Ariel S

Thanks! Well I’m not doing to raise my light if I’m not going to end up using the Pothos in that tank. I don’t want the other plants to die. I’m using legos hahaha

Hi- should I be worried that Pothos will outcompete my water column plants? back story: i was growing Pothos in one of my breeding tanks, it was a 10 gallon that housed about 150 endler females, I had a huge Pothos growing from it to help keep the water clean, it’s about 10 feet long with huge leaves. (side note: it was wonderful it kept the water free of ammonia and nitrite despite the heavy bio load). I recently sold all of my endlers and broke down the tank, so I move my giant Pothos to my 40 gallon breeder (low fish stock) tank and now I’m worried that it’s going to outcomplete the plants in that tank. any advice is welcome! current plants in the tank with the Pothos: lots of Java fern, Amazon sword, tons of years old crypts, Anubias, pogostem octopus, and Java fern. I currently use easy green and root tabs. The tank doesn’t look great, and you can’t see the whole thing in the picture, but it’s been doing some serious bouncing back from a massive Blackbeard and other algae breakout when I left it practically unattended for almost 3 months while I was out of town.

Hi- ive been struggling recently with various algae blooms in all of my tanks. I’ve been trying to figure out a balance and I’m hoping I can get some help.I’ve had these tanks running for years but the last few have just been algae farms and my plants are certainly suffering. im trying to figure out if I have too much light or too long lighting hours or not enough light/too short of hours. right now I’m using Fluval 4.0 running at about 30% ish for about 6-7 hours a day. I’ve tried many different combinations but just can’t get it right. Constant algae farm. Photos attached.

Hello All, Today I brought in 250 assorted Endlers (bred by me) to my local fish store. They only offered me $5 in store credit. My question is, is that common? Is that what is to be expected from selling that many fish to a fish store? I’m honestly not sure what is an appropriate amount of fish to store credit ratio? I’m looking for advice because that seemed really low but the next closest fish store is an additional 30 minute drive- trying to see if it’s worth it to drive to that store or is that standard practice? thoughts? Advice?

That’s awesome! they look so beautiful from the top of the tank looking down! My red tiger lotus was growing big beautiful pink red leaves and then one day, the leaves just started disintegrating and after about 2 weeks of that it was just dead! yours looks like it’s thriving though!!! Best of luck!

I had a betta that would get fin rot pretty easily because he would bite on his tail when stressed AND because of the stress from his tank mates at the time it made it even worse! I used salt mainly and dosed Maracyn or erythromycin to fight off any infection he got in the process. I’ve never found bettafix or any of that other gimicky stuff to work. discovering the cause of the fin rot is by far the best fix. Because once you treat it and any other issues as a result you can keep it from coming back. I’ve learned that diagnosing the reason an ill was happened in the first place is the best first step! 🙂 maybe he’s tearing his fins on decorations or a tankmate is ripping them or the water conditions could be causing stress. I hope this is helpful advice! Here is a link to a useful video for treating fin rot:

Thanks for the reply! Going to give it another shot!

Hello All! I’m hoping to successfully grow Pothos out of my 40 breeder to help with nitrates/have an awesome tank. I’ve tried in the past and it always just gets brown leaves, turns to mush, and dies. This is in a room that has no windows so there is no natural light coming in. My question: Would the ambient light from my Fluval 3.0 (sitting on top of the lid) be enough light for it to grow? Or do I need a dedicated light source? There is usually no light on in that room unless I’m in there (maybe 2 -3 hours a day) otherwise the only light is from my Fluval lights on the tanks. If I need a dedicated light source, anyone know how many hours a day? I’ll prob get some sort of clip light and a timer if so any suggestions? Tips?

Thank you. Yea I had back up air but it’s not the same as my full filtration running. Plus, the temps probably super stressed the situation. My tank is usually at about 76-79. So it was prob in the high 80s most of the time. I own probably 9 of the USB air pumps, only 1 works, mine ALWAYS go out after a couple months. I got tired of getting them replaced and buying new ones. I purchased battery operated bubblers from sporting goods stores instead. Way cheaper from the sporting good stores than a fish store.And they work really well, no issue, as long as you have enough battery life.

Well- just updating everyone who helped me out. My tanks went 8 days without power. I had air going but no light at all in the room. Eeek. Thermometer I have for the room keeps a memory, the highest temp in the room was 101 and lowest was 88. I’d guess my tanks were quite a bit warmer than I usually keep them. For the fish- sadly, my fire red agazzi apistogramma that I’ve had for 6 years didn’t make it. He was very stressed by the time I made it back home- stopped eating & had a swollen eye (prob an infection- he had damaged his eye a few years ago). All other fish were fine- ironically my endlers had fry in 3 tanks & pseudomoguil rainbow scattered eggs in 2 tanks. Most plants have appeared to fare “okay.” Not great though. There was leaf damage and melting to almost every plant (except my African fern & frogbit) I lost about half the leaves on my swords, various bulb plants, and Java fern. My crypts are ok- just in dire need of root tabs! Almost no algae though so that was a plus! I guess the fish finished off the algae since they hadn’t been fed too! I’d imagine that with a little TLC And a lot of root tabs/fertz these plants will brought back to their former glory! thanks to everyone who helped out! I wish I would’ve taken pictures! But I forgot and trimmed everything!

