Rube_Goldfish

I planted my first and only ever sword plant, a red melon sword from ACO, back in mid-November. At the time, I was trying to be mindful of not burying the crown (rosette? Are those terms interchangeable?) but looking at it now, I see that there's about a centimeter of space between the gravel and the bottom of the crown, so I guess I overdid it with "don't bury the crown". (See photo below). I gave a gentle tug, intending to replant it, but the roots resisted me. Is it a problem that there is that space? If so, is it worth uprooting it to start over but planted better, or should i just leave well enough alone? The plant is growing (getting a pair of Easy Root Tabs about every three weeks) slowly in a 55 gallon without CO2, but it only looks okay. Thanks in advance!

Alton Brown puts a small pinch of kosher salt in his grounds to cut the bitterness a little, though I've never tried it because I don't drink my coffee black. To quote some tweet I can no longer find: I use cream in my coffee because I love myself.

I can do that, thanks! Somehow it didn't even occur to me to use the tank's water to clean the pump!

My Easy Green pumphead seems to be clogged with what I guess is dried residue, so I'll try the submerge it and scrape it with a paperclip techniques detailed above. But is there anyway go prevent the pump from clogging in the first place? Wipe down the tip with a paper towel or something? Or is it just One of Those Things were it just needs to be cleaned now and then?

In the thread below, @Odd Duck tucks pearlweed stems into the substrate horizontal to encourage side shoots, to assist with growing it as a carpet. She explains it better than I can, though: At 15 inches of water depth and without CO2 injection, I'd say temper your expectations of carpeting, but it could still be done with enough starting pots or enough patience (or both, really). Cryptocoryne parva would do it, expensively. Moss sounds promising, as does pearlweed. And I've had great success with dwarf sagittaria, eventually, in low tech set ups. Hydrocotyle tripartita "Japan" could also work, though mine is just barely hanging on, and certainly not carpeting. But there are options.

I know this an old thread, but geez, I hope you're right. I just fed out a lot of BBS into my three tanks (though I did rinse them first!). I was scheduled for water changes tomorrow anyway, but yeesh, too many!

Isn't there some kind of clear sealant that you can use to make basically anything aquarium safe? Or am I misremembering something?

Ah geez, I should probably know this, but how tall is a 30 gallon tank? I asked because height matters for carpets because of how quickly light intensity falls relative to water depth, but I probably should have just asked for height in the first place. If that's dwarf sagittaria, and I think it is, I have it too, and it basically just sat there, doing nothing: not melting, not dying, but not really growing either. Then one day it seemed to decide it was ready and just started sending out runner after runner and has been doing great now in two low tech tanks for me. If yours was just planted in December, it might do the same.

What size tank and are you running CO2? You can do a low tech carpet but it takes a lot longer, or requires a bigger upfront investment in plants (that is, you could buy 40 pots of Cryptocoryne parva but it'll be expensive!). @Ninjoma had a lot of good suggestions. You might also like pearlweed, if you're willing to trim and replant a lot.

Can you elaborate on this? That's kind of funny; I've had much more success with aquatic plants than terrestrial plants because I never get the watering amount or frequency right on terrestrial plants, and that variable is completely gone for aquatic plants!

You could always grow some in a tub or tote outside (once it's warm enough) for the birds.

I think @Tommy Vercetti is right about the weight being borne on the rim, but even if he's wrong, I know I'd be worrying about it. I'd need to do something for my own peace of mind.

@Andrew Puhr I am not familiar with the species you're working with, so I'm just spitballing here, but whenever you do decide to introduce them, it might help to do so after the lights turn off, to give the juvies a better shot at finding cover.

I have a similar question about a Corydoras sterbai juvenile that's also about a third of the length of the biggest fish in the main tank (a male Apistogramma cacatuoides, in my case). And I know exactly what you mean; maybe it's fine, but it's been all this time growing him up that I don't want to throw him into the danger zone, but how do you know? I'll be watching this thread closely! Please let us know whatever you end up doing.

50 ppm nitrates is probably okay, though you'd definitely want to keep an eye on it and fast growing plants are a good idea. How do the fish look? Showing any signs of stress?

Someone here suction cups stems of Alternanthera reinickii to the glass, close to the light, until it adjusts to the water chemistry and grow aerial roots. @Guppysnail, I think?

Thanks, @knee and @OutBout! Sorry, @Xr4tiCrew; didn't mean to hijack the thread!

So it's reasonable to reach balance or seasoning with easier to grow plants, then start to add more difficult or more expensive plants? I've been holding off on stuff like Bucephalandra until my tank was more seasoned (not that buce is difficult, just expensive). So it's nice to get some validation for that approach.

Would you be selling them locally, if they're difficult to ship? To a LFS or at a club? I throw away handfuls of red root floaters, dwarf water lettuce, and Salvinia minima every week, so hopefully you've got a more lucrative - and less wasteful - alternative!

I can't remember where or from whom I heard it - sorry! - but I remember someone saying that while they can be fragile for the feeding/mistreatment reasons @Lennie outlines, that they're actually fairly hardy in the right circumstances. It was phrased something like, hold your breath through the first month, but if they make it through that period in good health they're basically bulletproof. But I've only had mine for about six months, so I can only repeat what I've heard. Good luck with yours!

Would something picky or delicate like a scarlet temple be more likely to succeed in a well-seasoned tank? If the tank has been running for, say a year, and you've got a good balance, would that make a picky plant more likely to root and grow without succumbing to algae?

@Hobbit @Guppysnail You've got some honey gourami breeding experience, right? Any hope here for @pcc 's fry?

I have a juvenile Corydoras sterbai that's about a half an inch long (not counting the tail fin), though I'm just eyeballing him/her. I'd like to transfer him from the fry grow-out tank he's in back in to the main display tank. That tank has a school of adult sterbais and a male/female pair of Apistogramma cacatuoides; the male is about an inch and a half (again not counting the tail fin and again eyeballing it). I know the conventional wisdom is "if it can fit in a fish's mouth it's in danger of being eaten", and I've also seen the male apisto "yawning" so I know he can open his mouth pretty wide. So how do you know when you can safely introduce juveniles into a tank with adults? Do you have a guideline? All the compatibility guides I see assume all the fish involved are adults. Thanks in advance!

If you put the make and model into YouTube's search you can probably find tutorials and reviews. That's what I did with my Finnex lights. Great lights, terrible documentation.

@Lowells Fish Lab makes vinegar eels and moina look pretty simple, though not wild caught, and the latter cultured outdoors