Corbidorbidoodle

Just barely tuck the bulb in the substrate. You don't wanna bury it or it'll spoil. Maybe shove a root tab underneath.

You can get those plants right in there. You'll want a food source for the plants though. Root tabs or fortified substrate and fertilizer for the water column. Driftwood and CO2 will both lower pH a little. I just learned about KH and using some crushed coral to keep the pH steady. A couple handfuls of crushed coral will help a lot. My tap water is the same and I've got tanks filled with wood and plants and the pH stays around 6.4 and everything is going good.

I would love to attempt at some point. I think they're super fun and not as hard as they look. But I'm super cheap, so procuring the proper materials is my hangup. Seems like they pretty much take care of themselves for the most part though. The ecosystem setups are really cool.

Oh, and three is a pretty good start. And you can trim them before they get to the top if you want. Once they're established, you can cut them in half. Where they're trimmed, they'll grow 2 new branches. And you can plant the trimmings in front of the old ones.

@Patrick_G, thanks! At the time of the photo I wasn't injecting CO2. I've since started injecting, dosing K, and did a big trim.

Here are a couple of my tanks. The first shows pogo in a 20gal, the second is wisteria in a 55.

I think octopus is easier. Octopus is way more stringy and fast growing. (At least in my tank) And the octopus will grow up to the top and swirl over, like val. The wisteria is way more full and lush. Makes a nice, thick shrubbery kinda thing when it's trimmed. The octopus is easier to plant things in front of or under. They're both pretty easy though.

To the best of my understanding, the effective threshold for plants to photosynthesize is a fair bit higher than it is for algae. Does that make sense? So, there could be an issue where the ambient light is capable of growing algae, but your plants don't see it. That being said, it's very common for my kids to leave the dining room or kitchen lights on all night, and I've not noticed it being an issue. I think direct or bright window light would be a problem. But, I think, diffuse, regular-type daylight bouncing off walls and stuff is fine.

I work next door to a landscape rockery place and they've got lots of stuff that'd look really cool in a tank. I wanna ask what're some things to avoid when selecting rocks. I remember reading, or watching somewhere the rocks should be harder than your pocket knife, and to avoid rocks with sparkly bits. Any other guidelines you guys know of? Oh, and here's some of the cool stuff I saw. Obviously most of it is very big, but there are small bits and crumbs everywhere.

I paint the back of my tanks with black or dark grey usually. I got some mis-colored paint for a couple bucks at Lowe's. It did 4 or 5 tanks for 3 dollars. For most of my tanks, the lids are cut from a sheet of polycarbonate greenhouse siding from the hardware store. The 4x8 sheet was $50+, so it's not super cheap. But I've cut 7 lids and haven't even used half of it. It looks like you've got some asian water ferns, anubias, a windelov java Fern. You want to keep their rhizomes above the gravel or they'll die. They're called epiphytes, and they feed from the water rather than the substrate. I glue mine to locally scrounged wood and rocks. You can use super glue, or just wedge them in to cracks. I love the fancy, exotic rocks and wood from the store, but the free river bank stuff is more my speed. Oh, and from what I can tell, that light should work fine. And welcome to planted tanks.

Usually, when I buy one Val plant, I'm actually getting several. I plant them how it looks good, like, bigger ones at the back or edges, then let it go. I've not had any issues with the val competing for nutrients. When it grows somewhere I don't want it, I just clip the chain and pull out what I don't want. It's nice looking when it gets going though. I have a tank that's almost all val and I let it go wherever it wants. For now anyway.

I just do it so I can have the lights on before work and in the evening without the tanks being lit for 14 hours. That'd be way too much. But with them off in the middle of the day I can enjoy them whenever I'm home. FWIW , my lights are on for 3hrs, then a 4hr siesta and then on for 7 hrs.

I've run into the same problem. I had a dozen fernlets glued to a piece of driftwood and after a while they started the same thing. Seems to be contagious too. I removed the infected ferns and the adjacent ones as well. Seems to have stopped. I actually had a few Java ferns and some buce or Anubis (can't remember which) tucked in to a driftwood crack in a different tank. The Java ferns were from the same parent plant. The brown death took out the ferns and the other adjacent epiphytes as well.