Thanks @anewbie no windows unfortunately- I’m worried about my tanks getting too hot with the high temps in New Orleans. ive got some circulation from multiple battery operated air pumps going on in each tank. Haven’t fed or anything thing. hoping for the best!!!

Thanks- I have an assortments- 6 tanks worth. And I finally got my pink flamingo crypt!!! Darn.

Hello fish friends, I am currently evacuated due to Hurricane Ida, I lost power to the lights on my fish tanks, Sunday Aug 29 @ 12:00pm (noon)- as of now a total of about 5 days. how long can my plants survive? There is no light at all- not even ambient lighting- there is no window in that room. And if my plants are dying or are dead how much of an issue do you think that will cause in terms of ammonia etc ??? I have air going in the tank btw- no filters running just air stones. Unfortunately. thanks in advance,

oh also! In the past, I've purchased emerged grown plants and converted them in a bucket with lots of light and lots of fertilizers to kind of jump start the conversion. I did this outside where there was plenty of co2 & sunlight and they transitioned just fine one I moved them to my display tank. You could also try that!

Hmmm it could just be transitioning to submersed and going a little be "dormant." If its literally disinetgrating it could be lack of nutrients. I know you said you were not dosing easy green because you already have 40 ppm of nitrates, but plants do need other macro/micro nutrients to survive other than nitrogen and easy green has those other nutrients. Have you tested your water for other nutrients (ie phosphate, calcium, iron?) There are lots of good nutrient deficiency charts out there. Aquarium coop has one on their website thats detailed. The plants still shouldn't be melting to the point of disintegrating super quickly even under less than ideal circumstances. Especially not a plant as hardy as pogostemon stellatus. It could be the light, bc the lights that come with those kits are terrible for the most part but still grow plants in my quarantine tanks. Id suggest beefing up the nutrients and lights. If that doesn't work and if these plants were purchased from aquarium coop perhaps reach out to customer service to see if they can ship you new ones and help steer you in the right direction.

If it’s your tap water (before adding to your tank), it’s likely that your water municipality is adding Chloramines to your water. This is common during hotter months. Same thing happens here. Chloramines don’t gas off like chlorine does. What you can try is to fill a bucket with tap water, add a declorinator like Seachem’s Prime and then test it the next morning and see what readings you get. You could be getting inaccurate readings from the Chloramines.

your tap water is reading .25 ammonia? If it’s just your tank water then… Sounds like your tank just needs more time to “season” / cycle. Do you have filtration? Sponges? some sort of bio media? Live Plants? you can keep water changing out the .25 ammonia if you’re very worried, but time is key. Products adding beneficial bacteria are great too but time time time is the fix. (And plants!) I would also hold off on feeding for a bit too. To help the beneficial bacteria keep growing since feeding will lead to more ammonia.

I’ve gone through quite a few of the USB air pumps. I’ve bought maybe 6 ish in total and I love them, but I’ve had 3 just randomly stop working. I reached out to the coop once and got it replaced but didn’t bother with the other two, they are so cheap I just bought more instead and switched to using them only for power outages.

I’ve looked into this before because I wanted my tank lights on more during the weekends. You can have different presets, but I couldn’t find anything that I could use to set it to change on certain days. So I bought a wifi timer, that let me turn on and off on certain days! BUT I also made an algae farm in my living room tank doing that so I wouldn’t recommend it!

That’s an awesome idea! But those are pretty small heaters? Like for small tanks? Or would that warm a 40gal

What’s that cool looking plant on the bottom right? I kinda love it!

Hi! ive decided to take the leap and set up one of my heavily planted tanks with a CO2 system. For no reason other than just wanting to try it out. I’ve gone 10 years without CO2 and just want a change. I’ve done some research but still have questions. I hope someone on this forum can help answer them. The general “internet” is making me fearful of CO2! 1. will CO2 have an affect on any major water parameters- such as PH? KH? GH? I have very hard water, my PH is usually between 7.2-7.6 and I have like low to moderate KH. 2. are there any legit dangers to the inhabitants? The internet has lots of fear mongers saying it can kill all of your fish if you inject too much, but how much is too much? 3. what happens if the power goes out? I purchased a regulator that will be plugged into a timer/wall outlet, but I don’t have any back up power units and don’t intend on buying any** Is it okay for it to just not run if the power goes off for a couple days at a time? Will there be major plant or fish deaths if so? And is there anything I have to do to the regulator or the tank in a power outage? ***it’s just too expensive to have elaborate back up power. I do run battery operated air supplies and have a few USB run air stones that I use smaller battery packs and solar chargers for, but I don’t intend on getting like a big generator or anything too elaborate. thank you in advance 🙂

Ahhh now I understand the difference…

Bc Cory loves pineapple on pizza!