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Lazy Plant Novice - tell me what to do!

Byron said:
A comprehensive liquid fertilizer will help five the plants a start. You are in England, so look for TNC Lite. This can be used with or without fish in the tank.
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yep, that's the one I've gone for. Used it >10yrs ago, when TNC was a little start-up company and one of the owners (I think) was a member on here.

Now that the Fish Wallet has been opened, I'm itching to spend more money......on a 'tank that wont cost anything' promise I made to my wife (which has already cost ~£40 on plants and substrate).

a group of ~10 chilli rasborra, maybe some shrimp, maybe a pea puffer instead.....oh dear, I've got the bug again.
 
all the plants have remained in the substrate overnight.....I might actually have planted them properly. Bit of white wooly 'fungus' appearing on the wood.

thinking about some moss to attach to the very barren looking wood.
 
on the liquid ferts, the bottle tells me to dose weekly but I'm going to divide that weekly dose by 7 and do it daily instead. If memory serves, that's a more beneficial way for the plants. Please correct me if wrong.
 
ZoddyZod said:
on the liquid ferts, the bottle tells me to dose weekly but I'm going to divide that weekly dose by 7 and do it daily instead. If memory serves, that's a more beneficial way for the plants. Please correct me if wrong.
Click to expand...

Yes that is an approach some recommend. I don't know if it is more beneficial or not, given how plants can store nutrients, but it cannot do any harm.
 
it's been a month and this is how it's looking. The plants seem to be doing OK. The hygrophila has grown quite a lot. Wood covered in algae, so decided to introduce some cherry shrimp (6). Plan is to make this shrimp only (for now).

20221212_111918.jpg
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Hard to see, but this shrimp is now loaded with eggs. On the plant side, going well - no obvious die-off or melting from anything.
20230103_161946.jpg
 
nine months in and I freely admit I've let this tank just get on with it with minimal plant trimming from me, except cutting back the one that is happily escaping the tank. Need a thin algae scrapper to get to the bottom front of the tank, no harm in that though as currently providing more grazing space for the shrimp.

colony of shrimp is up from 6 to ~20. Have lost about 5 after they've been found wandering on the carpet.

tank is placed right next to my desk, which provides a great distraction from my day job :)
 

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Back in the fold said:
You failed with a plant that I can't kill ? That's pretty bad. Time to take up golf.
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Lol. It depends though. I have never had much luck with frogbit. But then I was keeping it with salvinia minima and I think the salvinia just outcompeted it for nutrients. I tried salvinia minima in a 10 gallon and was wondering why it was disintegrating. Then I realize that there was too much surface agitation. It's one thing when you have more surface area.
I like to say "bulletproof" when it comes to some plants. But truth is that there's really no such thing. It really depends on the conditions in the tank.
 
ZoddyZod said:
tank is placed right next to my desk, which provides a great distraction from my day job :)
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Me too! Especially in the early part of the day when the neons are dancing around with each other trying to establish dominance.
 
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