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My LFS said they are not allowed to sell them. I originally got mine on ebay.

In my main tank the ramshorns are out of control as I have a pleco and they eat what she eats. In other tanks they remain inconspicuous. I sell them and if I get a lot of orders in a short time the numbers diminish significantly. Consistent manual removal should keep numbers down.

My poor bamboo shrimp didn't survive long. I think they need regular targeted feeding.

I love the look of emersed plants but they can start to go crazy!

Cherry shrimp don't do so well in a community aquarium, their babies will get eaten but if the tank is big enough and planted enough some will make it to adulthood. The substrate will mix up. I wouldn't bother trying to keep it separate but that's just me. I've seen it separated by flat pieces...

I don't consider tetras to be hardy. I have had zero luck keeping them in hard water (Essex). Our LFS cuts his display tank with 25% RO water. The tetras in there look like a different species to the ones that he sells kept in local tapwater. His display tetras are so big, hearty and vibrant...

Lucky fish! Bettas love plants.

They say cherry shrimp are tough but out of 20 I lost 8 to .... water changes. Every time I changed the water I would find a dead one or two. I've restricted the water change to 10% a week and add the water back over a 2 day period. I don't think they like change. Mine have bred now, I see...

For my community tank I just dump in the water. The fish seem to like it and the cories will often start spawning. I run this tank on the cool side, 22 celsius. I wouldn't do it to gouramis. I do the same with the bettas, sorry guys! The shrimp on the other hand - I let the water sit to room...

My lighting is seriously crappy (I got a kit aquarium from petsathome) which I have on for less than six hours a day and I think my plants are okay. They won't win any prizes but I just divided a crypt and my dwarf sag has gone crazy. I also have an internal filter and when that bungs up I...

hydrocotyle tripartita can give a carpet effect without being too high maintenance but my cories would dig it up. Dwarf sag provides good ground cover.

I do but I have only a small amount of water to dose, have low light and don't inject CO2. I have good results with it. It saved my anubias that I ready to ditch. I'm taking cuttings from that plant now. A bottle lasts me over six months. If I was doing EI I would be looking for something less...

If you want fish that will stick together, I recommend celestial pearl danios/galaxy rasbora. They are very small but the males put on a beautiful display. I found that dwarf rainbowfish would cling together, again it was the males showing off to each other (the females weren't bothered). They...

I think bloodworm is the larval stage of an insect so probably not.

I think the damage to their whiskers is more to do with infection than mechanical damage. But I have pandas on unipac and they have bred.

daphnia. mine lives in a 4 litre vase on the windowsill. no filter, no airstone I put in too much powdered algae yesterday for food and I think it's all died but in a few weeks some eggs will hatch, hopefully, and I'll get more. This has been going nearly a year. I started it a bag from the...

It makes me wonder how they survive in the wild but they could drown. And sometimes they won't eat.

Like test kits thermometers aren't accurate but I use them as a guideline. The difference between 21 and 24 won't matter to your plants. Some fish may find it chilly. You can tell by observation. Or putting your finger in the water. I think mercury is more accurate but we don't use that anymore...

I have tanks with unipac sand (1mm size, so not superfine but not gravelly either) and some with tropica soil. I've also mixed the two together as the grain size is somewhat similar.I think soil is a better start for them but after a few months I can't see any difference. I dose a complete fert...

I've used the tropica thing and it is quite discreet. Plus the shrimp liked to sit in it.

It really does depend v much on your individual tank, what the plants are, the stocking level, and your maintenance. My main tank was doing quite well but I didn't factor in the summer sunlight and had gotten very lazy with maintenance. It caused my hygro to choke out everything else. When I...

Do you think they don't like the water.

Oooooh discus

Diana Walstad had terrible problems with rainbowfish and disease. steriliser helped. As a sidenote, I can't keep these guys alive in my hard water.

6. I like a small tank with more green and less hardscape.

i use easy carbo, double dose in my little tanks. I split the dose in half and dose in the morning and when lights go on in the evening. I also cut my fert down from daily to twice weekly. This seems to work well to give me moderate to slow growth with minimal algae but I think it varies a lot...

water sprite is great for bettas. Mine liked to swim through it as it floated on the surface. Unfortunately it all died when I went on holiday. I guess low light doesn't mean no light.

You have got an algae problem. I don't think plants can grow when the life is being sucked out of them by algae. It varies by tank but what worked for me is reducing light (because I don't dose CO2), increasing liquid carbon, decreasing ferts (because I'm lazy with water changes) and increasing...

Yes, I even took the shrimp out to more spacious quarters.

And here it is again as the days grow longer. The white flowers are pennywort.

