Lizzie Block

Hello CARE members - Another round of Care Packages are on the way! Drum roll...... It's been some time since the last giveaway and I've seen so many great posts in the meantime. Thank you so much to everyone here, it's just wonderful to see this forum growing into it's own community. Last time, the winners were chosen mainly on statistics/number of posts, but for this Care Package, we dove a little deeper. Care Package recipients are: @Streetwise @RovingGinger @StephenP2003 🎉 Really great posts and topics from these folks - if you don't follow them or haven't seen them around, check out what they're doing! Thank you guys for creating engaging topics, sharing journals and DIY's and initiating conversations among all of us. That is what this forum is all about. We'll still be looking out for engaging content around the forum and I will continue to read through topics daily. Always looking forward to see what clever ideas everyone has! Catch you all next time and congrats to the winners of this Care Package 🙂

@Robin Huh, this is an interesting topic. I haven't come across too many fresh water hobbyists interested in mangroves (other than myself lol). But yes, I had acquired a red mangrove propagule (seedling) last year at Aquatic Experience in Jersey and kept it alive for some time just to experiment with the difficulty of growing one in a tank. I'd rank it a medium-difficult plant to keep thriving in aquaria. I mean, it's literally a tree... Mangroves are pretty versatile, they are unique in that they thrive in salinity in nature. Tidal areas of tropical wetlands and marshes - this is their natural habitat. So basically, you'd want to mimic something similar if you plan to keep one at home. They don't require salt water, I grew mine in totally fresh tap water. But, they need a lot of light (sunlight spectrum and relatively bright), warm water, sandy or silty soil which is nutrient-rich, and they need to be planted just so. The propagule will need to be placed vertically in the water column, but not into the substrate. The roots find their way there naturally. The leaves must always be kept well above the water line. Keep in mind too that they grow extremely slowly as compared to aquarium plants. Mine grew maybe 5 new leaves in about 6 months. After a couple years, it would have been about the size of a nice bonsai tree. But, here's where we went wrong... Red mangroves do not adapt to new environments very well (if at all) once they are established within specific water parameters. They do not appreciate being moved around. I believe that's how I lost mine. If you plan to grow one, keep it in the same tank for it's whole life if you can. I hope this helped, this is just my experience. I'm sure there are plenty of reef keepers out there who have had much more success or would maybe have some tricks, but that would be a topic for a different forum 😉 Red Mangrove natural habitat:

@WhitecloudDynasty Yay - I personally like the black dot/line, it adds some interest and can be seen from across the room. However, I do prefer a more pure golden color along the body, had a school awhile back that had some fairly dark coloration. Meh. Either way though I love golden white clouds so much, I'd accept pretty much any variation lol !

Hey @genuine_redcheck here, tl;dr updated version of the forum has been causing errors with posting and Cory has brought it up with the software people. should be fixed soon!

@Robin Hi Robin, no worries at all - I'm sorry you're getting so many errors! I saw a couple topics from you in the past week, is this something that has just been happening recently? Maybe update your browser try or using a different one to see if you're still seeing the same problem. If you could send a quick screenshot of the error you're getting when you try to start a topic or send a message, that would be very helpful.

@BeetleLann Girl, I understand this all too well. I'm a renter too and have been moving around like crazy for years. It's honestly so stressful and having an extra thing to worry about makes it even more difficult. So, definitely don't beat yourself up about it. You are doing the absolute best things you can for your little guy, so keep that in mind!! Whenever I'm moving, I always just have some supplies ready to go so that I can get my fish into a stable (ish) environment right off the bat. Even before moving couches and boxes. My moving kit for my betta is just a 5 gallon tank, dechlor, bottle of Fluval bug bites (his fave), heater, filter/air stone and a couple fake plants. It's always packed last so it's easily accessible. He's still living in there about 3 weeks after our move lol. Ways to tell if it's not fin rot? I think behavior is a big one... With all my cases of fin rot in bettas, it seems that they still act and swim fairly normally even though they're losing fins. I've also lost a betta to dropsy and there was a huge difference in behavior. Diseases like velvet and ich (similar symptoms to what you've described with loss of color and white spots) are caused by protozoa which actually can normally live in our aquariums without issue. The unfortunate part is that they mainly become problematic with stress. Watch him for awhile around his tank - is he active or just sitting near the bottom or top? Does he repeatedly rub up against decor or glass? Is he eating? If you're also seeing behavioral issues, you may possibly be looking at something other than just fin rot. Betta Revive contains chemicals called malachite green and methylene blue - Api's melafix and pimafix. I believe malachite green is in Ich-x too. Known to help treat both ich and velvet, so if your diagnosis is correct, you are on the right path! My suspicion is that he's struggling with some secondary issues based on the stress of moving 😞 Keep up on water changes and take things one day at a time especially after your next move this weekend. You got this!!!

