Starting over!

Got some more plants today! I ordered java fern narrow, java fern trident, vallisneria, bacopa caroliniana red, ludwigia arcuata, and more dwarf sag.

Has anyone else here experienced "galls" on their java fern? The 'windelov' that I got from my LFS about six months ago began growing these funky little things, and they spread to my other java fern. The small new leaves were completely covered in galls and ended up misshapen and stunted. Unfortunately, I had to cut away a lot of good growth to get them healthy again



Anyway, I do still have a few small bunches of regular java fern and java fern windelov. But I'm impatient and decided to order some more, along with the other plants, to help fill out the tank. Things are very slimy and biofilm-y right now, which I accept as a natural part of the process... but I still try to remove what I can during water changes lol. Added a couple more rocks, and finally took out the one in front that was weighing down the wood.

RedSarah said:

Got some more plants today! I ordered java fern narrow, java fern trident, vallisneria, bacopa caroliniana red, ludwigia arcuata, and more dwarf sag.

Has anyone else here experienced "galls" on their java fern? The 'windelov' that I got from my LFS about six months ago began growing these funky little things, and they spread to my other java fern. The small new leaves were completely covered in galls and ended up misshapen and stunted. Unfortunately, I had to cut away a lot of good growth to get them healthy again

View attachment 130242

Anyway, I do still have a few small bunches of regular java fern and java fern windelov. But I'm impatient and decided to order some more, along with the other plants, to help fill out the tank. Things are very slimy and biofilm-y right now, which I accept as a natural part of the process... but I still try to remove what I can during water changes lol. Added a couple more rocks, and finally took out the one in front that was weighing down the wood.

View attachment 130246

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This scape invites you to go in and explore! Looking really nice!

eatyourpeas said:

This scape invites you to go in and explore! Looking really nice!

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Thank you! Hopefully will have some little fishies hanging out in there by the springtime

The new plants arrived (finally)! They were stuck in FedEx limbo for a week and I was getting worried that they'd arrive dead. But, lo and behold, the package came yesterday and everything but the stem plants looked great, and even those just required a trim.

I stayed up late last night to add the plants and do a water change. The water was markedly clearer this morning than it has been so far. A layer of green algae and diatoms builds up on everything if I'm not diligent about maintenance, so I'm trying to change water and clean plant leaves three times a week. The wood has a nice layer of gunk on it now lol.

I also removed the red root floaters because they were getting pushed around by the filter and developed algae. I'm thinking about replacing them with something like amazon frogbit or a small salvinia variety since the fish I'm considering would need surface cover. Any recommendations?

I've been too focused on the 30C, and let a bunch of algae build up in the 25C over the last couple of weeks (whoops). Cleaned it all out and planted some jungle val and more dwarf sag yesterday. This Chihiros RGB light makes the background look blue, even though both tanks have the same white frosted window film—might end up getting a second ONF flat nano later

Added 2 ppm ammonia on Saturday afternoon and tested the water yesterday—the 30C is getting there!

RedSarah said:

I'm thinking about replacing them with something like amazon frogbit or a small salvinia variety since the fish I'm considering would need surface cover. Any recommendations?

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Salvinia is nice. I had it in my tanks for a while... grows fast and has nice roots.

Good looking so far! Definitely come a long way since day 1.

PheonixKingZ said:

Salvinia is nice. I had it in my tanks for a while... grows fast and has nice roots.

Good looking so far! Definitely come a long way since day 1.

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Thanks! Yes, I'm definitely looking for something with nice roots. I'm going to the LFS today so hopefully they have some salvinia

I got salvinia! Plus some common and giant duckweed hitchhikers... definitely don't need any more duckweed but oh well.

I'm now overrun with limpets in the 7 gallon, and notice lots of detritus worms and a few planaria despite big water changes and light gravel vacs once a week—could this be because of the aquasoil? There are no visible worms and very few limpets in the 4 gallon (sand substrate).

I'm not one to destroy these little creatures, but I've never had planaria in my tanks. They probably came in with my last plant order. Are they actually harmful to small fish or shrimp? Some people seem to really hate them

RedSarah said:

I'm not one to destroy these little creatures, but I've never had planaria in my tanks. They probably came in with my last plant order. Are they actually harmful to small fish or shrimp? Some people seem to really hate them

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Upon closer inspection, they actually have round heads and seem to be rhabdocoela or another type of flatworm besides planaria!

RedSarah said:

Upon closer inspection, they actually have round heads and seem to be rhabdocoela or another type of flatworm besides planaria!

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Rhabdos are harmless but a great indicator of overfeeding, so they make a great little natural alarm system, just like detritus worms.

Your tanks are looking amazing!

They are harmless, but annoying. Your tank looks awesome! Good work.

eatyourpeas said:

Rhabdos are harmless but a great indicator of overfeeding, so they make a great little natural alarm system, just like detritus worms.

Your tanks are looking amazing!

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Thanks so much! Hopefully their populations go down a bit once the cycle is complete

PheonixKingZ said:

They are harmless, but annoying. Your tank looks awesome! Good work.

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Thank you!!