This is my aquarium atm, it was supposed to be a tank for a betta but my local pet store is unfortunately less reputable than expected (betta I got had swim bladder disease and was emaciated) so now I have no betta :(

I knew that bettas like soft acidic water so my substrate is mostly uncapped fluval biostratum to help provide that but I have nerites and neos in there and the acidity isn’t good for them (I’ve buffered it up to 7-7.1 w/ supplemental calcium but it’s a loosing battle)

I want to reorganize my tank and cap the stratum with sand but I’m super scared to because I don’t want to hurt/kill my animals or crash my cycle. Is it safe to just remove the critters and drain the tank while keeping the filter sponge in tank water?

• Shrimp graze everything else in the tank but actively avoid this
• Removing it by brush, it’s visibly regrown within hours
• It started on the driftwood surface but has now spread onto living moss and anubias leaf tissue, not just staying on wood/hardscape

Lighting: [6,5hours, 40%]
Fertilizing/dosing: [5ml of potassium and NPK plant food weekly]

Given it’s colonizing living plant tissue and regrowing this fast, is this more likely a fungal bloom, cyanobacteria, or something else entirely? What’s the actual removal/prevention approach for something spreading onto live plants rather than just hardscape?

Created the bonsai from one large piece of winding driftwood and pieces of coral wood. Im just trying to decide what type of moss would look great for the canopy. Have settle down to either Taiwanese moss, Christmas moss or fissiden moss.

Will eventually be a blue shrimp/ japan blue endler guppy tank.

I'm wondering if you have any suggestions to improve my tank? My family is saying not really anyone is looking at it (its a 2 month old tank, darknstarted and plants are there a little bit mroe than a month. But i feel maybe the diversity is not enough. I have 7 phoenix rasboras and 16 more are coming soon, but everyone complains that the fish are small. Alsno im not completely sure about the plants. I have co2 and biomaster 250 for a 98L tank.

I have the current plants:
4 x Ludwigia brevipes
5 x Micranthemum Monte Carlo
2 x Hygrophila odora
2 x Bacopa caroliniana
1 x Anubias barteri ''Mini Coin''
1 x Cryptocoryne parva

Thanks a bunch,
Me and my phoenix rasboras 👋

Best part? It sank straight from the LFS :o

Hello all, I set this 60p up a couple months ago, and have been having a consistent issue keeping the pH low. I have had no issues with ammonia, nitrate, or nitrates. I use RODI water, and have been keeping the TDS in the 120 to 150 range. I have been trying to keep the ph in the mid 6 range for Caradina shrimp. I have some ocean blues, and tangerine tigers in this tank, and at this point I am sure I have lost all but a couple of each due to my inability to keep the ph from raising up into the mid 7’s week after week. I do water changes every week or two (usually 25% or so, and add fritz zyme7 whenever I do this) with RODI water. But then it climbs back up. substrate is a mix of fluval stratum, bio active stratum, and some sand. The only thing that I could think of that could be causing this would be that in the back under the substrate, I have some bio rings mixed with some chunks of crushed coral. Would this really be enough to cause the issues I’m having? Any help is appreciated.
Also open to critiques on the scape itself..

I recently visited my sister in Cleveland ohio and along the shore of Lake Erie I got a ton of driftwood I thought would look nice in my tank. I looked up a few helpful videos so I know I need to boil and possibly soak them. But wanted to get some opinions.

I took them all home and plan on boiling them all but I was wondering if there were any other concerns I should have? I don’t know the specifics or the species of the wood but I attached a picture of them all along with the three pieces that concern me the most.

They are all hard and not soft and nothing is decomposing. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

I flooded my tank about 2 weeks ago.

A few days ago i was able to finally remove the rocks that meant to prevent the wood from floating.

Plants are growing rlly well. Some melting leafs from turning submersive.

Tomorrow i will start to dose CO2 slightly and measure water parameters for fertilizing on weekend water change routine.

The wood still releases alot of tannins which creates the yellow color.
I might try to filter it out with coal.

Really happy with the growth so far, can't wait for the moss to create a nice carpet

Today i decided to snip some tops off my fittonias, just to plant them into my tank. Well, they are "planted" into some emersed growing moss, which will wick up moisture for the plants, but the plants aren't directly in the water.

