r/PlantedTank 8h ago

Your "Dumb Question" Megathread - September 2026

1 Upvotes

You can ask any questions you have in this thread! It refreshes monthly, previous mega-posts can be found using the search bar.

Please keep in mind the community rules.

Happy planting! 🌱🫧


r/PlantedTank 6h ago

Tank 2 month progress

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91 Upvotes

r/PlantedTank 4h ago

Beginner My Bucephalandra seems happy

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53 Upvotes

r/PlantedTank 12h ago

Tank My planted low tech jungle tanks

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135 Upvotes

My two Betta girl tanks (right is a recent re-scape) and my mini shrimp tank. I'm considering a 4th... That's how it goes right? šŸ˜‚


r/PlantedTank 32m ago

First Timer!

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• Upvotes

This is my first time ever doing a planted tank. With lots of TikTok and Reddit research this is what I ended up with. Please tell me how I did and how I can improve. Thank you!


r/PlantedTank 5h ago

Tank Overgrown 10gal

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26 Upvotes

An overgrowth of vallisneria, ludwigia, and algea—first time seeing vals flower. Lots of danios (CPD), cherry shrimp, and bladder snails in there. I've had to cut back the top growth so I can begin to tidy up inside the tank. After seeing the sad mess of algae and decaying plant matter, I have half a mind to wrangle the fish and do a tear-down. My options are:

1) Tidy up and increase circulation, hope algae goes away over time

2) Tear down and reset the 10 gal

3) Tear down and set up in a 20 gal


r/PlantedTank 9h ago

Tank This is my South American Floodplain margin habitat tank

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34 Upvotes

40gal breeder tank filled with South American native species.

Filtered with an Aquaclear 70 HoB and Aquarium Co-op large sponge filter.

Light is a WeekAqua MK900 pro set to RGB 48/47/48 at 63% power, 94% fan for 7 hours.

Plants:
- Myriophyllum mattogrossense
- Nymphaea sp Peru Maldonado (hidden in the back)
- Amazon Frogbit
- Ludwigia Sp Mato Grosso
- Mayaca Fluviatilis
- Salvinia Oblongfolia
- Hyptis Lorentziana

Livestock:
- 24 Black Neon Tetras
- 11 Panda Corydoras
- 8 beckford’s pencilfish
- 2 farlowella vittata
- 1 laetacara dorsigera
- 1 banjo catfish
- Amazon Tiger Shrimp (Euryrhynchus amazoniensis)

This tank is meant to replicate a habitat that you’d actually find somewhere in nature- nothing like a Dutch or ā€œPlantedā€ tank. A key philosophy for this tank is to keep things a little ā€œdirtyā€- algae is actually necessary for this tank (farlowella food).

Hope you enjoy.


r/PlantedTank 11h ago

In the Wild Rainbowfish I found in a creek in the middle of Darwin, Australia

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60 Upvotes

Melanotaenia nigrans.


r/PlantedTank 1d ago

Tank 14.5 gallon Fishbowl - 3 weeks

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658 Upvotes

Been working on this bowl for about a month, it“s almost 3 weeks at this point just has 5 harlequin rasboras, may add a couple others but leaving it as is for a while as it settles properly. zero amonia and no nitrates present when fish were introduced 2 weeks after filling with water. it also has 5 amano shrimp, still lots of tanins that i hope to slowly reduce, i do a 2 liter water change every morning.

Bowl has an air stone and is heated. Hope to add a couple other fish species with time as it becomes capable of handling the load, maybe some galaxy rasboras, or ember tetras, don“t know yet. But loving how it looks.


r/PlantedTank 10h ago

Ferts?

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40 Upvotes

Here's my tank setup I just started using co2

I have fluval stratrum as the substrate. Should I still be fertilizing aswell? Any recommendations? It's a 20gallon tall stocked pretty well.


r/PlantedTank 4h ago

Tank My first tank. 66g after 3 months

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11 Upvotes

I love that I got into the hobby of aquaristic. And I'm really happy with the results.. šŸ˜Ž


r/PlantedTank 3h ago

Beginner First tank - done lots of research but want feedback / advice.

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8 Upvotes

Hi all,

This is mine and my girlfriends first aquarium. It’s a shaker 252 which I’ve painted as wasn’t a fan of the colours.

I’ve done a lot of research for a long time and have created a thick nutrient layer & root tabs capped off with sand. I have CO2 injection & as you can see plenty hardscape & shells we’ve collected from around the world.

The advice I want is specifically around plants. I’d like some bushier plants for the background. But dunno whether to trim and spread what I already have or to get more bush plants but not sure what to get?

Seeded with my dad’s filter media.

For reference water parameters:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5ppm
PH: 6.6

Stocking:
1 x Electric blue ram
1 x Red honey gourami
13 x Green neon tetras
8 x Endler guppies
1 x Marigold bristlenose pleco
6 x Albino corys
6 x Sterbai corys
2 x Amano shrimp

There are currently tannins but waiting for them to pass alongside routine water changes.

