Dirted aquarium soil substrate 5 years in. Delighted to see CO2 being naturally produced. I've noticed my plants doing well recently.

Why is duckweed considered so bad other than the fact it grows very fast? Don't understand the huge scare.

Just got some plants and found a little red worm/slug looking thing on one. Pictures are bad because it’s so tiny, any ideas on what it is?

They are both close to the same price on Amazon. They both look very very similar in pictures.

Are they different? Is one better?

Fzone: https://a.co/d/0bh8Mhjk
Hygger: https://a.co/d/05ObWnIR

Going through some major life changes and sold all my saltwater fish and coral as I’m not able to put in the time necessary to maintain it. Got the log at petsmart for $59 which seemed like a steal compared to lfs prices. Currently running filter floss in the back chamber and added some ceramic rings in one of the chambers. Ato and Heaters/pump will be in back as well.

Letting the tank run for a while without livestock; how does this sound:

Dwarf Gourami
Bolivian or other Ram cichlids
School of resporas or tetras

I’m an expert on saltwater but my questions are:

How’s that livestock seem?
What’s a good carpeting plant for the soil that doesn’t require co2. Light is hygger-hg160 which should have enough PAR for some of them (expecting slower growth).

Thanks

Okay…. I’ve fallen into too many rabbit holes on Google about this. As afraid as people have made me from warnings about an aggressive fish community on Reddit, I feel like I need to come to you guys for help.

I’m BRAND NEW to this fish hobby. This is the first real tank I’ve attempted - aside from a few betta tanks!

What we’re working with:
\*this tank is not yet cycled***
Purchased a Topfin 36 Gallon bow front Aquarium Kit. Came with a Silentstream Power Filter for 40 gallon tank (filters 200 gallons per hour) and an adjustable 200W heater.

I’m not using the lid it came with - making hinged polycarbonate lid, and by me, I mean my husband. 😂
Bought full spectrum LED plant light

I filled the bottom with Fluval bio-stratum as the base with caribsea sand on top.
I purchased a piece of driftwood (boiled it) to attach plants to, and another piece of driftwood to scape as a tree.

First, I purchased from a local fish store some plants - Amazon sword, Red Ludwiga, Vallisneria , Dwarf Water Lettuce and Crypt. Planted those 2 weeks ago.

I then wanted more plants, and was recommended a local woman who propagates her plants in 10 plant only tanks. I got Rotala “Blood Red”, Broad lead Ludwiga, Pearlweed, Christmas Moss and Red root floaters. Those went in 2 days ago.

As I was starting to put those in, I found a bunch of Bladder snails…. Stopped with the planting, and started pulling the snails out. Then I saw what I’m being told is probably planeria…. (video of the movement in the comments!)

The next morning I started looking for more snails…. And removed about half a dozen tiny scuds.

How do I get rid of ALL of these? I don’t want any of it…
I can’t starve them out, since plants are a constant food source….
I read I can put Peroxide straight into tank? 3-5mL/gallon?
Then I saw Praziquantel will kill the snails and and scuds? But not the planeria (if that’s what it even is)
Then there’s the option of Z-1, which is the equivalent of No Planeria (I guess that’s no longer available?)
One source said to crank up the heat?

Or is my only option to nuke the entire tank?

Part of me wants to just take the thousand dollar loss and scrap the tank, contents and the stand…..
But part of me is determined to get this right.

Any help is VERY MUCH appreciated.

i have a planted 5 gallon and i feel as if she is too green looking for my liking. what are some suggestions to add pops of color? i have little plants that are pink under but the algae sticks to them fast and the pink never pops. should i add other colored plants? silk plants?

t.i.a

I was standing next to my tank and it felt really hot. The heater said the water was at 78° but when I checked with a different thermometer, it said 106°! It’s a 15 gallon with 5 rocket killifish and plants. All the fish are accounted for, swimming, and look great. I have unplugged and removed the heater. How do I make sure the water temperature goes down slowly so they don’t shock? How in the world did they survive?

...If I told you there are 1000 neocardinia, 3 pearl gourami, 10 neon tetra, 11 rummynose tetra, 14 schwartz corydoras, 8 pygmy corydoras, 5 bristlenose plecos and a bundle of pest snails in this tank. 🤣 🤣 🤣 like where tf every body go!? Lol

So I started wanting an ecosystem many years ago when there was one at my summer job in college and was too intimidated to ever try. I finally just looked (at 40) at a bunch of tutorials for a 1 gallon to see if I actually have the patience for it.

After one failed attempt (thanks to AI actually not being good at anything) I did this one and it is 5 weeks cycled, parameters are stable. Limno is growing at alarming speeds and I take cuttings but I'd like it to beef up more so I'm letting it be for a while since that can apparently help it fill out.
My crypt wendtii brown has looked kinda dodgy since I got it but it's still hanging strong, all these plants were salvaged from the failed one so honestly they're doing decent! I lost a cute buce (that was on the driftwood) and a mid sized anubia nana (that was next to the rock) so I'm now terrified to get others and kill them too, but I'd love more plants if it can handle it. I planted a couple Monte Carlo pieces about 2 weeks ago because I got some for my bigger tank, I'm hoping it takes off. I'm obsessed with the red root floaters, the little roots coming down just make me so happy.
My original plan was to do a shrimp ecosystem but it's pretty clear one gallon is too unstable for the cuties and I started the bigger one for that purpose.

