literally!

I added a small pothos and a small spider plant cutting to my little 6 gallon because I'm struggling getting the nitrates under control. It never gets to be a high number, it just never fully goes away and I have a ton of... staghorn algae? I think? Anywho, I'm playing around with trying these two plants to see if they will pull more nutrients out of the water and surprisingly I still have nitrates. I thought these things were nitrate vacuums, dang it! Maybe they need more light or something. I love your plants!

Here is a pic from the tank today. Here are the parameters: ammonia 0 nitrites 1 nitrates 10-20 gh 300+ kh 40 ph 7 temp is 76ish (no heater, room temp) I have a cheapie led light from Amazon set to be on for 8 hours a day stocking is now 2 male endlers, 2 rams horn snails and some bladder snails Mosquito larvae is hopefully ZERO.

About an hour or so after I put the first endler in the tank, he started gasping at the top of the water. So I added an airstone and he went back to swimming normally so I've kept it on since then. I don't understand why the dissolved O2 is low when I feel like it's pretty well planted and the plants are doing well. Today I checked the parameters and the ammonia was zero with low nitrites so I think the cycle is already about done. Wow, that was fast!! I changed out about 60% of the water. The 2 endler bachelors are doing well and they got fed their first meal in the new tank (outside of hopefully eating all the mosquito larvae)... I gave them the tiniest little pinch of flake and they scarfed it up. So far, so good. I'm hoping I can take the airstone out at some point. I may try it tomorrow in the morning and then keep an eye on them during the day.

That pic is before I realized I needed to add the air stone. The first endler ended up at the top, gasping, after about an hour. Once I started the airstone he was fine and swimming around.

I started a 3 gallon Walstad type little tank with potting soil at the bottom, lots of plants, etc. Everything is going ok, plants seem to be doing well and the two Endlers I put in the other day seem to be doing ok except they keep acting like there is no oxygen in the water until I turn on the airstone. I thought that with enough plants, there would be enough dissolved O2 for fish? I ended up having to add these endlers earlier than planned because I found mosquito larva in the tank (UGH! SO GROSS! HATE SO MUCH) that needed to be addressed immediately or else my husband was going to divorce me. Unfortunately, that means I'm doing a fish in cycle, which I'm managing with my ammonia and nitrite binding water conditioner and water changes. Could the messed up parameters be messing with the dissolved O2 or do I not have enough plants to keep the water oxygenated or... something else? I'm fine to leave the airstone on if they need it, but I really wanted this quiet, no flow Walstad little thing so if I can figure out how to get it all to work without the airstone, that would be great.

That was actually my plan... until the mosquito larvae. I was actually thinking about just making it a shrimp tank. I guess I'll have to keep an eye on the parameters and do lots of water changes until it sorts itself out.

I have about an inch of organic soil with chicken manure in it from the Despot of Homes. I made it a little too wet so when I poured the gravel on top... it sorta sunk in a bit so it's like an inch and a half to two inches of gravel. I actually think I set this up 3 weeks ago, now that I think about it, so it's settling in nicely, I suppose. I was playing around last weekend with making a diy Co2 setup (following Chung from YouTube "The Water Box" - very informative videos on diy Co2) and tested it on this little tank because it only had snails. I'm glad I did, because I didn't have it set up correctly and over-gassed the tank... the drop checker was bright yellow. LOL I had the Co2 on this tank for about 4 days and this weekend I'm going to set it up on my 20 gallon. Last night, I noticed the mosquito larvae and was completely grossed out. When I got home from work today, I checked the water just to see where it was at, parameter wise, since I had already decided to add a guppy or an endler to take care of the mosquito larvae. I hadn't changed the water in 2 weeks-ish and figured that since it only had a couple of ramshorn snails (and bladder snails, I hate them so much but whatever) that the water might finally show something parameter wise. Well the soil or something made the ammonia shoot sky high, practically dark teal green on the API test. The test strip showed some nitrates and nitrites, so I did a 90% water change, checked the water again and of course it was fine so in went the endler. I'm not sure what exactly caused the parameters to go so bananas... was it the soil? Snail poop? Somehow related to the Co2? I don't know but I am going to have to keep an eye on it for my suddenly required fish in cycle. I thought I read somewhere that Walstad tanks sorta cycle themselves, like all the nitrifying bacteria was in the soil already? I thought that sounded like BS but I swear I read that somewhere. I hope it doesn't take weeks to get this tiny thing cycled...

Here's a picture from right now. I just did a huge water change in order to add the Endler. I'm hoping he'll eat the mosquito larvae as they are really tiny right now. I could also throw in a juvenile guppy... I have approximately 1372917329432 of those to choose from as well.

I decided that I didn't like the look of the jar because it just distorted everything too much, so I bought a 3 gallon rimless Aqueon tank at Petco. Restarted with more soil, some more new plants and it's been going for a couple of weeks now. It's looking pretty good, not sure on the growth yet. I put some snails in after a week due to algae and today I caught one of my endlers and chucked him in because I found... now this part is gross so prepare yourself... MOSQUITO LARVAE in my tank! GROSS!!! So now I guess I'm doing a fish in cycle or else my husband is going to divorce me immediately. He is not about mosquitos because they are sooo about him. I'll post a pic a little later. That's the update! It's a fun project, I highly recommend!

Do you think the white sprouts are the beginnings of leaves? If so, you may want to still leave it. I have a post about this exact same thing with my lily bulb and it ended up finally working out. I really think half of my bulb is/was rotten, but it's growing like a weed now and it hasn't messed up my water parameters or anything so I'm just letting it be. Someone else suggested keeping it in a bowl of tank water to see if it finally starts sprouting leaves or not, so you don't have to worry about skunking up your tank.

I just ordered a diy kit from Amazon and should be getting it this weekend! From my total newbie who hasn't even yet set up her first CO2 thingy yet, I thought this video was super helpful. In fact, I really like all of Chung's videos... he seems really knowledgeable and he kinda cracks me up with his goofy jokes. He hasn't posted in a few months though, which is a bummer but he has a lot of informative videos. Channel name is The Water Box (not affiliated with the aquarium manufacturer) and the link to the diy CO2 video:

My husband had a large pond in our back yard for several years and it was very successful. We are in Tucson, so, you know... hotter than hot with nuclear sun rays for 4+ months every year. I think the key to it's success was how deep it was (husband doesn't think that was as important but what does he know), 3 feet deep and that was how the koi and the gold fish survived the summers. Deep with a lot of shade from plants on the side of the pond and floaters and shade cloth but even then the water was still really hot. Water that hot also does not hold onto oxygen, so you need to have peak water agitation at all times to make sure you don't suffocate everything. I think a tub could work as long as it had, at most, dappled sunlight during peak summer days as well as a large waterfall feature or a few airstones. Maybe wrap the exposed sides of the tub in some kind of insulation. It could be a fun experiment to see what could work and I've low key been thinking about trying it myself.