Open to any feedback but would prefer to chat about plants.


r/PlantedTank 1h ago

Tank A little bit

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• Upvotes

I took a short video of some of my aquarium. I plan on doing it partial rescape later this year.


r/PlantedTank 6h ago

Journal Only slow growing plants in my new setup

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14 Upvotes

I put only slow growers in here so that they would grow slowly and now I'm like "howww long is it gonna take for them to grow innnn 😩." but I know once the tank gets to the point I like it, I will not have to be trimming out handfuls every week. hopefully I will start loving it in a few months.


r/PlantedTank 21h ago

Question Do I have too much plants?

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189 Upvotes

It's a fluval flex 9 so it has limited space already, just wondering if there's enough space for the inhabitants (6 daisy's blue ricefish, 3 pygmy corys and snails) now as the plants have really taken off? Thanks ā˜ŗļø


r/PlantedTank 2h ago

Beginner First ever tank

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6 Upvotes

This is my first tank ever. not that cool looking compared to the stuff i see here. but I'm pretty proud of it.

got some skittles running around. looking to get a tiny schooling fish for this 12 inch cube. what should I get?


r/PlantedTank 4h ago

Tank My little jungle style shrimp tank

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6 Upvotes

This is a 4-5 gallon no filter, room temp shrimp and snail tank


r/PlantedTank 20m ago

Question Is my acrylic tank cracked

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• Upvotes

This is bottom of my scuds tank. I thought it was just a scratch, but I'm not sure.

It's not leaking though.

This is the product I got. https://www.petco.com/product/imagitarium-blue-betta-cube-kit-25-gallons-4783217

Obviously no fish. Just scud culture tank.


r/PlantedTank 2h ago

10 gallon planted aquarium

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3 Upvotes

Before and after and a 10 year old made this. any help going further is appreciated!


r/PlantedTank 3h ago

I’m getting a complete CO2 system for $100 today

3 Upvotes

With a fzone regulator. Someone on Facebook used it for 4 months and now they’re moving. I’m really excited, I’ve been thinking about starting CO2 since I started, but couldn’t justify the cost as a student.


r/PlantedTank 2h ago

Question Please help with aquarium stand!?

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2 Upvotes

Hi there. So, a few months ago I posted about a beautiful wooden TV stand that I was concerned about for my aquarium. It is rated for 250lbs. I have a 19.4g long aquarium. After a lot of consideration, I have decided to get a different stand.

This is what I have decided on. It holds 500lbs per shelf. Any objections? I'd like to order it today, since it will take over a week to arrive... and my aquarium is fully cycled as of yesterday! I don't want to add fish until my aquarium is on its proper stand.


r/PlantedTank 2h ago

HELP Silicates off the charts, RO water is clean (SiO2=0), NO stones in hardscape! Diatoms are choking my plants (140L / ~37gal, 3 months old).

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2 Upvotes

Hey everyone,
I need some help. This is my first planted tank (140 liters / ~37 gallons) and I'm slowly running out of ideas. The tank is 3 months old now, and I've been battling a massive diatom (brown algae) plague for a while.
The main issue: the silicate (SiO2) level in the tank is permanently off the charts on my JBL drop test. I tested the water straight from my RO filter (Arka myAQUA) and the silicates there are exactly 0. Also, I have absolutely ZERO stones in my hardscape – only driftwood.
Because of this brown algae coating, my plants have completely stopped growing. I recently did a trim, and even Limnophila sessiliflora, which usually grows like a weed, hasn't bounced back at all.
I just got back from a one-week vacation (haven't tested the water again yet, but visibly nothing has improved). Before leaving, I turned the light down to 6 hours a day at 40% intensity. Over the whole week, the fish only got one Tropical Supervit tablet to minimize waste while I was gone.
My setup and routine:
Water & changes: 100% RO water, doing ~30% water changes once a week.
Substrate: Yokuchi Jiban Soil
Light: Chihiros A II Max
Filter: Aquael Ultramax BT
CO2: Standard CO2 cylinder setup
Ferts: Aquaforest (AF Macro & Micro)
Plants & Livestock:
Other than the Limnophila, I have Rotala 'Blood Red', Ludwigia 'Super Mini Red', and Hydrocotyle tripartita.
My livestock includes Otos, Pygmy Cories, Dwarf Pencilfish, Ram Cichlids, and shrimp (Amano & Neocaridina). The cleanup crew is definitely there, but they just can't keep up with this amount of algae.
My question to you guys: since my RO water is clean and I have no stones, is it possible that the Yokuchi Jiban Soil is leaching this insane amount of silicates into the water column 3 months after setup? What would you do in this situation – should I just throw some silicate remover (like Silicate Clear) into the filter and wait, or do you have any other ideas?


r/PlantedTank 4h ago

Plant recommendation

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3 Upvotes

I have being trying to add more plants on this 20 gallon tank maybe a carpet and many background plants and Christmas moss on the rocks or wood. Any suggestions of what plants should look good on this tank?


r/PlantedTank 1d ago

Fauna Hydra eats Moina Macrocopa

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242 Upvotes

Finally caught this on camera! I just wish my glass was cleaner haha

P.S. Pls forgive the sfx I don't have much editing to do this week and I get bored lol šŸ˜…


r/PlantedTank 6h ago

Plant ID Is this a Cryptocoryne?

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3 Upvotes

Got this as a newbie but forgot what it was.