I like the techie and science stuff but also like to hear people's personal experiences. So everyone!

The worms are a few cms long, very thin and white. They came out of nowhere, a couple of weeks after setup. the white specks are daphnia, to give you a size comparison. Are they safe for fish to eat? BTW it is possible to culture daphnia in a 4 litre container with no aeration or mechanical...

Well, here it is in the depths of winter. The hygrophila and pennywort is doing super well emersed. Frogbit is fantastic. In fact, this vase is looking better than all my other aquariums which I'm having trouble balancing.

You're limited by the rainbow shark. They are obnoxious to other fish, particularly slower moving ones. You need to build you aquarium around that. Is the leopard catfish a cory? Cories need company, and they are more fun to watch in bigger groups. I don't know the other fish to have an opinion.

I wonder if it will dump all its leaves if it's not getting enough nutrition to save what's stored in the bulb. Or is going through a dormant phase?

How new is the tank, it can take a while for plants to settle down? What kind of plants are they, some grow more slowly than others.

Long, long before your filter is over stretched you will see that your tank is becoming overcrowded. I know that I simply cannot squeeze in one more fish. i stopped paying attention to calculators a long time ago. Cories in the wild move in groups of thousands so why is 6 the new minimum and not...

I've had good luck with these blister packs. It's very space age!

I use that fert too. I have recently reduced the dosage as my nitrate reading was high and why dose more than I have to? I do a weekly half-dose of micros (profito) to make up for it and to use up the bottle. I've had nitrate readings all over the place, particularly since I used to get 40ppm...

After my original post I have been seeing my Amanos out and about more, particularly after reintroducing floating plants which they like to cling to. They are still not interested in stealing the fish food. Maybe I have finally convinced them to eat more algae. I've not noticed them try to...

It's not liquid carbon, I dose it in my tank and the pandas and trilineatus are fine. I agree that your guy had an infection. When i first had panda cories they kept losing their barbels and dying. I stuck with it (I lost count of how many I put in there :arghh:) but for a few years now they...

A purist ;)) would consider it to be cheating but horned nerites have done wonders clearing the algae off my anubias which I was just about ready to toss. They stay small and don't live very long so not a big commitment. They did produce a lot of visible waste at first which I brushed off the...

I am dosing easycarbo at the recommended dose. My amanos have shown no obvious signs of distress but do not seem as active. I always used to see them bouncing about and stealing food. Has anyone noticed similar, or the opposite? It could be that the higher plant mass is providing more places to...

I don't want to make it sound like the magic bullet but increasing ferts and liquid carbon has helped all four of my little tanks. Including the one in direct sun (which did have an astonishing amount of algae at first). In that one the pennywort and hygro has breached the surface and looking...

I've got anubias growing well with less than five hours of light a day. and what light they get is stock LED. I don't think yours needs more light.

my windowsill vase is at room temperature so has been dipping just below 19 degrees. Java fern and moss, frogbit, hygro, pennywort and hydrocotyle triparita doing well. Not as well as they were during the summer but that may be down to less light as well. guppies and amanos are fine

I have retrieved several tanks from the brink, it was a steep learning curve. I don't inject CO2 and my plants are low-light so these tips may not work for you: Reduce the light period Dose macros as well as micros even if you think your tank doesn't need them Every few days, run the leaves of...

Blue Planet II of course! I did not know shrimp were so widespread.

I like it, it looks like a herb garden. With stem plants, I have to quite frequently pinch off the tops and replant them. The bit at the bottom I either leave to see what it does or chuck it. I think these plants like to bolt for the top where there is more CO2 and light.

I have a boxy tank and found that my fish came out more when I added floating plants. Fish liked the frogbit but it was suffering in the current, getting too squished up so I'm trying water sprite. I wonder if that is a wood shrimp.

Fast growing stems like bacopa, hygrophilia, pennywort will fill a space quickly and cheaply. I'm sure vallis will work too but I've avoided it as I use liquid carbon.

Adding macros as well as micros, daily, has turned out to be necessary even in my overstocked aquarium. I use aquascaper complete as my aquarium is small so it's not too expensive. Goes against almost all advice online, especially that aimed at fish rather than plant people. Try it for a week...

3rd pic down, on the right, lime green frilly one. Looks like starbursts. Not that I can grow frilly plants in my low-everything set up.

nicpapa, beautiful pics. What's the plant with anenome-like leaves?

x 2 horned nerites ate all the algae off my anubias, bless 'em. They are smaller than other nerties so I barely notice them, These little fellas will even clean the hairgrass. As for dosing, I dose aquascaper complete in my lightly stocked aquariums every day. Profito in the heavily stocked...

