KentFishFanUK

Hi @Pattie! Honestly don't be worried about plants they are easy, some might thrive some might die they are only plants and will help keep the water clean etc just look up some easy ones to keep and stick 'em in and learn as you go. Also from what I understand Bettas often like hanging out at the top of the tank as they can breath air, also they like plants or something to rest on up there (you can get fake ones that suction cup to the glass for them to rest on) and they don't like too strong of a flow (I guess they are kind of lazy swimmers? Haha). Not sure how they are with lights, maybe it's a bit bright without cover? Again plants would help. Liquid test kit might reveal what's going on with the water but I can't think of anything else that might help, fingers crossed for you! What water conditioner are you using? Keep us posted!

Haha no worries, I'm sure you could put it much more eloquently than me though if you feel like typing it out anyway! I'd like to hear your insight.

Ok so I know algae problems etc have been done to death but I can't wrap my head around it or figure out my best solution for my 20 gallon community tank. I am playing around with adding more fertilizer and more plants etc in the hope I can get the tank nice and balanced. My light is on quite a while but it's only the starter light that comes with the tetra starter line so I doubt it's very strong? I've added a pothos in the hope of getting nitrates down as my tap water is quite high in nitrates. However I'm pretty sure a lot of the 'algae' I'm getting is cyanobacteria which I'm just reading tonight happens when there isn't enough nitrates? So now I'm confused. Also low flow but I thought my tank had pretty good flow, is there a way to move more water around gently, without a powerhead etc? Already have an internal power filter and two air stones (running on one USB air pump so not that strong) and don't want it to be too strong for my neon tetras etc. In the meantime I'm trying to figure out an algae cleaning crew. Part of my problem is I'm struggling to identify what algae types I have. I have some diatom and green spot but I actually don't mind those and everything seems to eat it anyway. I have only a small amount of BBA which I can remove manually so far. There is a lot of what I think is some sort of hair algae though? It's not really hairy or stringy (though I do have a small amount of string algae too) it's more like a soft almost smooth spongy texture that keeps growing on leaves and driftwood mostly. There is also a lot of (I think) blue green algae and a bit what looks like the blue green algae but red coloured. However the soft algae and the blue green coloured stuff is kind of growing amongst or on top of each other so I'm not really sure what I'm looking at really it might not even be two different algaes maybe it just looks different colour depending on what's behind it? My main issue is keeping the leaves of plants clean, not too worried about the glass and hard scape. I've heard otocinclus are good for that however I've also read they don't eat hair algae? I don't like amano shrimp as I've heard some horror stories that put me off plus I think they are kind of creepy. Cherry shrimp would be ok if they would help but don't know if they would eat the hair algae or cyano? Also don't want them to overpopulate. I don't want any snails that will overpopulate either so I'm considering nerites but don't want those ugly eggs everywhere so I'm unsure. Do they even eat hair algae? I don't mind the diatoms and green spot they are easy to clean and a little on the hardscape looks kind of nice. Any ideas? Oh and an aside question while I'm here, if Alternanthera reineckii mini melts completely - leaves and stems - do I assume it's dead or can it regrow from the roots? It did well for a month or two grew loads of leaves but then started melting. Thanks for anyone who reads all of that! Hope it makes sense, halfway through my second night shift here and my brain is a little fried.

Ok so I once went down a bit of a rabbit hole reading into using plants for filtration, learning (and since mostly forgetting) about accumulators and hyperaccumulators etc and compiled a list of plants that according to some study or another are good for filtration and that I thought could work in a sump/bog filter set up. There were many more (think they are listed on Wikipedia?) and it literally lists which plants are good at taking up which contaminants etc and I tried to list the ones that came up repeatedly as good at sucking out multiple contaminants out of water (a lot of the studies are also about filtering contaminated soil too). I don't remember all the science stuff but anyway the list I jotted down were: Pothos Peace lily Sedge Papyrus Bulrushes Rushes Water hyacinth Bacopa Mangrove Water mint Vallisneria Cabomba Dwarf water lily Duck weed Willow Brassica juncea Now my simple list doesn't go into which are grown submerged/floating/emersed/aquaponics etc but I'm sure you can work it out. Might be a good starting point of options to look into? My idea was the right mix could filter nitrates but also heavy metals, bacteria etc etc. It was an interesting rabbit hole at the time honest!

Ok so these are the best screenshots I can get from it! I would link the video but I don't know how? None of my screenshots are good or do the little thing justice! Especially the blue eye, red and blue on its find etc. Any more ideas?

Looking at pics it does look a bit like them, only a bit more stream lined. Also it's hard to tell in my rubbish photo but the bottom half of its eye is blue. It has some orange on its caudal fin and I think some blue on the other fins. Maybe some sort of pseudomugil?

Good idea with the pile of rocks I might try that, or maybe small pieces of driftwood or a bit of both. In fact I know just where to put it in my community tank, I have a slow flow corner with a couple small anubias tied to small bits of slate, I could make the rock pile there and incorporate the anubias. Thanks! Now I just need to find some crustaceans haha! I sometimes feed repashy soilent green and small bits of it often break off and end up all the round the tank anyway until they get cleaned up by the cories or sucked into the filter and I'm guessing that would probably feed them. Yay new project!

No idea! Could be, does look a bit like one

@CalmedByFish all my micro crustaceans seemed to disappear once I had fish in there, I'd love to keep a healthy population as part of the ecosystem plus occasional snacks for the fish but not sure how to manage it. I don't know any details but maybe look into which type of algae likes which micro nutrients and then switch your fertilizer based on which algae you want? Not sure it's feasible without doing your own fertilizer from scratch but I guess it's technically possible right?

