WestFishTanks

Ah man I’m so sorry that happened! Never heard of using turtle sludge destroyer for the biofilm, I hope it works well. Let me know if that helps please! Would love to recommend it in the future if it does. Cherries can definitely be difficult in new tanks, but once they’re in a stable environment they grow like crazy! Went from 6 cherry shrimp to about 300 in my 38 gallon lol! That’s the best part of this hobby, always so much to learn 🙂 hopefully the plants start growing and offset that waste, if you don’t have it my favorite fast growing plant is Pogostemon stellatus octopus. That thing sucks up waste like crazy, and then you’ll have infinite background plants 😂 Might be a bit fast for a smaller tanks, but just something to try if the java fern and moss isn’t cutting it. Haha it definitely can be expensive! I’m very frugal with my setups so it can definitely be less expensive, and experience helps that too. Losing fish and shrimp sucks but I’m happy you’re sticking with it!

What is your fertilizer regimen? Lots of great fixes here for getting rid of it at first, but algae will come back if the root problem isn’t balanced. Usually when I’ve had stag horn it was from too many nutrients, especially iron. Would love to know more about the plants in your tank, if it’s high light, and of course the fertilizing!

Welcome back to the hobby then! Always fun to get back into it if you’ve been out for a while 🙂 Most people just don’t know how to deal with them well so they say they’re bad, but snails are great for a well functioning ecosystem! Shrimp are definitely super fun, I’m a big Neocaridina (Cherry Shrimp and other colors) fan. If you’ve had success with ghost shrimp I would try cherries or Amano shrimp, much longer life span and they don’t cannibalize like ghost shrimp do! To be fair hornwort is very hardy so it doesn’t melt back as much as other plants unless you run out of nitrates for it, so it may survive fine in the gravel. Probably helps if it’s not a compact substrate like sand, so nutrients are still getting down there through the water. I love eco complete! Much cheaper than aquasoil, and it naturally holds fertilizer in itself like storage.

Of course! I usually plant my stems so they can get a bit of nutrients from the roots, but they do get most of their food from the water column. That’s a cool idea for stems in a bare bottom especially! Plus you can move them around easily, would be fun for a breeding tank too if you also want non-epiphyte plants. Hey that’s pretty much how you propagate stems anyway! Especially if they get the aerial roots, then you can trim just below those and get a new other plant. Usually 2 new stems grow up through the trimmed area, so that’s why it helps with getting rid of the bare stems that can happen with no pruning. I agree with the compromise! I’m a sucker for eco complete because it brings out fish color well, keep it up can’t wait to see an update!

Ah gotcha that sounds good then! Just wanted to make sure you knew so no unwanted melting would happen at the stem. You could always try one of the plant weights too for the hornwort! That way it isn’t obstructing the betta feeding, but you don’t get the rotting from the planted portion. Haha awesome I’m glad the mystery is doing so well! They’re probably eating anything and everything: leftover betta food, dying plants, algae, etc. Mystery snails are an all-around decomposer for sure! Never listen to the people that call snails a pest, even ramshorns and bladder/pond snails. They’re amazing algae eaters, especially for small areas like plant leaves and crevices! They only become a nuisance if you’re over feeding, but they’re similar to algae in my mind where they help to fix an imbalance in the tank (too much food). If you’re ever interested in getting pea puffers too then the baby ramshorns make great food!

I’m totally stealing that haha! Awesome trick for the stems, and the tank looks great while converting them too! Do you trim and replant much? Might help to make those stems in the back grow more condensed so you have more leaves per stem

Wow that’s impressive! The suction cups for stems is a great idea, usually I just float mine but it doesn’t look great until the aerial roots grow and I plant them. I’ve found Ludwigia to get great red color on the top leaves closest to the light too, but my AR didn’t enjoy a low energy tank I had. How is the culture doing so far now that it’s been a few days? With the right balance I’m sure you’re pulling it off, you seem to have a gift for plants! ;)

What kind of setup do you have? High light and CO2? To keep the beautiful deep red in that AR tissue culture you will definitely want at least some CO2, and high light with good ferts will work great. Mimicking the parameters the culture was grown in is the best way to have success converting it, so high CO2, light, and ferts are the best way. It grew with high CO2 from the air, lots of light because there’s no water obstructing the light, and the gel is an excellent fertilizer! Stability is key in plants just like in fish, so as long as you can get it close to these I think it’ll do well!

I agree with the others here, the heater won’t get hot enough to damage the plants in any way. Should be all good thankfully! On a different note you might want to try floating the hornwort, it usually doesn’t do well long term planted because it is much more adapted to a floating lifestyle. Plus it gets more CO2 from any leaves that come out of the water and it’s closer to the light! I’ve always had nerites do a much better job on brown algae (diatoms) than mystery snails, but mystery snails do a great job at cleaning up uneaten food and deceased organisms. Horned Nerite snails are especially good at the brown diatom algae too! Best of luck 🙂