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Just as a follow-up in case anyone is interested, the fish has now gone back to its original pure orange, without a trace of black! No idea what happened, but it seems to have reverted itself. Thanks again to all who advised

As I'm keeping goldfish, I was somewhat restricted in my choice of plants, which is why I ended up with this selection. I would have preferred a wider selection, but most of it would have ended up as salad! Mine has a reasonable amount of water movement at the surface, as I have the water inlet...

@MaloK Sounds like I have my tank upside down then! I planted the vallis and elodea in the sand as they have roots and I assumed needed to be anchored securely in the sand. I put the anubis up near the top, a I wanted some plants higher up, and they easily attached to the wood. I do add...

Well, my only planted ones are Elodea and vallis. Does that mean that they wouldn't gain much from root tabs?

Any idea what I would need to illuminate the bottom of the tank? Bear in mind that it's 24" tall, so looks gloomy with regular lights. Are root tabs significantly better than liquid fertiliser? I tried liquid, but didn't see any difference. Thanks

Sure, here you go. Bear in mind that my photography skills are on a par with my fish and plant keeping skills!

No they aren't dimmable. I can make them higher, but then I lose intensity down at the bottom, where most of the plants are. Same with using only one. Won't the plants suffer even more with less light?

Now I'm even more confused! Please can one of you clarify this for me? Are these lights OK or not? If not, how do I work out what to use? Thanks

@MaloK Hmm, interesting. I specifically bought those bulbs as they are (as far as I understood) full spectrum. I've used them on terrestrial plants before and always had good results. Do you know how I'd go about finding the right bulbs for my tank? I'm no expert in this field. I originally...

I tried using some fertisiler (Tropica Premium Nutrition), but didn't see any difference. Would root tabs be a better option? As I mentioned at the end of my first post, I reduced it to about 6 hours a day a few weeks ago, but nothing has changed. The plants look the same and the algae is the...

No, just plain sand with noting beneath. Not using root tabs. Did try some fertiliser, but stopped that when I saw it didn't help, and might have been contributing to the algae problem. Haven't noticed any difference since I stopped using it.

Forgot to mention that there is sand everywhere. I know it's the ideal substrate for goldfish, but it seems to fly around and cover everything in the bottom couple of inches of the water. Anything I can do to stop this, other than giving the fish a severe warning 😎

Thanks to loads of great help here, I set up a goldfish tank, which currently has four fish in it. Before anyone tells me off, I know they will outgrow this tank, and I'm already contemplating a pond 😎 The tank is a 24" cube, which is tall enough to mean that I need quite strong lighting to...

@Colin_T I don't have any water spraying out. The bottle is at most half full, and the bubbles from the air line (no airstone, just the pipe pushed down to the bottom) keep the water moving quite vigorously, but the water doesn't come anywhere near the top of the bottle. I do get a few eggs...

Interesting way to look at it. I don't really touch the salt water, so it doesn't really bother me. But the sand in the shorts is definitely a downside to the beach! I'm using a lemonade bottle, so if it does get encrusted with salt, I'll throw it away and catch the next one before it goes in...

@Colin_T Thanks for the reply. For the small amount I will be hatching, I just pinch some rock salt from the wife's kitchen! I thought I'd need to make fresh salt water each time, but thought it worth checking. Good to know I can keep it going for another day. The fish will be happy 😎

Interesting. No idea how old my fish are, but I guess not that old. Either way, not much I can do about it except wait and see what it ends up looking like!

@TwoTankAmin Wow, what an amazing answer! Thanks for posting all of that. I had read about using them as quickly as possible, and have tried to do that, but it's hard to know when they've hatched. They are so small, that it's hard to tell what's a baby shrimp and what's an egg. I set a batch...

@Colin_T Thanks for the reply, that's exactly what I've been doing. Glad to hear I'm doing it right 😁 Today's batch were slightly bigger, but from what has been said, I think what I'm seeing is normal. The fish certainly seem to like them! I'm going to do one or two batches a week, so the...

Oh, so no point in buying these then. Oh well, I'll know for next time. I did look at that, but decided to try the DIY route first. My second batch is bubbling away at the moment, and I only added a much smaller amount of eggs, so we'll see how many I get. Thanks for the reply

Had my first go at hatching brine shrimp the other day, and I want to get some clarification. I watched loads of videos, and decided to go for a DIY setup to start with. I used a 2 litre lemonade bottle, very much like the one in this video. Apart from hatching waaaayyyyy too many shrimp for...

I know, I just haven't got round to it yet. Had the tank running for so long with the tropicals that I never needed them. All was running well, so I didn't bother testing. Lazy I know! Well, yes, that's a sensible approach! I have been doing this, but was concerned in case this was anything...

Ha ha, I was waiting for someone to ask that! Not confrontational at all, perfectly reasonable question. I should have rephrased it to say I'm pretty certain that the tank is cycled. How do I know? Well, the tank has been running for several years, and housed freshwater tropicals (angels...

@CassCats Interesting. I wonder if that's what's happening to mine. Oh well, it seems healthy enough, so I'll keep an eye out and wait. You have some beautifully coloured fish there. If mine ends up looking as striking as those, I won't mind. At the moment, the black bits just look like it needs...

Ha ha, just the opposite of mine! I bought it as an orange one, and was disappointed when it started turning black 😁

I posted a screenshot of their web site in the beginning of this thread. Does that tell you? Don't have any test kits yet. As far as I know, the tank is cycled and I do regular water changes, so I would be surprised if either of these was high. But yes, I do need to get some and check. Thanks...

@Colin_T Thanks for the reply. It's not due to medications, as (thankfully) I haven't needed to add any. The tank has only been set up for a few weeks, and so far everyone seems OK. I imagine our tap water has chlorine in, but I do treat the water when doing a water change. Guess I'll wait and...

I have a goldfish, which was a regular orange (with a bit of white) colour when I bought it a few weeks ago. Last week, I noticed that it had a patch of back just in front of its dorsal fin. Over the past couple of days, it has developed black on the dorsal fin itself, as well as on its tail...

If I can grow algae? That's what I do best!

Well, so far they've only played football with them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they start eating them soon! I have a couple of Anubis, but they are higher up on a piece of wood. I was hoping for something that might grow quickly and spread. Don't think Anubis will do that. Thanks to both...

All the lists of plants suitable for keeping with goldfish seem to include taller plants, like vallis, elodea, crinum, bolobitis, etc. The only small ones I've seen suggested are anubis (which seems not be a genuinely aquatic plant anyway), java moss, java fern and moss balls. Not keen on java...

Oh, that's a clever idea! Thanks

@Colin_T Thanks for the reply. Understood about putting the tall plants at the back. I was placing them under instructions from the wife, so did what I was told! I wasn't actually too worried though, because I can always snip the foreground Elodea and plant the snippings elsewhere. As for the...

I have a 200l tank that I set up a few weeks ago (filter was used before that, so not a completely new set up). I have sand as a substrate, some wood and two comets. Lighting is provided from two LED PAR38 6500K bulbs about 9" above the top of the tank. Today I started planting. I'm not an...