So on one of @Irene's videos on YouTube, specifically "5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Growing Rooted Aquarium Plants" there's a little fish that's pretty much centre screen around the 0:50 mark, and I wondered what it is? It's so cute, not even sure if maybe it's a juvenile of something I would recognise or something completely new to me! Sorry about the awful blurry picture, it's taken on my phone of the screen on my tablet as I couldn't figure out an easy way to get a good pic of it. Any help appreciated!

Good question I find myself attracted towards the 'natural' methods of tank maintenance so will be following the thread! Only thing I can think to add is enough lighting I guess? For the plants to grow and therefore clean the water but also for some algae etc to grow to feed the shrimp and fry (and in turn feed the bigger fish right?). Fertilizer/nutrients too for that matter. Not that you wouldn't have thought of lighting etc already but imo it's important enough to make the list haha. How do you get the micro crustaceans/keep them going?

@MH1 well that's kind of what I thought after listening to @Cory on the subject and looking at some articles etc but then as I couldn't figure out why my fish died I started to wonder if there's more to it, it's a pretty prevalent opinion on the internet for some reason.

I think you can do a pair of apistogramma in a 10 gallon and they apparently live 5-10 years

Not sure I have the space for them, but didn't know they liked the top of the tank, thanks! Actually I've got just a few male endlers and though they are great they don't hang out at the top much (actually they mostly hang out with the neon tetras lol) Would they be aggressive to the neons? Probably a no go if that's the case though they are lovely. They do look awesome might have to check if they are compatible with my parameters and tank mates, didn't know they stayed up top! I'm in the UK so aquahuna is probably just for the US right? Yep they are beautiful! How much do yours stay at the top? Are they peaceful?

@Guppysnail thanks! What on earth is aquarium silicone lubricant? I'm not too worried about small scratches etc as they won't be display tanks really more breeding projects etc and I think I have a roll of bubble wrap somewhere anyway so mostly worried about the seals, will look into aquarium silicone lubricant!

@Biotope Biologist looking at them now, kinda cool though I was hoping for something even smaller but it's a definite contender. Can they be kept solo? Also would it matter about flow rate and cover? Only a smallish section of my tank has floating plants (I section them off to allow light to the rest of the plants)

I know basically nothing about halfbeaks except hearing them mentioned once or twice on videos, brb looking them up 😄

I plan to do a pair of peacock Gudgeons in one of my tanks, I think they are beautiful and a fun pair to watch etc, supposedly breeds quite easily, do well in smaller tanks, pretty peaceful etc. Not sure about 10+ year lifespans but apparently it's 5+ so a bit better (than Bettas)

I have a peaceful 20 gallon community tank which has a little room for something else. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for any small fish that don't need to be in big groups that like to occupy the top third section of the tank? Even better if it's a surface feeder. Hatchet fish need to be in groups right? My neon tetras and panda cories only use the bottom two thirds really and the top section always looks really empty.

So I have been collecting second hand tanks for cheap or free from marketplace. I currently have three 15 gallon, four 7.5 gallon and two 5 gallon tanks all empty and waiting for me to buy a new shed to become my fish room. As I'm not sure when I'm going to be getting it I was wondering if there's any particular way of storing dry tanks that protects the seals etc? Like can the silicone dry out? Is it better to store them with water inside? Should I wrap them in something? Does anyone have any experience with storing empty tanks? Thanks in advance!

That's pretty much what I've done with my salvinia so it didn't shade out everything else (except I bodged it with airline tubing etc). Might have to switch to frogbit if it's better than salvinia then!

@Guppysnail yeah exactly my decision, didn't want to go down the route of RO water etc and playing chemist if I can help it, hopefully when my pothos arrives it will do the trick! I have salvinia as I think frogbit would get wet in my tank and die off. I have a small sponge filter plus an air stone plus an internal power filter with its output above the water line so lots of agitation etc and I don't think I should have any issues with oxygenation but if there was an easy way to test it to make sure I would. Legal limit only 10? That's good, it's 50 here! And apparently our water treatment makes good use of that leeway!

For an opposing opinion, your pothos might not need the spotlights but they look cool!

Ok so I've been thinking about my nitrate levels. I can't seem to keep my nitrates under around 40-50 ppm, which is the same as what my tap water reads as well so though I do some water changes they don't bring nitrates down. I have quite a few plants and I can only assume they are keeping up with the added nitrates from the cycle as my level never seems to go up but they aren't enough to get it significantly lower than what comes out of the tap either. Online I've seen massively differing opinions on what is a good or even safe nitrate level for fish. On average people typically say don't let it go above 40 but plenty of experienced people say they don't worry about it until it's much much higher. Aquascapers seem to suggest keeping it at around 20-30 ppm for plants. On a loach forum I've seen claims that nitrates over 10ppm will kill hillstream loaches, now I kind of saw that as a bit of exaggeration or them being purists - they also mostly suggest that hillstream loaches are only suitable for biotope set ups - than anything else but then my lovely little hillstream loach did die after around 10 days in my tank for unexplained reasons so maybe there is more to it? I've ordered a pothos and will see if I can use that to suck up some more of my nitrates before getting another hillstream loach but in the meantime I wondered what everyone else's thoughts/experiences with nitrates were? Does pH affect how toxic it is in the same way as ammonia? Or anything else that means 40 ppm of nitrates in one table/water is not the same as 40 ppm in a different tank? Can a high nitrate level be indicative of a different issue? Are some fish literally so sensitive they would die at over 10ppm? Is there another piece to the puzzle I'm missing? Is there a way to test oxygen levels? Is there another way to reduce nitrates?

Yeah exactly!