Good call. I've been reading about the Kh effect on Ph. I didn't really realize that Kh is depletable. I'mma get some stuff to correct that today

Oh, and I should add that it doesn't seem to be affecting the behavior of the fish at all. Still swimming around well and difficult to catch and remove. (Cuz they're fast)

Here's a picture I got from some other forum thread. https://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/attachments/fungus-on-guppy-jpg.94916/

Nitrate- 50 Nitrite- 0 Amonia- 0 Hardness- 300+ Buffer- 0 Ph- lower than 6.4 Temp- 75ish but I unplugged the heater to slow down the disease. I've got a tank where I put my plant clippings to grow an there's gobs of guppy fry. I've been occasionally seeing these mouldy guppies and throwing them out from time to time. Always very pregnant females. Just noticed the first moldy fry though, so I should probably take care of it... It looks like they're moldy. Always on their sides/back. Almost always on their left side, weirdly. White, definitely looks fluffy. I added a Tbsp of salt/gallon. Lowered the temperature, and added a dose of Artemis Micro Lift. I'll buy some Maracyn tomorrow. What do you think this is? do you guys like for treatment?

I see this stuff in MD Fish Tanks' videos and it looks so cool. I picked some up from the CoOp the other day to put in my 6.5 bookshelf, and it just kind of looks like a mess. The new leaves are starting to grow, and the plant looks healthy, just not sure how to plant it so it looks it's best. It's kind of straggly, so maybe it looks best mixed with something else? How do you guys plant it? What's it with? Do you have any pics for inspiration? Right now in the tank with the Hydrocotyle, I've got some Water Sprite, some kind of Rotala (indica?), a big bush of Java Moss, and some Mayaca Fluviatilis.

I actually noticed the deterioration on sister plants in a different tank. I've gotten the Java ferns from the same mother plant and they were wedged into a crack on a piece of driftwood. The deterioration took out the Java fronts and a couple of buce. Then I noticed it in this tank just a few days ago.

I'd say about 3 months. All those little fernlets were transplanted from a bigger fern and glued on to that wood about 1-1.5 months ago though.

It seems like something is spreading through the java ferns on this piece of driftwood. Do any of you know what's going on and how to stop it?

Definitely. Like, I have to see them being selfless and caring. Not just a shallow, physical attraction.

Depending on the shape of the light, your floating plants might not be getting enough. Of you had, say, a Fluval Aquasky or something skinny like that right at the top of the tank, the light at the top of the water is only going to be a couple inches wide. The floaters outside of that spread aren't really getting anything. I couldn't grow water lettuce in my 55 with an Aquaneat, but when I changed to the Stingray 2, they started growing great. Turned out the only change I needed was way more light for water lettuce. I have another low light tank that'll grow salvinia great, but won't even grow red root floaters. Floaters seem to eat a whole dang lot too. I find on my heavily planted 55, I can barely keep enough nitrates in there to feed my planted plants. The floaters are hanging on, but they're small and not really spreading. When I remember to keep them fertilized though, they do much better. Oh, and most of my tanks are on for 3hrs in the morning, then off from 9:30 to 1, and then on from 1-8. They get that siesta period, the tanks don't get so much light they grow a bunch of algae, and I can enjoy them before and after work.

I've found that I can have trouble keeping ENOUGH nitrates in the water. Especially when you get a lot of plants in there. They'll grow pretty well at first, then when the naturally occurring nutrients are tapped out, they'll start to stall and get algae-y. I rarely have to change my water anymore. When I do, it's usually because the driftwood is leaching tannins and I just want to clear the water up a bit. Otherwise I go by the indications on the ACO test strips. They say to change the water after you get up around 100ppm. But my tanks never even get to 50. I've got pretty easy fish though. My plants are doing pretty well for the most part with the ACO root tabs and ferts.

I added a passive CO2 bell to several of my tanks. I saw the one on the big display tank at the CoOp and figured I could give it a try. Seems to be doing some good. I haven't tested for CO2 directly, but I'm seeing improved growth, and the Ph has dropped measurably. Here's my question though. I've noticed that on every tank, the first day the water soaks up almost the whole bell's worth of gas. Then the next day, somewhat less is depleted. And after several days, it only absorbs a little bit. This seems to be the case from my 5 gal to my 55 gal. Is this normal? Does it mean the water is saturated with as much CO2 as it can from a passive system? Does it mean that most of the gas in the bell is just atmosphere? And this is sort of another question, but I'm not sure how answerable it is by the average nerm. Is the CO2 absorbed related to how much the plants are using? Or more just about now much the water will suck out? So, like, if the plants are using a lot, will the bell deplete faster? Or is it not really related to plant absorption at all? Thanks, everybody!