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Mould/fungus, not a huge difference and I'm with you on your answers Byron.   I also agree that that's brush algae with detritus in it, and with changing the sand for those species.

Substrate, depends what your plan is, if you want anything soft or acidic then you'll struggle with crushed coral in the substrate. I hate to say it but you may find it far simpler to replace than remove it if it's mixed in.   The white stuff is mould, it happens a lot, wipe it off and it'll...

You've added another fish to the territory of the female, who is happily established and feels that her area has been invaded.   It's possible that she wants to breed and he isn't ready, which could be more trouble, but more likely it's the territory thing. Ideally you need to move the decor...

In theory it shouldn't be a big problem, as the CO2 will drive plant metabolism, which in turn produces oxygen.   It does fall apart a bit at high temperatures, but then so do the CO2 levels.   Was there a marked shift in TDS between the conditions that they were kept in to your tank conditions...

Definitely getting there. The nitrite bit seems to be the slowest to complete.   I'd second the advice to test some tap water at some point. I generally leave a pint of water out for about 24 hours and then test it. My tap water runs with 0.5ppm ammonia and 20-30ppm nitrate as standard, so your...

The cleaning behaviour from the females was also fairly obvious. They also dug pits everywhere in the sand that they could, and then moved the fry from pit to pit until they found somewhere to settle.

Sometimes it's as simple as the choice of wood, some simply floats and we spend ages weighing it down, however most of what we use was selected because it tends to sink after a while of it's own accord.   The most obvious answer that occurs to me is to attach it to something solid and hide the...

Probably is a good sign. Have you got any flat rocks for them to spawn on? They're, by preference, spawners on flat surfaces (although mine insisted on spawning on a bit of wood that curved to make a natural cave wall type affair).

Indeed, just think of the LFS, they generally have racks several high. I remember when it was difficult to get a stand that didn't have room for another tank at the bottom.

For me, it depends on the tank, for high tech, and if you can get the conditions right then Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba' is a major contender, although I'm also a fan of glosso and hairgrass works well.   For low tech tanks hairgrass can be a bit sparse and look a bit lost. Pogostemon, as...

There's also seachem safe. Powdered form of prime and can be more cost effective, paticularly if shipping is an issue.   http://www.seachem.com/support/forums/showthread.php?t=142

They're all prone to die back in my experience. I'm not sure which one you'd tend to acquire in the states, there are a lot of species out there, we tend to only get about 5 of them in Europe but I've no experience of the US availabilities. Overall I'd have simply called it straight vallis.  ...

Almost certainly vallis then. It does that occasionally.

Looks more like a straightforward vallis to me.

Singles are simpler than pairs. For preference, groups of 6+, singles, then a pair, all assuming you have the tank for them. Nothing in between, it's not that it's not possible, just that it gets a lot more complex.

I just use Osmocote Controlled Release Plant Food. Picked it up from the local garden centre. I actually found miracle grow in slow release form far more difficult to come by, they tend to be powder that apparently stays in the soil for a long time, hence slow release, rather than a slow release...

Yeah, mine only seem to flower when nasty things happen to them. One of them had a rock knocked onto it when I was away, that was in flower when I came home.

It does indeed keep them occupied, but you may then be more worried about putting your hands in the tank.

  You may well have done, the forum software thinks it's cunning and autocorrects titles if it thinks you may have put two capitals at the beginning of a word, it's generally helpful but occasionally annoying.   Welcome to the forum.

I use surgical steel tools, mainly designed for use on humans. Remarkably, they tend to work out far cheaper than very similar looking kit with aquascaping on the label. I can get them for very little, partly because they're single use on patients and often come in multi item packs, so unused...

It does indeed look a lot like a hygrophila. They often have different emmersed growth to their submerged growth, so it would look different if it's come in new from a supplier that grew it emmersed.

Location might help us. Where in the UK are you?

No, it won't work. Fertilisers you may be able to get away with with regular, but less frequent, dosing. Liquid carbon isn't all that stable, so will react away regardless of the plants usage, hence daily dosing. You'd be better not dosing than dosing irregularly.

The other downside is that some have had trouble with recharging it. Anecdotally it's been due to the water used in the recharging process, and I have access to RO....so have had no trouble.

  Doesn't seem to.   It can reduce availability of ammonia and a few other things, and therefore parts of the nitrogenous fertilisers, but it's by a process of removing organics that can be broken down into that process.

It has a relatively short half life in the tank, mainly as it reacts with stuff. For CO2 supplementing it's aimed at daily dosing, without any particular end point, so you can go until the algae does.

Lots of things get into rain water. Partly by absorbing atmospheric pollutants (as in acid rain), but mainly by the method of collection. Generally we're getting it off the roof of a property which can wash all sorts of things into the supply, ranging from dead leaves to dead animals, along with...

Congos are nice fish, although I would say they're more iridescent than plain colourful. Pearl males, when mature, are very colourful, with quite an intense red at times. Otherwise there are always the dwarf or honey types for more colour but less size.   With the golds or blues, your really...

An old entry to a site, but still relevant.   http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/lighting.htm

The golden and three spot gouramis are the same species, just different colours, much as angelfish can be found in several different colour and pattern types.   They are indeed an aggressive bunch at times. Males are territorial and will tend to fight, so 4 could be a problem. My personal...

Not sure how available the potassium nitrate would be for EI dosing in the USA, but I'm sure some US members will know. Might be that there are other suitable nitrates that can be used instead.

Not really, crypts are a pain for growing perfectly and then all melting for their own reasons, it's actually unusual to only get one melt, as it's conditions based they tend to all go together. On the bright side they tend to come back with no trouble when they do that, but it does appear a bit...

That hadn't occurred to me as an option in this tank, particularly if they've been growing so well recently, but if there was a stir up of any organics by the replanting around the lotuses (loti?) going in then it could have set something off I suppose. I was more thinking that the increased...

I've grown wendetii alongside lotuses with no trouble, although I'm sure it's not impossible.   Personally, it looks like melt, unless something is taking bites out of them, but crypt leaves aren't the easiest plant to predate.

There are more species of cryptocorne than most people think. I'm guessing that you have one of the common ones in the trade, which generally means that they're simple enough to grow in low tech tanks, and tend to the slower growing, but they could range from seriously big background plants to...

The tubes on the APS filters tend to be far wider than most external filters. It means that a fairly large air bubble can collect in the tubes and the water simply flows past, when with a narrower tube it would push through. Trapped air will generally settle within a few days.   Spray bar...

Keyholes are lovely fish. They'll be happy in a 55 gallon. It's also worth looking at the dwarf acara (Laetacara curviceps) and common apistogramma species (although less common in the USA I believe than in the European markets), as well as the rams, bolivians being the best starters there, and...

Part of the problem is that new media traps air. Takes a few days to clear with any filter. The wide tubes of the APS filters mean that you need quite a large bubble before the flow will dislodge air trapped in any loops.   My 2000 settled after a few days, and now rattles briefly if I let the...

They come with ridiculously long spray bars, you generally don't want all of the pieces.   They also rattle a fair bit with water trapped. I think it's the wide tubes.

That looks like a blown starter unit. Those little Christmas tree bulbs are the starters that you'd normally find in the cartridge thing you'd put in one of the older style fluorescent light fittings. They shouldn't be blackened like that, might be that something's shorted when you pushed the...