I bought a shrimp from my local aquarium shop today, and the seller gave me this plant along with the shrimp.

I have no idea what plant it is. Could someone please help me identify it?

Looks like some sort if fungal structure. It’s flat against the glass and isn’t raised off it inside the tank. It wasn’t there yesterday…

Ordered 10 blue dreams and received 11 + 1 red cherry (win). I want to keep this colony blue, will having this 1 red cherry in there mess that up over time? And if so any suggestions on what to do with him? 🙁

Update: we decided as a fam to keep little Red and see what fun stuff happens!

Hi all,

I’ve had black beard algae (BBA) and hair algae in my planted tank for about a year now. I’m trying to decide whether to fight it in place or do a full restart, and I’d love your opinion on both options.

Tank

• 150 x 50 x 50 cm (about 375 L), open top, set up for about 2 years
• Filter: Eheim 2217 canister, cleaned every 2 months
• Substrate: organic potting soil capped with 5 cm of basalt split
• Flow: good as far as I can tell, but I don’t know if there are dead spots
• Livestock: Neocaridina red shrimp, Amano shrimp, kuhli loaches, hillstream loaches, galaxy rasbora, Pseudomugil luminatus and harlequin rasbora. I have a second, smaller tank where I can house them while I clean the main tank.

Plants
Blyxa japonica, Rotala indica ‘Bonsai’, Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’, Hygrophila pinnatifida, Staurogyne repens, Pogostemon helferi, Anubias (unknown species), Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’, Bucephalandra diabolica ‘Kedagang’, Bolbitis heudelotii, Hydrocotyle tripartita and Monte Carlo (which grows vertically instead of carpeting).

Lighting
3 cheap LED floodlights (not aquarium lights), 6000 K, non-dimmable. Photoperiod is 5 hours. I suspect they’re not ideal for a 50 cm deep tank.

CO2 / ferts / maintenance

• CO2: 5 hours a day, starting 1 hour before the lights come on and stopping 1 hour before they go off. My drop checker is usually a little blue.
• Fertilizing: none at the moment
• Water changes: 40% once a month

The problem
BBA and hair algae on the glass, plants and hardscape, for about a year now. I wipe it off the glass but it keeps coming back. A blackout did not help. I haven’t used any algae treatments. Photos attached.

My questions

1. Is this tank still salvageable, or would I be better off starting over?
2. If I restart, how should I clean and sterilise everything: hardscape, substrate, filter media, canister, tubing and glass? Which methods actually kill BBA and hair algae, and how long should things dry or soak?
3. Which plants are worth keeping and dipping, and which are better replaced? Do the Anubias, Bucephalandra and Bolbitis with BBA on the leaves have a chance?
4. What is the most likely root cause (nutrients, CO2, light, flow), so I don’t get the same algae again after a restart?
5. Any tips for moving the fish and shrimp to the small tank and back, without exposing them to treatments?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Question: even though it has been asked before, I wonder if people here think neocaradina will escape from this... there's pretty much no cables/tubes they could climb on once I'm finished and the water also doesnt splash to meet the rim. Water feature they could climb, but there's nowhere to go from there.

Details: WIO tank, 30x30x10cm, with a repurposed pen tray thingy and tubing/flow that makes it a filter with asparagus fern.

Started in October, eventually I want blue neocaradina shrimp. Due to my creative ideas and impulsive mind I have only now decided to leave it alone as much possible... Let's pretend I was 'just learning' and not being stupid.

Lots of diy here, because I changed a lot it has been crashing quite a few times and deficinies/balancing ferts/lights was a struggle. It's improving!

I’ve never seen biofilm this intense. It’s only been three days of this tank set up and it’s off the charts. I know it’s supposed to be a good sign but like…do I need to intervene in some way.

How often and how do you do it? Especially for those with heavily planted tanks where it’s harder to see where mulm is collecting. I’m converting my 40g breeder to a moderate to heavily planted rainbowfish community and am wondering if vacuuming often could cause more problems than it solves. I’m used to big fancy goldfish which required constant cleanup with a large siphon. I did 30-50% weekly water changes and eventually kept my scape limited to mostly epiphytes so I could easily move rocks and driftwood to clean around them. If I didn’t I would see nitrates around 30-40ppm and diatoms in no time. I realize this strategy could be detrimental to my new tank. Fwiw, my tap water has 10ppm nitrate and 1ppm phosphate which added to the struggle but I’m hoping more plants means that will be free fertilizer. Photo of my old goldfish tank (before I changed up the plants) for tax purposes.

So i have a large Palurdarium that I originally wanted to stock with shrimp AND fish. Shrimp are thriving but im now debating on the fish. I feel like 2.5inch of water depth is too little to ethically keep even neon tetra but I figured id ask here. There is Lots of horizontal space. Probably about 5-6gallons total (lots of displacement).

My apologies if this isn't exactly a R/plantedtank question im stuck in the middle of a few crossing hobbies

I'm kind of tired of my javaferns always having browning leaves.

I dose Easy Green and Seachem Potassium weekly for my heavily planted 10 gallon.

Anyone know a plant that has similar leaf shape to javafern and is eiphytic?emphatic?

Sorry for my guy. He is always up in my bussiness.

Saw this tiny worm? doing a dance right at the front of my tank. Sand and monte carlo leaves for scale.

Edit: PLEASE STOP PUTTING THIS INTO GOOGLE AI AND CHAT GPT. I COULD HAVE DONE THAT MYSELF IF I WANTED A WRONG ANSWER THANKS.

Seems like it's probably a leech.

mines bout 100$ whole thing

"What motivates you to keep a planted tank?"

I write this hoping that people might come forward and write about why they keep a planted tank. If it is for pleasure, what is it about a plant that you find more satisfactory than any other decoration? Why do you suppose you are so captivated by something that is on paper so simple and perhaps uninteresting? And for those of you who keep livestock in their planted tanks, I'd like your thoughts too.

Personally, I find myself utterly in love with my plants, and my little bladder snails. It's so utterly illogical, and yet my mind is captivated by them all the same. It is something that I struggle to explain.

If this post seems slightly abstract, it is. I have to do a short writeup on ethnography, and I thought this might be an interesting way to go about it
I thank you for your time.
Thomas

So I bought a trap but they rather eat my buce and it’s my caridina tank and I’m expecting so not looking to add any fish, but before by berries bust is there anything I can do to eradicate these savage beast ????

• 10 gallons
• cycled
• 25-27°C (77-80F)
• pH 7.1

Preferably something that can live solo, or in a pair, or a small group of no larger than 5-6. Would definitely keep shrimps if the fish is shrimp-friendly. Many thanks!

I know I need to take a lot of it out, the population exploded recently and I didn’t realize until now. Do I just wash it down the sink? Is that ok to do?