Fish Lovers 3.0 [new poll]

[Hime]

Plants I have: Hygrophila polysperma
Hygrophila corymbosa 'Siamensis 53B'
Enchinodorus 'Ozelot'
Nymphaea lotus
Hydrocotyle tripartita
Anubias barteri var. nana
Limnophila sessiliflora
Ceratophyllum demersum
Ludwigia glandulosa
Ludwigia repens 'Rubin'
Alternanthera reineckii'Rosanervig'...
I think that's all. XD Sorry I have no clue what names they go by in common english... ^^' Reineckii and glandulosa are new comers, so I'm not sure if they are going to be okay or not in the tank.

Most issues I have are with the Hydrocotyle tripartita. I've gotten 2 pots of it so far. First it almost got drowned by algea, but pulled through and was doing okay for while. Now it has more yellow leaves, rather than green, but they are not falling off... Though on other hand it's not growing much either. The 2nd pot I got has pretty much no leaves atm, because something has eaten the little it had when I got it, so I don't think it's going to survive... Even more reason I'd like the first one to make it.
Then the sword plant growns reaaally short. It has pretty nice bunch of leaves and such, but they are short...
With the Hygrophilas they tend to get small holes on their lowest leaves(might be freshwater limpets doing partly). Which I read is often from lack of light. They grown really nicely other vise, so I'm not super worried. It just looks kinda ugly and sometimes the leaves fall off as well...
Rubin Ludwigia does the same, but it also eventually drops them(lot more often than the Hygrophilas). Like it doesn't seem to be able to keep more than maybe half of the stem worth of leaves on... It shouldn't be lack of iron as the drop test shows near 0,4 levels of iron, and 0,1-0,2 should be enough. So lack of light again or some other nutrient?

I got two 18W bulbs, which is not super little but not terribly much either.

[.Lupin.]

For any type of sword plant- seachem root tabs. They're so worth the price. I have before and after photos I could show you of my swords that I've nursed along from babies until I learned about root tabs and now they're huge, green, and the best aspects of my planted tanks. (: they are a little slow growing, especially if you have a lot of little leaves, but with enough nutrients, they flourish and are worth the time it takes to grow them. Also, they grow huge. One plant I have takes up a good corner of my ten gallon tank both in width and in height, as it goes from top to bottom of the tank.

[Hime]

I got some long term fertilizer under the sand, I think it's supposed to last like a year... But I don't know, maybe it's not enough for the swords anymore. They haven't really even tried to grow taller, new small leaves just keeping popping at the sand level or tad higher...

[.Lupin.]

Swords feed primarily from their root base, so it wouldn't surprise me if they've wiped out the nutrients around them already. One sign of this would be yellow spots on the larger leaves, yellowing of smaller baby leaves, etc. It may seem counterproductive, but you could try snipping off the smaller leaves as they appear and hope that the plant directs more energy towards the larger leaves. When I first got the amazon sword in my second tank, I did the opposite of that. I ended up pruning it down to 2 big leaves and a multitude of little baby leaves, and you can see the results below. How long have they been in the tank for?

I took the time today to make a progression of sorts for both of my planted tanks. I rarely prune my plants so I didn't do anything special like that to contribute towards their success, except for when I first got the sword in the second tank which I detailed above. I just put a seachem root tab at the base of the plant every 2 months or so. Now I'm wishing I did weekly progression shots, but this will have to do.

Tank one
Tank two

[jellyjingle]

Hello. c: I'm hoping to add a little color to my tanks, are there any suggestions? I have one 10 gal with nothing in it, one 12 gal with one female guppy, and one 12 gal with five male guppies. I know I want a few platys, but are there any other colorful options that won't overload my tanks? Thanks for all your help!

[scuttlefish]

Cardinal or neon tetras?

[.Lupin.]

Hello. c: I'm hoping to add a little color to my tanks, are there any suggestions? I have one 10 gal with nothing in it, one 12 gal with one female guppy, and one 12 gal with five male guppies. I know I want a few platys, but are there any other colorful options that won't overload my tanks? Thanks for all your help!

I personally wouldn't keep platys in something so small as a ten gallon, especially if you're looking for a community tank. They are a very messy fish. Even when I just had three in my twenty gallon, the gravel was littered with waste. And according to AqAdvisor, 5 platys is 90% stocking capacity for a ten gallon, which would prevent you from having a decent school of another type of fish. [link] Platys are a schooling fish, so they really should have a good group to keep them company. I only had three in my tank because I was in the process of adjusting those three and adding more, but disaster struck which prevented me from doing that.
As far as fish that can add colour, I would second neon or cardinal tetras, although you need to make sure you have a superbly cycled tank so no water changes upset them as they are delicate.

[flyteck]

Hello. c: I'm hoping to add a little color to my tanks, are there any suggestions? I have one 10 gal with nothing in it, one 12 gal with one female guppy, and one 12 gal with five male guppies. I know I want a few platys, but are there any other colorful options that won't overload my tanks? Thanks for all your help!

I personally wouldn't keep platys in something so small as a ten gallon, especially if you're looking for a community tank. They are a very messy fish. Even when I just had three in my twenty gallon, the gravel was littered with waste. And according to AqAdvisor, 5 platys is 90% stocking capacity for a ten gallon, which would prevent you from having a decent school of another type of fish. [link] Platys are a schooling fish, so they really should have a good group to keep them company. I only had three in my tank because I was in the process of adjusting those three and adding more, but disaster struck which prevented me from doing that.
As far as fish that can add colour, I would second neon or cardinal tetras, although you need to make sure you have a superbly cycled tank so no water changes upset them as they are delicate.

I have three platies, six guppies, one cory (I bought her nine years ago and she's never had a school + there's no room for one) and one random fish. It's overstocked but I have a crapton of plants (my Java fern wouldn't fit in a 2.5 gallon. It's about half the tank, but the fish swim in the leaves).

What I was getting at is that mine have been fine with just three and they actually school with the guppies sometimes. So from experience a few should be fine (I've never found them messy)

but that tank is kind of magic so idk if things would be the same in other settings.

As for colourful fish... yeah, guppies and platies are all that comes to mind for the most part. You could get a bunch of assorted platies for the 12 gallon with the female... maybe four? But I think it would just be best to get maybe five more female guppies to go in with her. You could probably keep just some platies in the 10, but make sure it's well planted and established first.

You might also be able to get away with a male betta in the female guppy's tank (get her a few more friends first too) if none of them are super flashy. But you'd need to be sure he's a nice docile male first. A simple red veiltail adds a big pop of colour ^^

[jellyjingle]

Thank you all so much! I think I'll add 3 or 4 platys in with the female (it's a very well established tank). As for a betta, I'm not really willing to risk it, because when I had a male betta and I added a VERY plain female guppy like the one I have now in with him he killed her. Would a single female betta and maybe a ghost shrimp or two work in the empty 10 gal?

[scuttlefish]

The betta might eat the ghost shrimp limb by limb.

Qouting someone! Be flattered XD))