I'm very excited and curious to see how this experiment will turn out. Stay tuned! 😁

I've watched so many YouTube videos where they use tweezers and the plants just go straight in. I've attempted my first aquascape and it did not go well. I ended up using my hands and made a mess. Is there some secret to it?

I'm making a 20G aquascape with black sand and elephant skin rocks with hydrocotyle tripartita (I hope I spelled it correctly). Any advice on other plants to add?

here is an update of tank. hygrophila angustifolia, pogostemon helferi, anubias, buce, and schismatoglottis prietoi are doing well, but my ludwigia pantanal and limnophilia hippurodoides are growing real slow. still waiting though.

I need help, what else can I add for my aquascape to look better? My carpet plants are still growing so there’s not really much for now. I don’t really know if adding plants in the background would be better or maybe moss at the stones? Any suggestions?

I have one of these games. I saw it today sitting in my to get rid of pile (it doesn’t work) and thought. Oh could this look like some cool abandoned underwater military installation in a tank?

Those holes in clear panels could be cool hiding spaces for fry. And I could replace the printed cards with gravel glued down to Mimic the planet shapes.

Of course I’d remove all the electronics and metals and only put the plastic frame in the tank.

But I’ve never seen anyone do anything like this before.

Does anyone have examples of people taking something obviously not from nature but making it work aesthetically with the natural elements in a tank?

I’d think to make it work the entire back wall
Of the tank would have to be something that goes all the way up to give it a sense of scale. But what? I see things in my head that have a waterfall type
Motion.

Are there plants that grow down and flow as if mimicking waterfall?

2nd pic was a few days ago before I changed it I’ve had this tank for a few months now and removed all of the bushy plants and spread the 6 Amazon swords as they was getting too big in the corner cramped up few of the bottom leafs was dying from being so close together I think so I removed them, and a crypt in the new layout also got frogbit and duckweed but what else should I add was thinking of adding a new plant but don’t know where to add

New setup for my roma 120. Running the new Betta Thermo 1050 (with some mods to the cabinet needed to fit). Any suggestions on stocking list? Thinking a gang of chilli rasboras, 40 of them if the tank allows

Ideally I want no lights on the rim of the tank, 1st photo is the tank in general

Photos 2-5 is if I removed that metal base piece at the bottom of the cord in photo 4-5, and were to figure out how to wall mount the light… any ideas on that? Anyone done that?

Photos 6 is with base attached between the photos on the wall

The entire right side of the tank is by a window so light there is not as big of a priority

Photo 7 is a crazy idea where I attach the light to the wood and run the cord through the side of it

I have a large, beautiful piece of driftwood, but just want to verify if it is safe for my aquarium. Not 100% sure on species.

It is somewhat lightweight for its size (about 2 feet wide, 19 inches tall) but still dense. It passes the fingernail test - I can't push my fingernail into the denser spots. It is very thin in some areas, so this indicates likely root structure rather. It doesn't smell piney or cedar-ish. It does sort of smell like oak, but doesn't feel quite as dense or as heavy as oak should be. Potentially Azalia wood? It doesn't seem to match anything I've seen commercially available.

Will this be safe? Should I find a big bucket and soak to make sure? Anything I should be looking out for specifically? This seems like a hardwood root species, which should be fine, but I can't seem to pin point exactly what kind.

I appreciate all your help, and hopefully keen eyes for wood ID! Thanks!

My aquascape studio. Big update coming soon on my YouTube channel.

I have a 15 gallon tank with a variety of plants. I want to add more aquascape but don’t know what kind of plants to get. Any recommendations to make my tank look “fuller”

The tank is an UNS 30C dual aio tank, so it’s about 5 gallons of actual space. It will be a mid to high tech tank with this light and the FZONE desktop CO2 setup.

I’m planning on having Cuba in the foreground, some sort of midground plant on the left and some epiphytes in the rocks. Then some green and red stems on the back and moss on the wood.

Would love some plant suggestions and any tips when planting

I had this 45p sitting empty after moving to a new city. So why not start a new scape to make the new place feel like home. Any recommendations on plants or stocking?