Shadow_Arbor

@MickS77 Very nice! I'm planning a black water tank for my Cambarellus Shufeldtii, that's why I'm looking for inspiration.

As the title suggests, I'm planning on putting together a blackwater/botanical aquarium and am looking for inspiration.

Good luck! Just want to mention that in theory you could have had a small ammonia spike that you didn't test for in time. It's also possible that you have many issues at play and not just one. A small ammonia spike, nitrate respiration and incomplete denitrification all working together to bring your nitrites up.

Well if you think about it, incomplete nitrification makes a lot of sense. You over feed your tank, the plants help take up excess ammonia and the ammonia oxidizing bacteria multiply and get to work, now you have a nitrite spike. Seeing as plants prefer ammonium, you're not getting much help from them, so the bacteria are on their own. Assuming more nitrite is being produced than usual, your nitrite oxidizing bacteria need some time to catch up. As for your second point, removing filtration is the worst thing you could do at the moment. Your plants and AOB aren't going to compete with one another in any drastic way. Worst case scenario the plants are taking up all the ammonium and your biological filtration is very weak. Seeing as you have nitrite and nitrate this isn't necessarily the case. Removing filtration will remove all types of bacteria which will only hinder you. The best thing to do is water change your way out of this situation and next time you decide to over feed do so gradually. Feed a bit more every day until you're feeding the amount you want. That way your mini ecosystem has time to adapt.

The issue with your theory is that even if one bacteria "works" faster than the other, their population will increase (or decrease) depending on the amount of food available. There are a few possible causes to your issue, I will state the two that I believe are most likely and how to counter them. Theory 1: This, I believe is the more likely case, is incomplete nitrification. This means that the ammonia has been rising and converting into nitrite by the ammonia oxidizing bacteria. For some reason, the nitrite oxidizing bacteria are stressed, this could be as a result of very acidic water, low temp, or maybe a rough filter cleaning. The result? Nitrite oxidizing bacteria reproducing slower, and metabolizing slower. The solution, assuming nothing has changed drastically in the tank recently, water change and check your nitrites, the bacteria will eventually catch up assuming all is in order. Theory 2: Nitrate respiration or incomplete denitrification. Since you have a soil substrate with a cap, I assume you aren't disturbing the substrate. If incomplete denitrification is the cause, it means that the nitrates are being converted into nitrites and then not into their final form of N2 gas. If Nitrate respiration is the cause, it is also a result of different bacteria transforming nitrate into nitrite (a different chemical process than denitrification). The more likely scenario out of the two is Nitrate respiration. Seeing as I'm unsure on how to improve conditions for denitrification your best bet in this case is to reduce nitrates. Less nitrates means less food for the bacteria to turn into nitrite. More info on these topics can be found in Diana Walstad's book Ecology of the Planted Aquarium, specifically page 63.

I agree, it's definitely all about balance, the question is what kind of balance. Since I'll be using an aquasoil I'm not worried about the root feeders. As a result I'm considering having a relatively low nutrient load in the water column. I believe, that in theory, this should starve out the algae as the anubias and root feeders will use up the little nutrients in the water but the high tech root feeders should have enough nutrients in the substrate.

I love this book!

I'm putting together a nano high tech tank soon, and one of my main plant choices might be anubias depending on the consensus of this discussion... The tank is a shallow tank (26cm tall) and is going to have a very powerful light, injected CO2 and an aquasoil substrate for growing and propagating rooted high tech plants. I plan on aquascaping the tank, using spider wood. On the said spider wood I want to grow three different species of Anubias, Nana, Nana petite, and Barteri. These ideally will cover much of the root base leaving only the thinner roots exposed. In my experience Anubias has grown best in low light setups with little fertilization. In higher light set ups they get covered in algae. Anyone have different experience or any tips?

This is Shadow, I've had her since she was a month old, she's seven now. This is Lucky, she's six years old now.

I do this for pretty much all my tanks. I write down every week the water parameters, size of water change, amount of fertilizer added and any new observations in fish behavior. Edit: I write this down in a notebook.

