KentFishFanUK

Funny you should say that, that was my exact plan! Epiphytes glued to hardscape and wabi-kusa balls, maybe floating plants too and pothos vines - all easy to move around as needed for an insta-scape so to speak. Plus the wabi-kusa and epiphytes mini scapes would be a nice little side hobby. Plan to purchase a few plants to start and propagate them myself to keep costs down. Of course at the moment all these ideas are just plans in my head and my notebook as I haven't even got my fish room built yet! Waiting for quotes etc to come through. Thanks for the advice about crypts! Will (reluctantly) avoid them.

@Jungle Fan thanks! The way I would like to use them is in a tank, placed amongst rock or driftwood or gravel - my idea being I could make my nano tanks 'planted' aquariums without actually planting them - for ease of cleaning/maintaining/rearranging. I like the idea of a modular set up in my future fish room, I could make a bunch of wabi kusa balls up, plant them then just let them grow in a nursery tank then they are ready to go whenever I want to quickly set up a fish tank and add new fish! I assume it would be a good way to add filtration capacity and seed a bunch of bacteria and get a new set up going quickly as well. Don't think I've heard of bio-felt before, I'll check it out! Thanks

I'd love to know a quick and easy way to make the substrate balls if anyone has a trick to it!

Ah well if I can find it for that price then it is cheap at least! Though I was hoping I could use it without needing to be consistent. Maybe I'll see how everything grows without it for now. Thanks for your help!

Thanks! I'll be checking out the videos!

Thanks! When I mentioned occasional boost I was more thinking like maybe I could do it for a few months until everything is grown in nice then maybe stop? Or algae starts creeping in so I do co2 for a couple months again to help the plants overtake the algae again and that sort of thing. So a 'low and slow' approach is fine as long as I don't need to keep it up permanently forever without ruining the progress I've made. That being said, do the fluctuations in co2 with that approach 'diminish' plant growth to the point I would be better not doing any and keeping it stable from the beginning? I mostly like the idea of speeding things up a bit until everything is well established but don't want to commit to doing it forever to keep it that way!

Awesome tank! Love the wooden centrepiece. What part of England? Kent here

What's people thoughts on these type beginner CO2 set ups? There are a few different brands making them and I know you can DIY the same thing but they are cheap and easy and don't take up much space, but do they actually do anything? I actually want to avoid a 'proper' co2 set up due to the expense and chance of messing things up - I don't like the idea that if I let it slide or it runs out while I'm away for a few days or something that all my plants might start to die back or I suddenly get an algae bloom or something. I also don't have room for one. I want to keep things easy and low tech but wondered if I could use one of these set ups for the occasional 'boost' to get things established. Is that possible or is it better to stick with no added co2 for stability? Pics so you know what I'm talking about:

Oh! Maybe we will never know for sure. Thanks for replying! Congrats on the 100k subscribers! Looking forward to a live stream

Looks more like an egg tumbler than brine hatchery? I can't see how it would work for brine shrimp at all. Maybe inside a marine tank same as an egg tumbler but with brine shrimp eggs and when they hatch they can swim down through the mesh?

How much shorter is a 10G cube? I only ask because I think I read Apistogramma in general are active swimmers and like their swimming space so even if they suit a 10G rectangle tank a cube might not be big enough. Not that I've ever kept them so wouldn't know first hand!

@xXInkedPhoenixX yep, that's what I like about Cory's approach to giving advice in his live streams etc - it's all "this is what I would do... but some people have success with that... or if you have x then maybe try y... figure out what works for your situation..." which I find to be much more balanced and helpful not to mention less judgemental/opinionated. It's also what I like about this forum now that I think about it!

Just thought, have you tried a 'betta hammock'? I've seen lots of pics of Bettas sleeping in them, very sweet!

Not sure if someone already mentioned but I think some potting soils have those little white balls (?) that help with drainage but I've heard they float and makes it a bit of a pain so get one without them if you're going that route.

@xXInkedPhoenixX yeah it wasn't only that one either, she also has given me questionable advice regarding stocking levels and didn't seem to have heard of or even really understand the concept of a fishless cycle (when I asked if they stocked ammonium chloride for cycling purposes). Now I know a fish in cycle is still practiced by many if not most but she seemed to think only people with "high end marine set ups" would do fishless cycling and had never heard of using ammonia for it. There were a few other gems as well but can't remember them all. Bit disappointing though as she is the owner not just like the Saturday help or something. Not that it matters now I can get all the advice I need from fellow Nerms 😄

Love Irene's videos! Well deserved

I lost a lot of faith in my LFS when they had mislabelled diamond tetras. I assumed they just hadn't changed the label as often the labels are completely wrong because they've sold out and moved something else in, hadn't updated the label etc, but when I asked the owner how much the diamond tetras were I soon realized she had no idea what they were. They were in there with a similar fish that was correctly labelled (I can't for the life of me remember what it was now! Maybe a red eye tetra? Something like that) but though similar was clearly not the same fish but she was adamant they were the same thing. Took her advice with a pinch of salt after that!

I had a hillstream loach but it died 😢 was going to replace it but not sure I will as I'm now planning a hillstream biotope in one of my other tanks so might just wait until then. I think I have one of those basic plug timers sitting around somewhere I'll try and dig it out and see if that helps. Weirdly my anubias are doing ok, I mean they're leaves have some algae growth on them (looks almost grey against the green leaves?) but it's still growing really well doesn't seem to be suffering and I can get the worst of it off by rubbing the leaves with my fingers. The worst affected of my plants is actually my stem plant - ludwigia super red mini. Though all of them get some.

Yeah I prefer the idea of the clean up crew method, just need to pick the right crew! I have some Endlers but they don't seem to eat much. Pleco would be too big for my 20 gallon I think. Considering shrimps and/or snails, which have you got?

I was thinking Otocinclus as they are sweet little things, but do they ear hair algae for you? I don't like Amanos 🙊 How does an algaecide work? Won't it hurt plants? What about diatoms? If I had algae eaters I'd want some algae for them haha. Though I guess I could get rid of some with Excel then get in the algae crew to keep it under control going forward. Is it safe for all fish?

Thanks! Might have to get a timer for my light but how long? It's just a basic starter light, it doesn't go on for more than 12 hours at the mo. What clean up crew would you recommend? What does the Seachem Excel do?

https://youtu.be/YYZwM8JO8F0 Not sure if that works at the correct time? If not skip to about 00:49 and it's on screen for the next few seconds

They are screenshots from one of @Irene's videos! I couldn't screenshot it at the right moment the fish is in focus. I tried like 50 times and thats the best I got!

The only thing throwing me off that you can't see that well in the photos but you can in the video is a bright blue eye (or at least the bottom half of the eye) but when I Google photos of the suggestions so far they don't seem to have it. Unless they have that as juveniles and then lose it?

Still hoping @Irene might chime in and confirm it for us 🙂