NoobNerd

My dream fish are the Monk Goby and Siberian Spiny Loach. Always been a fan of interesting algae grazers and scavengers... Wouldn't mind having a few Snyder's Barbs in there for some energy and color, too.

That was perfect timing. Thanks for the pics, too!

When you do clippings for propagating additional plants do you clip above or below the little nub?

From the looks of the test strip, the pH may have been too low (it appears to be at most 6.4 and could potentially be even less; they are typically 6.5-7.5 range with probably around 7/neutral as a good target) and the water looks quite soft as well. Did you check the ammonia levels in the water and get any numbers for that? The nitrites and nitrates look fine... I agree w/ Colu; it was probably shock.

I believe mystery snails do better around a pH of 8, which may explain why the crushed coral worked well a few months ago.

This may be a stupid question, but is it better to use less light when first getting stem plants to establish roots or would higher light be more beneficial? I could see either; less light because the plant has limited ability to take in nutrients and the soil may also be getting established, while more light can also make sense because it stimulates growth.

I actually have a decent number of plants, but right now they are mostly small... Taking what you said to heart, I'll let them grow a considerably while the Rasboras are getting acclimated before adding the Tetras. With the cold northeast weather, they'll probably get about a week of growth before the Rasboras even show up.

Currently working on stocking a 29 gal tank. Currently have a few (5) Serpae Tetras in a 6.8 gal, and a few (9) Emerald Dwarf Rasboras on the way. Was planning on starting with the Rasboras and after they get acclimated, moving the Serpaes over. How concerned should I be about the Serpaes getting aggressive toward them if I do move them over? The 29 gal has light plant cover, a few rocks, and a few decorations but is open for the most part if that makes a difference.

Do you have any recommendations for something that can significantly increase water hardness with minimal impact to pH? Or is it a situation where you want to add something to harden the water like crushed coral and add something like driftwood to buffer the pH? My issue is that my tap water sits lovely at about 7.2 pH so I don't really want it to go much higher but it's in the upper range of soft/lower range of hard...

Just wanted to give an update to all those who gave some advice. Thank you; I took a bit of info from everyone. Two days ago I was afraid of losing all of the plants. I upped the water hardness using baking soda and noticed that helped a bit. Increased the lighting and broke it up into 6 hrs on-2 hrs off-7 hrs on- 9 hrs off, which also showed improvement. Today added some Easy Iron and that made the color a slightly healthier red. Also dropped the aeration level from pretty cranked to slight movement (no fish in the tank yet so I may have been going a bit overboard) and tank temp from 78-ish down to 75, which also helped immensely. Tonight the plants look amazing and healthy. Can't believe the were all scraggly and melting just 48 hours ago! Think the poor lighting schedule, over-aeration, and slightly too soft water were largely the causes. I really appreciate the info everyone gave me! Will post pics when I get a chance.

Thank you! I have been adding a little easy iron, and found that the water was a bit soft so have been adding small amounts of baking soda to bump the hardness up a bit (my hardness test strips aren't that great, but it appeared to be in the 50 range). It's tough because my PH is around 7.5 and don't want it to get much higher. Nitrates have also been low as it's a relatively new tank, only being in operation for about two weeks. As for temp, I'm dropping it a bit (it has been around 78 but getting it down to around 75).

I think you're probably right, I don't think it's providing enough of what they need. The last two days I've been leaving it on closer to 14 hrs and the plants have started doing better. Thanks!

If you have way more snails than you want to deal with, you could possibly toss in a few assassin snails... They should drop that number a bit.

Thanks! My ph is right around 7 and temp is right around 78. I have only been running the LED light about 4-5 hrs a day with a little natural light filtering during most days. I'll try keeping the lights on more and see if there's any improvement.

Thanks for the replies! I think I may have used too much fertilizer to start. The tank is lightly planted, so I think I'm going to try to use about 1/3 of the recommended dose and see how that works. What are the conditions you have for them? Temp, water parameters, hours of light per day?