Curious as to the communities experience with invasive grass taking over their aquariums! How concerned should I be, any advice welcome

Going 'minimal' this time.

Scape: seiryu stone, JBL white sand, salvinia, rotala hra and an unknown moss I found outside

Inhabitants: 1 honey gourami, 3 sparkling gourami, 1 stiphodon goby, many cherry shrimp, 2 clithon, 1 nerite, limpets & mini ramshorn

Equipment: fluval canister filter,

Found this little guy eating diatoms on my plant in a 5 day old tank. Second picture is around 24 hours after with almost all diatoms cleaned. I have always wondered how to get rid of diatoms before the cycle is complete so I can put otos in. Maybe limpets are the answer? Too bad no one sells them. I think I'll keep this guy for now.

1st pic: current photo of my tank
2nd pic: other tank i have no issues with
3rd: middle point between current and my old tank
4th pic: when i set the tank up

sorry for the confusing layout.. wasn’t sure how to put it

anyways, i’ve been actually so upset with my tank. it’s a 10 gal currently in some type of bacteria bloom(water parameters have been tested and are normal) but over the past year i guess that i’ve had this tank set up, plants would die, i’d take them out.. put more in. i woke up this morning after putting an algae tablet in for my other snail/kuhlis and it bloomed weirdly with white stuff on the ground..(mostly guessing i had a buildup of duckweed that stilled the current of the sponge filter).. but honestly i have no clue what is going on. i’ve used root tabs, flourish, the only plant that has never fully died is the duckweed, even my water lettuce and red root floaters died. my betta will eat shrimp so i can’t add those. i have no issues with my other tank, the plants grow amazing and look vibrant and i use the exact same things for each tank. i don’t have a co2 system if that matters.

i guess im just wondering what the next steps can be.. just very disappointing for not making this work i want to have this tank thriving fr. however i dont want to keep on funneling money into things that wont work. any advice is appreciated!!

My tank survived the first month 😁🙏🏻

All plants have the same tones. Which plant would you complement to make it more exciting.

I have the following plants in my aquarium:

- Hydrocotyle tripartita

- Cryptocoryne parva

- Hygrophila angustifolia Rubra

- Cryptocoryne balansae

- Bucephalandra sp.

- Nymphoides hydrophylla 'Talwan

- VESICULARIA MONTAGNEI

My water parameters are 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 5.0ppm nitrate GH is 12 and KH is 1. Temperature is 31.6 degrees throughout the day. I’ve been dosing seachem potassium and seachem advanced to see if it helps. I know the temperature is far from ideal and I can’t help it as it’s way too expensive to buy a chiller($1000+), but I did grow them last time in the same temperatures so I’m not sure why the leaves just die like that. Also I have some trident fern in there and I have seen practically no growth at all and some of the tips were darkish brown. I googled it and it said it might be due to strong lighting? The trident ferns are directly below my lights but I’m thinking it’s also due to the temperature? Basically I just wanna know if it’s the temperature causing this issues like browning leafs tip on the Cyperus helfrei and if it’s meant to grow that slow and for the hydrophilic pinnatifida(pic 4 and 5) why its leaves keep melting even though in pic 5 you can see it propagating to the side(trimmed off the melting leaves and new ones appear within a week). Picture 6 and 7 are bucephalandra and again I’m not sure why they are yellowing even though I have other types of bucephalandra(kedagang) not yellowing at the moment and they were introduced the same time. Sorry for the long post, let me know if any additional info is needed.

I've posted a few snips of this tank over the past months, and here is the "final" result. I studied the Dutch aquariums from NBAT in the Netherlands (Incredibly useful reference in English here: NBAT Dutch Scaping Aquarium Guide) and took a shot at my first "true" Dutch style per the design rules of NBAT and AGA. I'm fairly happy with it other than a couple plant selections I would have swapped out if I had more time/plants avaliable to me locally. It was also starting to get out of control and needed a big replanting session shortly after the video was taken.

This tank has been a dream as far as maintenance and stability are concerned. Five or six days after the water change I'll get the tiniest bit of green dust on the front glass, but other than that there is no algae whatsoever. I scrape the glass and do small cleanup sessions frequently where I will just trim a handful of leaves/stems that aren't looking good or are getting overcrowded. My total maintenance time per week is probably two hours split over a few days and including my water change.