Here it is a month after the rescape, if you can call it that. I shade it most of the time. Dose aquascaper complete and easycarbo. No more algae growing on the plants, just some green spot on the glass, not a big deal. The guppies have been named Rose and Stirling as they get on so well...

Reporting back - easycarbo and dosing macros (aquascaper complete) is showing good results in all four (small) aquaria. I'm winnng the algae battle and plants I was about ready to throw out are looking much stronger. Even the anubias has perked right up. I keep the photo period consistent and...

Yes, I do wonder why the concerns about cloudy water. Does it ever not clear? I think the change in water chemistry is low-key, especially if your water is quite hard (which mine is). I've used tropica soil (which claims to lower ph and hardness) from initial set up, as a replacement substrate...

Lovely pics. I love little fish.

Hopefully this will work: https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/is-my-windowsill-vase-doomed.50702/#post-498494 Keeping the shrimp alive hasn't been a problem. The challenge has been combating algae.

Interesting. I have been running a no-tech windowsill vase for a couple of months with guppies, shrimps and snails.. I'm wondering how long I can keep it going.

I guess that's one way to deal with overpopulation.

urea, fish slime, fish scales, hormones, skin cells, mucus, proteins, rotting food and leaves, stuff like that?

I like tropica soil powder too. I have three aquariums and the one I started with the soil powder is doing very well. It kicks up a lot of dust to start with but that does filter out/settle down. I've mixed it with unipac sand in one aquarium and have used it to deepen the substrate in...

Cheers, I overdid it with the planting. Too many plants, too many varieties. The tank looks as if a crazy person robbed the Tropica nurseries. I like the crypts more than I thought I would so I may go more in that direction. That might make upkeep a little easier too.

A few months ago I took the plunge and ordered a boatload of plants for my ten gallon. Since planting, the swords have shed leaves and changed shape from oval leaves to skinny ones. I assume that is adaptation to being submersed. The new leaves are quite twisted, I don't think that's normal...

I have a pothos, I'll try it with that. Thanks for the tip.

Oh this is very nice. I like the serene look but always end up cluttered.

Before the tear down

I've an update if anyone is interested. I unveiled the plants this morning, the pennywort was looking good so I put it back in the vase. The crypts still had algae on them, I think it's cladophora. It feels gritty and won't come off. I also think I introduced it myself - my moss ball had a baby...

I like tropica aquarium soil. Plants root well in it. It does kick up quite a lot of dust, but that settles quite quickly. I certainly don't recommend coarse gravel, it's a pain to plant into.

I have this too, it's afflicting my faster growing more delicate leaved plants. My tank is v heavily stocked and I feed my fish too well so I don't think it's insufficient macros. I only dose micros in this tank.

my cherry shrimp were eaten by amanos, or by one rogue amano. I saw it. If they can catch it, why not? They don't know it's "wrong".

update: I realised the algae was so prevalent that I needed to take drastic action. It was even growing in the pennywort roots. I took out all plants except the floating ones and java moss. I removed the java fern from the driftwood and returned the driftwood to the vase so the shrimp have...

The water sprite has sent out an emersed shoot, which is cool. I am reducing the light exposure and instigated daily water changes. The vase is a cylinder so not very narrow. I eschewed the more fancy shapes. I looked more closely at the plants below the waterline and they are ALL covered in...

It's mainly transferred to humans though cuts in skin. It can be as minimal as a ragged cuticle. It affects fingers and toes, cooler areas of the body. It causes blister-like lesions, swelling and tissue damage. I expect it could infect the mouth if you swallow the water (eg by siphoning)...

"So just trial & error your way to success!" Thanks, I am being more interventionist, let's see how it goesI

I had these die on me with no obvious signs of disease. At the time, I had 40ppm nitrates out of the tap (thankfully that has dropped). I also have hard, high pH water so I guess the combo was too much for them. Shame, as they were lovely and the males put on a fantastic display. Since then...

Yes, I have had good success with dwarf sag and frogbit. The plants can be a bit scrunched up in the pots but they soon straighten out when planted.

I use suction cups (you can get some with a piercing) and string to fence off a section of the tank. The frogbit lives there. It's not where it would end up if left to its own devices so I find it's not too scrunched up. It's growing and putting out new leaves. When I change the water the...

I started a 6 litre vase a few weeks ago: Light: sunlight only (you know where this is going already) from sitting on a windowsill that gets good morning sun and catches the mid-day sun just cos that is so powerful. Flora: Brazilian Pennywort, Frogbit, Watersprite, Java Fern, Sag. Subulata...

I have this with a six week set up. I've reduced lighting to less than five hours a day as that's when I'm home. Plants doing okay. The algae is abating, probably just a matter of time with this brown stuff.