Those are definitely new plants. I would wait until they get larger before propagating. In my experience the best way to propagate is to pull out the entire plant and gently remove the small ones with their roots intact. you could try gently removing the smaller ones without uprooting the plant when they get a bit bigger. Unless I'm tearing down a tank I generally leave the smaller ones, that way you get a bushier Crinum.

I agree, I think that MTS are fantastic for planted tanks that use substrates prone to compacting (low quality quarts for example). I have some in a specific tank and use them as food for my Assassin snails when their population becomes bigger than wanted.

@Lizzie Block Thank you so much for the feedback and nice words! Your Cryptocoryne pink flamingo looks fantastic! Hope to have one soon and that it looks as good as yours! Once the green Bucephalandra grows out I'll take close ups of both of them and upload them for identification. Now about the hardscape, the placement of the stones was intentional (well duh 🤣) but the tension wasn't part of the thought process behind it. The goal was to make a sort of mountain range leading down to a cove of sorts. The bottom left has two stones buried in the soil pointing in another direction to simulate fallen stones that created a sort of cove. The cove will eventually be planted with a carpeting plant of sorts, most likely Pogostemon helferi. I was looking to make this mountain range/cove look nice, didn't actively notice the tension made by the rocks, just thought it looked nice. Specifically in this scape I enjoy the current hardscape placement, but I'll definitely keep a closer eye to the directionality of the hardscape in future aquascapes. Again thanks so much for the feedback and kind words😊

Recently I decided to put together a high tech aquarium. The aforementioned aquarium is a a 61 liter (H-40, L-45, W-34 cm), a good sized tank for light penetration. The equipment I use is as follows: Ehiem liberty 75 hang on back filter Chihiros A451 Plus LED light Future heater will be the 50 watt Dennerle heater (summer is hot here so my room is cooled to 24C with AC) DIY Sodastream CO2 system I decided to use Dennerle's Scaper's soil as a substrate, ended up using about 7 liters of the stuff, and dragon stone as the hardscape. This is the only image I have right after adding the soil and hardscape, please excuse the terrible quality. This image is 24 hours after setting up the tank. In this image I am using the Dennerle bio co2 system temporarily until I put together the Sodastream CO2. The plant selection at the time of taking this image is as follows: Anubias nana Cryptocoryne nurii "rosen maiden" Cryptocoryne wendtii "brown" Cryptocoryne scurrilis Cryptocoryne balansae Eriocaulon vietnam Hygrophila pinnatifida Bucephalandra sp. After all the parts for my CO2 system arrived I was finally able to put it together. This system consists of a 400g CO2 Sodastream cylinder, a TR21-4 to W21.8-14 adapter, and a CO2 regulator with a solenoid. Long term a large CO2 cylinder is better cost wise, but I decided to go with this system because I'm limited for space. The picture on the left is of the system in general, and on the right a picture of the adapter. This is the aquarium now, I've moved around some of the plants and swapped some out for others. The current plant list is as follows (would love if someone can identify the plants I'm unsure of): Cryptocoryne nurii "rosen maiden" Cryptocoryne wendtii "brown" Cryptocoryne scurrilis Cryptocoryne balansae Hygrophila pinnatifida Bucephalandra sp. (Dark green and reddish new leaves, it's the big one in the back) -unsure Bucephalandra sp.green (located on a rock just to the right of the filter intake) -unsure Bacopa colorata Alternanthera reineckii "mini" Blyxa japonica Nymphaea zenkeri (red tiger lotus) Ludwigia repens "rubin" Micranthemum Micranthemoides (pear weed) I hope to soon add Cryptocoryne wendtii flamingo and Pogostemon helferi. These are pretty rare in my country so they're a bit pricey and hard to track down. I'll update on the progression and stocking of this aquarium in the future. Constructive criticism and advise is welcome. Hope everyone has a fantastic day and thanks for reading!

Hi, My real name is Yarden, I currently live in Israel. I've been in the hobby for about 3.5 years. I started with a 240 liter planted tank (that recently cracked and almost flooded my house), and have since progressed to owning four tanks as of writing this. From the start I've really taken a liking to the planted aspect of the hobby, recently focusing more on nano tanks and critters. Currently my favorite aquatic animal is the dwarf crayfish, specifically keeping Cambarellus shufeldetii. Here's some pictures of my tanks 🙂