Omg @BeetleLann I'm so sorry for missing your post! I hope your little guy is doing well. If he is a veil tail like you mentioned, my suspicion would be fin rot... His affected area looks similar to my fish. For some reason, his bottom fin always stays totally in tact, but it's his tail that we were losing. I actually had a recurrence where my fish lost all the new growth on his tail again because I stuck him in a bag to transport him across the country with me for a week. He did not appreciate it, but he's doing absolutely excellent now a couple weeks later. I saw someone suggested Indian Almond Leaves - we sell them at the Co-Op and you can buy them virtually anywhere at a fish store. I have been putting a couple in his tank to decompose and release all those good chemicals to promote healing. It really seems to be working well combined with water changes every 3-4 days or so. I've also been feeding a wider mix of foods, some live, frozen and dried. A varied diet really helps too to build strength and I'd recommend it if your fish is still taking food. I would suggest treating with meds as a last resort if he's still eating and swimming around normally. If not, Erythromycin, Maracyn or Furan 2 for bacterial diseases. Ich x if it's fungal. It's usually hard to tell until you start treating. BUT, if he's still healthy otherwise, it's probably a water quality or stress issue. Salt, water changes, Indian Almond Leaves, varied foods, limit outside stimuli. Emphasis on water changes lol I also keep a gentle sponge filter running and live plants to keep the water oxygen-rich. Let me know how everything is going!! I've got eyeballs on your post now haha. Best of luck ❤️

I second @RovingGinger's comment, I do the same exact thing with all my plants. They don't always melt back. It's good to see the process too - if they do melt- so you know what a plant naturally converting to a new tank looks like.

Uploading a video to a post: 2 minute walk-through on uploading a video via YouTube and embedding it into a post on the forum. I've seen most people do videos this way as I believe it's the fastest and easiest way to share videos. I do have narration over the tutorial so if you choose to listen, just turn up your audio 🙂 Video files cannot be uploaded directly to CARE as the file type is not supported and would be too large - links allow content to be stored on another platform and shared here so our forum does not get bogged down with heavy content. The alternative is to convert your video file to a gif using 3rd party software either on your browser or via downloaded software. Gif files can be uploaded directly and will play on continuous loop within your post. Lower quality, but another option nonetheless.

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This is a post to highlight some of the key functions of the forum and how to use them. If you have any questions about anything, be sure to check here first before posting a topic about it as there will likely be an answer for you here. Feel free to send me a message anytime (top right corner, mail icon) if you would like to ask a questions specifically. I am up to date with my inbox. Otherwise, see below for some walk-throughs. You may ask questions on this post as well if it's something that will benefit the forum community. This will be updated, so please ask away if there is anything you are confused about - I'll get it posted here for everyone's reference!

Never used fungus cure specifically to treat fin rot. It also depends on what is causing the fin rot as it could be bacterial or fungal. I've had good luck with erythromycin for bacterial fin rot and Mardel's maracyn. For products we've had success with, check here: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/fish-medicine. But, one of the best cures for fin rot in my experience is dosing salt and doing many water changes to keep the water pristine for healing. Perhaps people have had other experiences, but I rarely use api brand meds anymore as I have not had great success with them and always end up having to double dose which is hard on fish. I much prefer a more gentle approach on fin rot with salt and clean water and move on to heavier stuff if my fish just can't kick the fin rot for some reason. Then I'd do an anti-fungal (ich-x) + antibiotic (erythromycin). ❤️

@sayurasem Welcome to the forum! Which county is the largest in the US??

I don't think there are set rules for this, my guess is that around 1ppm per day is more than enough ammonia to seed a colony of bacteria in an aquarium which will be housing one discus fish? Ideally, you'd want to consider the bioload of the fish you are planning to add and mimic that environment in the cycling process. Like Jeff said, I just feed my empty tank the same amount of fish food I'd be feeding as if I already had fish in the tank. The amount of food you're feeding correlates to the amount of bacteria living in your tank. You feed the fish, they create the bioload based on how much you feed and the bacteria grow based on the bioload. If you keep the ammonia at a high level and complete the cycle, add your fish and it only produces .5 ppm of ammonia each day, well then the extra bacteria will die off. Simple as that. Just keep testing for nitrates. Best of luck and good looking out waiting to add fish before your cycle is complete. They will thank you !

Personally never dosed Easy Carbon to remove any type of hair-like or filamentous algae, but you could give it a go. I'd recommend spot treating with your filter off and then doing a water change afterwards if you dose more than the recommended amount. In my experience, hair algae comes from an excess of nutrients that your plants cannot absorb. If you don't have plants, I'd say probably add some and if you do, you could add more. Either that or cut back ferts/feeding or anything adding nutrients to the water in excess. Also check on lighting, is your lighting too strong for the plants you're growing? That may be contributing as well. When I get a bloom of green hair algae (like Daniel posted above), I just take a toothbrush or something similar and remove as much of it manually as possible and continue with frequent water changes. It always does the trick. One day it'll just start disappearing and not come back. It takes some time to go away completely, but manually removing it helps speed the process along. The not-so-bad news is that your hair algae is absorbing CO2 and providing oxygen to the water, so it's actually probably adding a slight benefit for livestock. But, it's certainly unsightly. Best of luck 🙂 water change it up!

