Barb Bell

Oh, hey, look at that! It works. Thanks!

Thank you, I thought I must be missing something because I can’t nest replies. Apparently not!

Okay, I feel silly having to ask this, but is there a way to respond to someone’s individual reply so it’s nested under their reply rather than the general replies I seem to be posting? I don’t do online forums much.

Good to know, thanks. What do folks think about these as possible lower-maintenance replacements for a background plant in my tank: Bacopa caroliniana Bacopa monnieri water sprite pearl weed IF I recall correctly, none of them send out runners and you can just chop their tops off when they get too tall. Please do correct me if I’m wrong on that. I’m still in the “data collecting” stage of picking a replacement background plant. I’m not ignoring the suggestions made so far, I’m just continuing to gather more info until I feel I have enough to make an informed choice. 🙂

Ah, good to know about how slow the spiralis grows. Even if it took a year to grow to 16 inches, I would still need to cut those leaves short at some point. My other Crypts don’t tolerate leaf trimming. Trimming a leaf will make the leaf die. Is spiralis different in that regard?

I read that Crypt spiralis leaves can get up to 24 inches long, and I’ve only got 12 inches of water column. Have you had a different experience?

These are all great ideas, thank you.

Hello. The aquascape in my 20 gallon freshwater aquarium is in transition. My health took a bad turn, and I wasn’t able to keep up with some plant maintenance. Anubius rot ran rampant and I lost a lot of plants. I think I need to replace some high maintenance plants with lower maintenance plants, anyway. I have mostly low maintenance plants: Crypts, Java ferns, Anubias, Bucephalandra, Frogbit. But I can’t keep up with all the runners that Dwarf Sagittaria puts out. I like that it forms a wall to hide the back of the aquarium, but it puts out runners too fast and is really too tall. I clip the leaves so they don’t shade the whole tank, but I think the clipped leaves look ugly. There’s 12 inches of water column height for a “background” plant to use in this aquarium. Any suggestions on what would make a nice background wall of plant but less work to maintain? Something I could just chop the top off of when it grows to the surface? I planted tissue culture star grass on the left side a couple weeks ago, and it isn’t thriving like I thought it would. The whole package was clearly roughly handled during shipping, and possibly even frozen. Everything arrived damaged or dead, and the tissue culture gel for the star grass looked like scrambled eggs. Part of the problem for the star grass, though, is my Pleco keeps uprooting it. I’ve scattered rocks around them hoping to deter her, and I’m trying different “Pleco caves” in hopes she’ll stop digging. She used to have a great hiding place “Bonsai tree” made of Anubias tied to a resin tree that she could burrow under, but I had to remove it, and have been trying to find a replacement she likes for the past month. But that’s not the focus of this post. My main question for this post is: what plant do you recommend that either gets about 12 inches tall, and is less work to maintain than Dwarf Sagitarria? I would like to grow a nice plant wall to cover the back of the aquarium like the Dwarf Sagittaria does. i have attached a picture of the aquarium as it is today. I would also like to add a pop of color with a big red or brown middle height plant in that open space on the left. 8-10 inches tall. I welcome suggestions for that. I was thinking Scarlet Temple or red dwarf aquarium lily, but I think the lily would get too tall and be high maintenance like the dwarf Sag. I’m hoping the star grass will adapt and start growing. I’m envisioning it being the background plant for that empty space on the left side. But if it doesn’t make it, I’ll just use more of whatever I’m going to replace the Dwarf Sag with. tank deets: -20 gallon standard -Aquaclear 30 filter with disposable prefilter pad, bio sponge, 2 bags of ceramic bioballs, and Purigen -I use paintball CO2 at a pretty low rate, a little under 1 bubble per second, so that the canister will last longer, and because I don’t think I have any plants in here that require more. My hope had been that CO2 might help the plants compete with algae, but no. That hasn’t happened. -Fluval 3.0 Plant LED light -Fluval Stratum for substrate -I add two pumps of Thrive fertilizer Wednesday and Saturday -I change 50% water once a week -Fish: bristlenose pleco, 2 siamese algae eaters, 1 bumblebee goby, 4 pea puffers.

