sairving

I picked up some water today and topped off the tank. I'll test the water parameters in a day or two. My limnophila is getting a little melt but the luduwigia and water sprite seem to be alright.

Under the driftwood usually. Lol

I do try to leave most of it but my nerite is weird. Seems to hide in the same places and I have one or 2 spots with tons of snail poop. Hopefully, with the new scape the snail poop will be spread out more.

I have 2 lfs that are under 15 mins away. There is a third one that I've never gone to because its downtown. I don't really want to spend 10 mins looking for parking and then pay for parking on top of that.

I never thought about cutting back on the water changes. When I had the 3 gallon, I would do 50% and it just carried over to this tank. There is a nerite snail in the tank as well, but even with all the snail poop, nitrates usually sit around 10 ppm at the end of the week. Maybe I should just syphon out excess snail poop once a week and then top off the tank. I'll pick up some distilled water this evening.

Is there something wrong with the fish? I wouldn't treat the fish at all with medication unless they are ill. As long as you are buying from a reputable store or seller they should be okay. Quarantine them for a bit if your worried about it.

That is a very cool looking plant.

How large has your dwarf aquarium lilly grown?

I forgot, I've had both Bacopa Carolina and Moneywort. They grew in the aquasoil but not the flourite. An African cichlid tank would be fun but right now I really don't have the space for the appropriately sized tank they would need.

I do a 50% water water change once a week. I've been thinking about adding some distilled water to see if it would work.

This is currently what my 5 gallon Betta ta k looks like. I just added some new plants yesterday and rescaped it a bit. None of my plants are from the co-op. I have 2 lfs so I try to buy locally most of the time and stay away from plants that have been restricted by the state.

Let me start this out by saying, I have super hard well water. There's tons of limestone in the area. I'm fact, about 5 miles down the street is a limestone quarry. On a well water testing kit the GH reads 450 ppm. PH is 8.4. We have a water softener, it sort of works. An RO system is not an option. Fishkeeping started as my pandemic hobby last year. Anyway, my first tank was a 3 gallon with one Betta and some plants. I used UNS Controsoil in that tank. Aquasoil only buffered my water for about 3 months. My biggest struggle with that tank was keeping it balanced. It was an algae filled mess. In January, I bought a 5.5 gallon tank, and switched my substrate to Seachem flourite. This tank has been easier to balance. Yesterday, was tank maintenance and water change day. I looked at my tank and decided to rescape it a bit. Then because I had the day off, I decided to visit two lfs. I bought some limnophila (can't remember what variety), water sprite, and luduwigia repens. After talking to the employee at the first lfs I visited, he thinks the only plant that will make it is the luduwigia. He did say I could set up an African Cichlid tank and they would breed without me having to anything. I really don't want to breed fish lol. I've run peat in a HOB filter before. Currently I only run a sponge filter. Louie my betta can't handle 2 filters running. Sir Nippy Fins (my first Betta) had no issues. Sadly, I lost him after jumped out of a gap in the lid. Indian Almond leaves and Adler cones don't do too much. Mostly, I use them for the tannins. I could mix in a some distilled water every week. Anubias grows well. I have an aponogeton that's pretty happy in my tank. I struggle with crypts. Amazon swords and Java fern merely exist. They don't really grow at all. Java moss and bucephalandra turned into a melted mess. My biggest surprise was red tiger lotus. It did so well, I had to trade it in after it outgrew the tank. The plant had two leaves when I brought it home. Three weeks later it had taken over half the tank. Floating plants are hit or miss. I've tried red root floaters twice. One lfs sells them by the giant handful for $3. My frogbit is doing alright. What other plants that like hardwater should I try? Sorry for the novel length post but I figure there are people who would find a discussion on hard water planted tanks useful. .

I'm in Southeast WI. A few weeks ago I joined the Milwaukee Aquarium Society Facebook page to see what's going on locally. I think they've moved back to in person auctions as well. Since I'm not that far from Aquatics Unlimited, I tend to get most of my plants from them. Been looking for anubias nana petite and neither Aquatics Unlimited or Fish Factory have any. Figure its some weird pandemic thing. I will probably go to the next swap or auction in search of plants. Java moss did not go well. It took me 2 weeks to get all the melted moss removed. Bacopa carolinia and moneywort had a hard time. Crypts are hit or miss. Dwarf hairgrass grows but is an algae magnet. Anubias does well along with bulb plants. My tank is like a science experiment some days.

I started with the tetra test strips and then bought an API test kit. The results were always the same for the ph test. GH and KH were another story. Our well water is so hard that the resulting color would not even be shown on the results chart. API just has you count drops until the color changes. Every few years we test the water with well water test strips.

I've thought about trying bottled water or getting water from my local fish store before. My weekly water changes are around 50%. What usually happens is I go to my local fish store, buy a plant, and see if it makes it. My most successful plant was a tiger lotus, but I made the mistake of not checking how big it would grow. I had to trade it in after about 3 weeks.

Hi Everyone! Last year when the pandemic started and we were all stuck at home, I decided to setup a fish tank. The last time I had fish was during highschool. The first tank I had last year was a 3 gallon planted tank for with a Betta. It was an adventure to say the least. Mostly, I had issues keeping it balanced and grew algae. After the holidays, I switched to a 5.5 gallon. This tank has not had the algae problems of the other tank. I still have problems growing plants but I've figured out what does and doesn't do well. If it's "easy" the plant will probably melted or not grow. Looking at you java moss and java fern. We have extremely hard well water. I'm looking forward to learning from everyone. This is Louie (no idea why the picture is displaying upside down). There is a nerite snail as well. I'm trying to grow a crpyt again. There was a lot more anubias in the tank. I added a new one that looked healthy but it had rhizome rot and 2 weeks later all anubias was dead.