Think Fish Keepers Daily News. [2016-2019]

It doesn't look as plant-heavy in a photo as it does in real life but here goes (why do I always cringe as I upload my pics?). The oversized-for-the-size-of-the-tank Echinodorus twist has been dumped in the middle where it has support from the wood while the hornwort has been slapped over the BBA-ridden anubias in an effort to "de-algaefy" it.

Thanks, @TopCookie. I'm fortunate to have 0 nitrates in the tap water which certainly helps with good water quality although I am very diligent with my water changes and do quite large ones. Nitrates in the tank were 20 when I kept silk plants but have actually been a bit higher since converting to real plants - part of this may be that I over-cleaned when keeping silk plants as I removed all the decor and deep-cleaned the very thin layer of substrate, whereas I now don't remove the plants when cleaning the tank and have a lot more substrate.

Wow - I never expected to read the term 'aquascape' in the same sentence as referring to my aquarium, but I'll gladly accept it as a compliment; thanks, @Matt. The plants are generally lasting longer now that I decant them out of their pots, and there is less algae since I reduced lighting by 35mins to 7hrs,45mins; however, I'm quite sure that it won't be too long before the tank looks much barer again (eg the alternanthera at the back is starting to wilt).

Looking good @fcmf 

Have you considered that maybe you struggle with plants because your water conditions are too good? Some of the things we do to make our tank water quality perfect for fish can mean that the plants don't have the nutrients they need to thrive.

When you change the water, do you pour the new water on or near the anubias? I found that in my tank the BBA increased after water changes and then I noticed that it was only near where I poured the new water in. By pouring water only in one small area, it created enough of a fluctuation in CO2 to encourage the BBA.

I also found that with low nitrates, the echinodorus really struggled. My tank has been much better balanced since I took them out.

The key to keeping plants is balancing nutrients (so each tank set up is different, which doesn't always make it easy to identify problems). So if your nitrate levels have increased, it points to one of the other nutrients (possibly macro, so potassium or phosphate) being the rate limiter (ie too low). Do you have the means to test P and K?

@fcmf , how successful have you been with keeping your plants in the sand recently? When you initially took them out of the pots, I'd not had my smaller, shallower substrate for long. I have discovered that the smaller the substrate, the more difficult it is to initially secure the roots in the substrate.

Something I've always done, and now find essential (with the finer substrate and even more so with the sand) is to trim the roots prior to planting. This gives me a lot more control over the roots when planting them (though sometimes it still takes several attempts to get them secure enough).

The theory behind it, is that trimming the roots promotes their growth. Obviously don't want them too short, so I trim to a minimum of about an inch, depending on the size of the plant.

I found the other day that the roots of some of my crypts had grown right across the sand area (about 15-20cm), along the bottom of the tank. Which is quite a lot in about 3 months.

By the way, it took me a very long time (over a year) to figure out why my soft, low nitrate, heavily planted, but under-stocked fish tank wasn't thriving. Then it became extremely resilient to my neglecting it. 

Quite a lot of the plants I had a few months ago have sadly died. Probably the greatest determining factor on how well a plant does is making sure it's not got something shading it eg an alternanthera rosaefolia got shaded a bit recently by the new echinodorus twist and the leaves are now disintegrating. Of equal importance, it seems that the thicker the plant leaves, the better they seem to do eg hemiographis colorata is doing well. There are other plants which I think are lasting longer than they would have done if they had remained in their pots, as only a few leaves now drop of these plants each week rather than half of them disintegrating off at once (although this may not have been helped by lifting them all out of the tank during water changes). I've actually had what I think is my first growth of a plant - the hygrophila polysperma has grown by about 50% of its height in a week, and that's even in the "jinxed" corner where most plants die!

Trimming the roots sounds a good plan, @Helen - crypts do seem to get very bulky roots, I've noticed, as I keep having to build up the sand and terracotta rings around them to hold them in place. I think I have some leftover gravel from my goldfish-keeping days, so perhaps supergluing some gravel to their roots as per @Skittler 's suggestion might address this and also help keep the echinodorus twist down - it's currently floating a few inches above the substrate although being kept in position by some wood. Thanks for these suggestions, both.

Oh dear. I hope that she passes the hair fairly soon.

 

I don't know what else to say.

I've looked further down the report and yes, that was the MA.

Right at the end of the report is a photo taken from above the field at the rear of the garden centre. You can see the island that the entrance to the garden centre is accessed from, then the main car park between the island and the buildings. You walked into the entrance facing the island, and down the left hand aisle past the seasonal garden stuff (we'd have been going any day now for seed potatoes from that section) and house plants, on past the clothes, shoes, toys etc, then down a short corridor through to MA right at the back - the part of the building nearest the rear hedge. The outdoor area behind MA is where the paving stones etc were kept. The still intact white covers on the left of the photo were over the half hardy plants to protect them from frost, and outside those were the hardy plants and shrubs.


The good thing is that it happened after the garden centre closed. Knowing the layout and the fact that it's Easter holidays, people would have been hurt if it had been open.

I'm trying to think of something semi-positive to write after the devastating event above.

For various reasons, I was very distracted yesterday evening. Between dinner and washing-up time, I grabbed a bowl from the sink to hold underneath the fish net containing the fishes' dinner (tropical quartet frozen food, having rinsed it, etc) and brought it through to feed them. Having dipped the net in the tank to release the food, I let the fish eat what it contained, then set the net in the bowl for a few minutes and watched them intently before dipping the net in the tank again to release more food still attached to the net. Just after doing this, I realised with horror that the bowl actually contained neat Fairy Liquid in it and that this would definitely have "contaminated" the net and fish food. How on earth I hadn't been aware of this, I don't know - but my mind must have been completely elsewhere. So, on top of the weekly 40% water change having already been done a little earlier, a second 40% water change had to be done. I was semi-dreading what I might wake up to this morning, whether from the aforementioned incident or from the result of too much water changed and therefore a drop in KH and GH to as low as tap water levels, but thankfully everything has been fine (so far, anyway). Lesson learned not to do anything in connection with the fishtank if at all distracted - the outcome could have been horrible!