For what it’s worth, I tried Repashy Grub Pie. 4 of 6 puffers ate it enthusiastically. The two that didn’t are my pickiest eaters and the smallest, slowest growers. Those 2 also refused bloodworms. All 6 refused Vibra Bites, but the 4 biggest puffers will eat Fluval Bug Bites. I’ve had my bladder snail colony for a week, and they have already produced snaibies. Thank you to everyone that responded to this thread.

Sadly, the flubendazole was delayed in the mail for days, and she died while I was waiting for it to arrive. I checked local stores, but they didn’t have it. It finally arrived yesterday, and I’m treating the whole tank with it.

This is VERY helpful, thank you. I will follow these instructions.

Thank you for this information. Very helpful. The flubendazole is on its way in the mail, and I will definitely use it when it gets here (projected to get here Saturday). The aquarium store I went to today didn’t have levamisole or flubendazole, sadly. I hope the poor fish hangs in there until Saturday. It tried to eat live blackworms today but spit them all out in the end. It was clearly very interested in the food, but spit it out.

I was able to get live blackworms and bladder snails from an aquarium store today. Success! I got about half a dozen bladder snails today.

I’ll ask the fish store if they have any. They haven’t in the past, but I know these pest snails come in on plants regularly, so maybe I can catch them at the right time.

I’ve been pondering this, and will most definitely drag my carcass to the fish store if they have a variety of live food I don’t have in the freezer already (in the past they’ve only had brine shrimp), and I’m going to also see if the puffers will eat Vibra Bites (they sometimes eat Fluval bug bites) and Repashy Grub Pie. I’m also thinking about adding Vita Chem to the Bug Bites, Vibra Bites and Grub Pie (if the puffers will eat them).

Thank you! You also have a gorgeous tank.

No, I have a really hard time getting to my closest fish store, which is 40 minutes away. But I’m thinking about it.

I have moved the nerites to a quarantine tank.

I’ve ordered flubendazole. I’m guessing it will kill my nerites, yes? Can you be more specific what you mean by “non-frozen foods?” I haven’t been able to find snails locally.

Hello, I have been keeping pea puffers/dwarf puffers for 10 months (but I have been keeping freshwater aquaria since the 80s). I have 7 of them in a long-established, heavily planted 20 gallon, along with a bristlenose pleco, 2 siamese algae eaters, a bumblebee goby and 3 nerite snails. The pea puffers were small and young when I bought them, so they are all a little over a year old at this point. One of my puffers is not eating, wasting away to a skeleton. This is the third time this has happened to one of my pea puffers, although the first two times this happened, the puffers were newly-acquired and never ate for me after I bought them. This is the first time one of my established, healthy puffers has stopped eating and started wasting away. I treat all of my fish with quarantine trio when I get them, so all of these fish have been through that medication regimen once. Additionally, I treated the entire display tank with a combination of Ruby Reef Kich Ich and Rally since getting these fish. I have not added any new fish since then. No new fish, snails or plants since last October, or since treating with multiple meds. When I see a pufferfish wasting away, my first thought is to suspect parasites. Other than its caudal fin looking like someone has been chewing on it, I don’t see any disease markers like cottony growth, spots, ulcers etc. None of the above-mentioned medications helped the previous 2 wasting pea puffers. They simply never ate after I brought them home last year, and wasted away. Any ideas on what could be causing this inappetance and wasting away? Should I still go ahead and treat the display tank with Quarantine Trio? Or something else? Will Quarantine Trio kill my nerites or plants? I have attached 2 photos of the sick pea puffer and a photo of my tank. I feed the fish a rotation of these Hikari frozen foods: omega-enriched brine shrimp, plain brine shrimp, Spirulina mysis shrimp, plain mysis shrimp, blood worms. They refuse to eat frozen daphnia, cyclops or tubifex worms. I occasionally feed them Fluval Bug Bites (which they sometimes eat, sometimes don’t). pH: 7.2 (before turning on the paintball CO2) Ammonia: 0 nitrite: 0 nitrate: between 20-40 GH: 89.5ppm KH: 4dKH water temperature: 78F