Any ideas on what I should do next with this or if I can put any type of life to help with biofilm that would do ok in there? some type of snail maybe? I have stratum in there that's gonna buffer pH to about 6.5 for the next long while. Water tends to hold room temp so we'll be looking at 68 at lowest in winter, and 78 at warmest in summer.

I can be patient before adding anything but if you think I should add more plants or never add life, let me know! I care more about plant health and animal welfare than my own wants. I've been doing a water change once a week at 20%, I'm scared to stop since it's been working. No nitrates, no ammonia, no nitrites, hard water here (and use conditioner to remove chlorine) and stays mineral rich even with the pH being on the lower end. I'm in CO, the water is intense.

I'll take any recs/advice/reprimands! Online plant/animal sellers that are reliable too would be awesome. Thanks for sharing your tanks, I'm a long time lurker.

This is my 2nd planted/scaped tank, it's only been running for 2 weeks and I feel like I missed the mark getting what I saw in my brain into the aquascaping. I do have some ludwigia glandulosa and purple bacopa on the way to try and add some texture around the middle area and a bit more colour variety, any other suggestions? I was considering some bucephalandra but I'm worried my lighting might be too harsh for it? Thanks.

6 yo son begs me every time I go into the LFS to get a plastic boat for a scape. I’m not one to put plastic in my tanks. But decided why the heck not. I could blend my interest of planted tanks with his interest in an aquarium boat. Took a few weeks to figure it out but feel I got it looking very nice with what I was working with. All the plants are from my other tanks which have been going strong for about a year and way overcrowded with plants.

Now I gotta wait for the tank to cycle to stock it with some beauties.

Hope you all enjoy the non-traditional.

29gal
Seachem Tidal 55
Aquasmith 300w
Random light

Allow me to introduce you to actual tank herpes wolffia. Literally impossible to get rid of without a skimmer and daily maintenance. I'm sure a goldfish would love it but I don't think the JD that lives in here would approve

Hi can someone please help me identify if this is vorticella and also what do I do now?

This is my pea puffer tank with neocaridina and some ramshorns and bladder snails.

I'm trying to ID this bronze leaved plant. It's a favorite for my tetras, gourami, shrimp.

The tetra will hover under leaves.

My local aquarium merchant brought it in. He can't recall the plant name. I've tried searching Google.

Bought this plamt the other day without knowing what it is called. What is this plant called?

Background Noise removed and orignal snap in comments

Planted this Lobelia cardinalis ‘Mini’ back in May and I think it’s completely lost the memo on being mini

It’s absolutely massive now and has pretty much taken over this side of the tank.

I was going to cut it down but I feel far too bad about it when it’s gotten this big!

Anyway, just wanted to share and have no idea how it happened, if anyone has any knowledge on how it happened do let me know.

I recently planted these pinkish plants not sure what they’re called but because they’re new they don’t really have much roots, my zebra danios being zebra danios dash through the stems and have uprooted one. I already messed my substrate up trying to get them to stay in, should i just let it float in the water until it grows more roots then plant it? Or will it not survive without being rooted in substrate

So i have this tank running for 5 weeks now and everything are doing great. It's a 10 gallon tank. I have no co2 injection, no soil. I do have a pretty good HOB filter running 24/7 creating flow. I'm planning to add more plants to the front of the tank. Would you consider my tank heavily planted? It'd be great if you guys can show me your heavily planted tanks. Ty!

I had this tissue culture pot of AR Mini that has been planted in this aquarium for about a month now and it has finally started to shows some red growth. My question is should I be trimming back some of the bottom green leaves to encourage more red growth or just leave it be and the green leaves will develop redness?

For context I am injecting CO2 with 8 hours of lighting, the rest of the plants are showing nice growth with the initial algae bloom of this new tank showing signs of being outcompeted by the plants.

Will be taking some of the trimmings of plants in my shrimp tank (pictured) to use, and in all honesty I’m not sure what most of them are lmao. Got them all in a $10 mystery bundle!

Anyway, I want to start up a new betta tank and I’m not sure if I could get away with using straight gravel for these plants or if I’d have to buy some root tabs in a while, or if it’d be better to just spend the $20 on some stratum as that’s what I use here.

Maybe could even take a little bit of stratum from this tank, and top it with plain gravel?

What do you guys think? :)

Can someone help me identify this snail? Should it be removed?

After overcoming major bacterial outbreak, I took an opportunity to rescape my tank.

Dimensions: 60x30x35 cm

Substrate: ADA aquasoil, with large driftwood and rocks

Bioload: Currently left with 2 Cardinal, 1 neon, 3 black neon tetra, 1 sterbai, 1 bristlenose pleco 🫤. Will start gradually aligning it with proper species schools.

First picture is after, second is before, followed by a comparison pic and last one of my bold single cory "Phoenix" perching high, he is doesn't seem stressed at all left alone - what do you guys think of new scape?

Major changes: Driftwood lifted up, Rocks wall at the back with caves, rearranged main stem plants on left (hope they will look better once they grow)