carefulest

Yeah I saw a video of Irene where this happened as well. But she lost hers over the course of a week or more whereas all mine happened within a few hours. I wonder if it could be that mythical cory poisoning? Probably won't try again with this species. Really sad.

Hi all, I bought 6 pygmy cories and an oto today. They looked good at the store and I took them out of the bag and drip acclimated them (control valve method) for 3 hours and then emptied them into a quarantine tub with dechlorinated tap water at room temperature. When they got to the tub they mostly hid behind the filter or next to a rock. A few hours later the cories all died. They would swim around then all of a sudden hang listlessly upside down. After another few hours they started to smell bad so I could tell they were really dead. The oto seems to be stressed but otherwise OK. Has this kind of thing happened to anyone else? What could this be?

The rotala was grown emersed and the stems did not support their own weight. You can see the new submerged growth is straight and healthy.

They look like Anubias nana to me, usually on the tube they mark which one it is with a marker.

10 gallon with Sewellia hillstream loach, CPDs, and white clouds (Youtube) Fluval Spec V with betta and chili rasboras (Youtube)

Following! Excited to see where this goes.

I just fed them spinach successfully. Everyone liked it! I think I'll take the cucumber hint, I'm a bit worried about the anti-nutrients in feeding too much spinach. This is a pretty fun aspect of oto-keeping, I'll make a video about it if people are interested.

It's really hard to study and I don't think that people have done that many experiments. Personally I think it's really a thing with significant impacts. I'm guessing it's why plants sometimes don't do well in one tank but if moved to another tank with the same tap water, light, substrate, etc. they can thrive (or vice versa). Walstad's book talks about allelopathy with some examples, notably water lilies (Nymphaea) were found to produce a lot of these chemicals. In my tanks I haven't observed any noticeable effects from this. But I'm mindful to try to plant species in clumps to reduce the possibility. Probably most plants we use --- many which grow together in large masses in nature --- are not allelopathic against their own species.

Visible algae cleared from glass and plants: Got this new Hydrocotyle pad too: Why do my pictures keep coming in upside down?

I had the same thing on one of my CPDs except worse. I isolated it and within one week she made a full recovery. In that case it was an injury, as there was another spot on the head which had a wound.

Looks amazing. Cabomba in the past was considered to be somewhat difficult; it's fallen out of favor now. The replacement is Limnophila sessiliflora which is supposed to be extremely easy. I've never used it so this is not from first-hand experience. EDIT: perhaps a bit too easy, as it's illegal in California where I live. I'm not sure if it's available for you.

I've pretty much had the water level all the way up to the soil level since it started. I was worried about the tissue culture plants transitioning/drying out. For the first few weeks I had everything under a cover (one of those plastic gardening dishes) but now I just leave it open. It's been off for about two weeks now and I'm just starting to notice emersed form growth: prior to this things mostly grew in submerged form despite having the leaves and stems above the water. I think entering the AGA contest would be a good idea. I feel like there's a lot of territory here that's not been fully explored.

Sounds like Hydrocotyle leucocephala (EDIT: or H. verticillata)

Is that BBA on the wood?

I actually have a very similar kind of setup going right now. Glossostigma is taking over but a few other petco tissue cultures are doing well. Your plant choice is really interesting, I especially like the little Pogostemons in there.