Hey C.A.R.E. Forum friends! Posting this, first of all, to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone here for being part of this forum! So many great posts and conversations so far from everyone and we're so happy to have you all here. Secondly, we will be regularly rewarding thoughtful posters and contributors with a care package (hence the name, get it?) of fun and useful stuff from Aquarium Co-Op. The first care package was sent to the following forum members as they were top contributors thus far in the forum: @Daniel @Bill Smith @MickS77 Congratulations to each of you! Other members, if you haven't yet checked out their content, please do!! In the future, we will be choosing winners based on other metrics as well, not simply number of posts - thoughtful and informative posts which will benefit the greater 🐟 community to name an example of what I'll be looking out for. Can't wait to see more great topics and conversations in the coming weeks. Feel free to reach out to me any time. - Lizzie

@Sunny Doan Oh no! Sorry to hear. What are your water parameters like? Are you using any fertilizers in the water column or root tabs? Dosing iron? CO2? I have never had this happen, but I have read that curling leaves could be a result of lack of nutrients. In fact, there's too not much else it could be. Just need to figure out what is missing for these particular plants since each species has a unique need for different nutrients.

@Shadow_Arbor I've had no problems growing anubias in a high tech setup and your aquascape sounds exactly like mine lol. Spider wood ftw! I would recommend to definitely keep ferts in the water column though. Since you'll be injecting CO2 and using a powerful light, you'll also need to add plenty of fertilizer to maintain balance of all three. If not, plant health could suffer and you risk algae growing on weak plants and taking advantage. That's just my experience though, more fertilizers = better plant health = less algae. I know many people would disagree, but I've never had an issue. But do keep an eye on your nitrate level. Anubias is awesome in high tech scapes, because it can actually grow decently quick and looks nice and clean, requires almost zero maintenance. Keep us updated on how your aquascape is coming along! Algae eaters help keep anubias clean too 😉

Yes, I've read the same thing! But, I've had BBA on actually everything at various times. Plants, rocks, wood, filters, intakes and outputs. Even had it on top of my CO2 diffuser and a snail once ?? haha he's a wise snail now. So, I think the major factor at play is light. Your anubias could potentially have BBA growing on it at some point because it's so slow growing, but if you are able to keep it out of direct light, it should be just fine! I generally try to plant anubias in the shadier areas of other larger plants so that it's out of bright light. It usually stays pristine and free of algae that way. Or, if you so choose, you can shorten your photoperiod while you're having a BBA outbreak. All about a light/nutrient balance to totally eradicate it for good.

@Shadow_Arbor Wonderful aquascape! I always love to see people set up a high tech tank, there's nothing like it and you should be able to get excellent coloration in your red and pink plants with the equipment you're using! Great plant choice as well, I would think your buce with dark green leaves and new reddish growth would be Bucephalandra sp. 'Red'. The other one may be 'Green wavy' but hard to tell until it matures a little more. 🙂 Also love your selection of crypts, I'm growing crypt pink flamingo too and it's seriously so cool. It'll throw normal crypt leaves but with bright pink ones mixed in. Here it is swarmed by cherry shrimp lol I really like your choice of dragon stone, great texture. A suggestion though, if I may, for your stone in the very front - the strata lines in that stone don't align with the larger stones behind it. If that was intentional to create tension, by all means, leave it as is. It certainly catches the eye straight away. But, I'd love to see the stone rotated 90 degrees or so counter-clockwise so that the strata in each stone is pointing in the same direction. Either way, excellent scape and best of luck!!! Keep us updated on plant growth and livestock 🙂

@Maria Yep, pipette. Or I suppose you could just slowly pour a capful onto it with the filter off. Let it sit for some time and then do a water change soon after, though it probably wouldn't harm anything even if you just left the carbon in the tank within the dosing instructions. I've also heard hydrogen peroxide works, but I haven't personally used it for BBA. Best of luck! 🙂

@Alexa Likely Pond or Bladder Snails, most people just call them 'pest snails' because they breed so prolifically and can take over an unbalanced tank pretty easily. But I'm with you, I think they're cute too!! Plus they're fantastic algae eaters.

@Ariel S Hm. Those holes look a little too big and uneven to be something like a nutrient deficiency. And the fact that they look quite healthy otherwise... Do you have any fish in the tank?

@Elquinjena The plants in your photo look nice and very healthy! Also, I'm guessing you have nerites 😂 I've had great success spot dosing BBA with a little liquid carbon like Easy Carbon with the filter off. Water changes a few minutes later and within days, it was almost entirely gone. Another option to consider if you're not keen on injecting CO2 with a cylinder and reg. Btw, this tank had CO2 running every single day for 7 hours and still had BBA! The shrimp were all over it after my carbon spot dose 🙂