I'm getting ready to plant some tiny Cryptocoryne parva tissue culture plantlets into my 60-gallon breeder.

​Tank Specs:

​Substrate: Organic potting soil capped with Black Diamond Blasting Sand (~1 to 1.5 inch cap).

​Current Livestock: Harlequin Rasboras, Tetras (planning to add Amano shrimp & Assassin snails soon).

​The Problem / Question:

Because tissue culture plantlets are so small and lack heavy root systems initially, I'm worried about two things:

​Getting the micro-roots down into the dirt layer below the sand cap without burying the central crown/leaves and causing melt/rot.

​Keeping the plantlets anchored in the sand cap so my fish/shrimp don't immediately uproot them before they establish roots.

​Someone online recommended using metal plant weights directly on them to hold them down, but that feels like a guaranteed way to crush the delicate tissue culture stems and rot the crown.

​For those running sand-capped dirted tanks:

​What is your best technique or tool for anchoring tiny tissue cultures firmly into a sand cap?

​Do you use mesh cages, extra sand, or just precise tweezer placement?

​How do you keep inquisitive livestock from pulling them up during week 1?

​Thanks for the advice!

told my s/o to replant my amazon swords, he picked off and replanted all of my glued anubias as well for some odd reason and threw 75% of them away because they “broke” when he unglued them. i know he thought he was helping but oh my god. just wanted to share my sorrow

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.

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?

Would a solo Oto be fine in a heavily planted 10 gallon with a bunch of pygmy cory’s? The tank has stable parameters and a lot of algae. I’m more worried about the social aspect but I’ve heard that otos will shoal with pygmy cory’s so maybe it would be fine?

Please be nice. My other grow light I liked so much more was- um- barbequed(?) during a power zap I don't know why or how it happened. Ive just got this now. Do you think it will work? It can also be just blue or red, but it all looks ugly. I miss the white one. I only plan to leave it on for about 6 hours during the day.

It's a 10 gallon tank. Currently inhabited by 1 mystery snail (2 more coming, so 3 total) and one ramshorn snail. No fish, just a snail tank.

It's planted, but i'm working on getting more plants. I'm having trouble finding sellers that don't just give me a single floater or a sad snippet of a root unfortunately. I can't seem to find those people who have gallon baggies of plants to throw out.

I also only have API leaf zone for fertilizer and root tabs for the vesuvius fern. What else should I get?

I’ve had this 20 gallon long tank since March and even before I stocked it I’ve been having issues.

At first it was just a ton of brown hair algae and diatoms but now I’m dealing with black beard algae spreading to all of my plants, decor, and filters. I used to have pogostemon stellatus but I had to throw it away from how covered in bba it was.

I’ve tried almost everything. I do weekly 50% water changes. I’ve lowered my light intensity and duration. I’ve started and stopped using liquid fertilizer. I’ve manually removed algae. I’m not over feeding. I even tried a half dose of seachem flourish excel but that didn’t seem to have any effect. I’ve added amano shrimp and otos but they can’t make a dent in the algae/diatoms.

The only other thing I can think of doing is doing a full dose of flourish excel but I’m worried that will harm my amano shrimp and vallisneria.

The only reason I can think of for all of this is because I used uncapped fluval stratum. If that’s the case I wish I could switch over to sand but I don’t think that’s possible.

If anyone has any advice please let me know.

Soy 29g has about 10 glowlight tetras (not glowfish, a small body more peaceful tetra species) 6 Venezuelan red sail fin corydoras, and a bristlenose pleco. I do have a single honey gourami which I'm reading is less than ideal. I plan on adding more hardscapes and plants soon since duckweed killed off a lot of my plants by blocking light and now that I finally got rid of it I'd like to add more plants and also add in 2 more honey gourami. I do have a fluval ac70 filter on that tank because quite honestly I like having the larger buffer

Melanotaenia nigrans.

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.

This is my first tank, I'm so happy about how it turned out, shrimps and fishes have been here for two week and seem to have taken their mark quickly, all very healthy.

I'm thinking about adding some more moss but I'm afraid to overdo it.

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.

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

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

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?

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

I have a shallow aquarium, which is 6 feet length, 1.5 feet breadth and 1 feet height. I plan to have an artificial cave placement. I source a place when they can do a 3D print. From my research PETG material seems long lasting and still inert. Does anyone here have any experience on material to use for cave? Also, any tips or any STL file on the cave who have done it?

Got this as a newbie but forgot what it was.

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.

Going to try and keep this short. I've loved planted aquariums my entire life and I love science but I fear im bad at both 😬 I currently have a 10 gallon housing a few guppies and the goal was to essentially have a small carpet in the front of Monte Carlo and dwarf sag. I've seen alot of people reccomend co2 for monte but also plenty of people who've made it work without as well (co2 is also something I cant afford currently) ive run into alot of algae (hair algae on the moss mostly) trying to keep the lighting good for the more demanding plants, and ive started pulling the light to the very front of the aquarium to try and mitigate some of the problem but i feel like im at a stale mate.

I also dont have any "cleaning crew" in the tank and I want to add some, ive looked into both otocinclus and amano shrimp but i also dont want to overload the tank

Also I have been pulling out as much of the hair algae as I can.

Anyways if anyone has some advice or recommendations on what I could or should be doing better im open to anything I just want this to be the tank ive dreamed it could be

I have a 33 gallon planted tank that has shrimps ember tetras and corydoras

I found a chinese canister filter Atman AT-3337S with a flow rate of 396 GPH for 100$ which seems too high

Then I found the AT-3336S with a flow rate of 200 GPH for 110$ which is ironically slightly more expensive.

The Fluva 207 canister costs 178$ not sure if it is worth it to spend that much money on this so I am leaning towards the Chinese brand Atman.

(Note: I do not live in the US, these two brands are my only options, fluval is usually harder to find)

I am afraid if the high flow rate canister will give too much noise.

For the experiment, I used a 40x25x26 cm aquarium. The setup involved using exclusively tissue-cultured plants throughout the tank to test the ST Aqua WRGB V1 aquatic plant light that I built myself.

Therefore, I used the dry start method to cultivate the tissue-cultured plants, allowing them to establish themselves well before adding water.

The tissue-culture plants I currently have are *Micranthemum* sp. "Monte Carlo"

*Eleocharis parvulus* "Mini"

*Micranthemum callitrichoides*

*Utricularia graminifolia*

*Cryptocoryne wendtii* "Brown"

*Cryptocoryne wendtii* "Green Gecko" *Alternanthera reineckii* "Rosanervig" *Staurogyne repens*.

I’ll be adding more in the future and will keep you updated. What do you all think?