Here are all the details for anyone interested in doing something like this:

Tank: 75 gallon Marineland

Filter: Fluval FX4 and Fluval 207 with spray bar outlets along the back wall (the 207 is used to drive the CO2 reactor)

Light: Week Aqua P1200 (started at 50% output power when plants were still filling in but I am now at 100% power)

CO2 injection: Yes, lots. Yugang horizontal reactor sized for 1.5 point pH drop although it doesn't achieve quite that much

Substrate: Fluval Stratum, Biostratum, and APT Feast

Water Changes: 40 gallon water change weekly (~60% since a "75 gallon" tank only holds about 65 gallons of water). As part of my water change, I gently stir up detritus in the substrate using a turkey baster and siphon it away per the 2Hr Aquarist method. I use RODI water that I remineralize to 0 dKH and 6 dGH because my local tap water is very hard and varies with the seasons.

Fertilizer is dosed with dry salt mixtures from NilocG. I dose once per day Mon - Sat and twice after my water change on Sunday to attempt to keep levels stable. I split these weekly totals into 8 doses:

Weekly totals:

-24ppm Nitrate (when tank first started I was only dosing 12 ppm Nitrate, I ramped up to 24 later)

-8ppm Phosphate

-25.5ppm Potassium

-0.5ppm Iron (using a micro mixture that covers other micros)

Plants:

Hydrocotyle Leucocephala

Ludwigia Arcuata

Penthorum Sedoides

Bacopa Monnieri

Lysimachia Parvifolia

Echinodorus grisebachii (Regular Amazon Sword)

Micranthemum Umbrosum

Eriocaulon Vietnam

Lobelia Cardinalis

Limnophila Hippuridoides

Hygrophila Siamensis 53b

Mayaca Fluviatilis

Java Fern Petite

Weeping Moss

Livestock:

25 Green Neon Tetra

12 Dwarf Hatchetfish

10 Otocinclus

100+ Cherry Shrimp

I’m trying to see what this plant is to make sure it’s not toxic to cats. Can’t figure it out through google lens.

My tank survived the first month 😁🙏🏻

Got this new 13.3 gallon going, not sure what to put in it yet but excited about the plants

Hallo Freunde,

in meinem Aquarium leben nur Garnelen und 7 Ohrgitter-Harnischwelse, die vor ca. 4 Wochen mit 3 neuen Pflanzen eingezogen sind.

Eben habe ich einen Fisch in meinem Becken entdeckt, weiß jemand was für eine Art das sein könnte? Er kann ja nur über die neuen Pflanzen mit ins Becken gekommen sein.

Looking for some more ideas on plants I can grow above my tanks. Just the roots dangled in. But also open to letting plants grow up and out of the water. I have different sized tanks so all ideas welcome. I’m going to grow one of my swords up and out bc the huge swords look awesome when u do that. This guys on YouTube does it and it looks amazing. Looking for suggestions other than pothos and peace lily. Thanks!

After nearly three months of an empty tank, letting the Lilly’s grow out and root, I finally decided on which fish I plan to keep in this tank. Sparkling Gourami! I got them today. Six of them for a 20 long, low flow tank. Going to keep it species only with these guys. I got them as juveniles so very excited to see their growth process! If any of you have kept them before I would love to see photos. ☺️

Let’s get them acclimated! Will share more once they feel comfortable in the tank.

this is the tank I just planted is my monte calro planted deep enough I just did it yesterday is there anything I should be doing today? how long till I have the lushest carpet in the league? I also got some glue marks during some trial and error will those go away?

I set up a new 75 gallon dirted tank with the intent to slowly move the plants and fish over from my established 29 gallon tank and then take it down. I ordered some plants and transferred a few from my established tank. Yesterday morning, I look in the new tank and there are at least a dozen fry swimming around. I really want to know what they will grow up to be so now I'm stuck waiting until they grow enough not to become a snack for my other fish. I wish I knew if the eggs came from my tank or hitched a ride in from the plants I ordered.

Looking for free plants

I know a 20 long is the ideal, but I was able to score a really good deal on a brand new 20 high, so I want to make the most of what I have. I’m going to fill it up with swords and vals, but I’m a fan of interesting hardscape as well and I’d like an idea for something that can reach up to the top levels without being too heavy or precarious. I like spider wood and dragonstone, but most of the pieces I find are long instead of tall. Anyone have suggestions? I’m planning on stocking some shrimp and little fish, ember tetras and pygmy cories probably. (Plus 2 giant snails I got when they were much smaller and have outgrown their 10 gallon, oops.) Thank you!

I suspect that the first one that I already planted is a giant amazon sword? Or maybe a semi-aquatic plant? I'm not sure what the rest are, though. Any guesses are appreciated !

Also, I have a layer of aqua soil underneath my gravel, I'm not planting it in plain gravel. :)

Was labled flame, but it’s not looking like my other flame moss. Second pic is flame moss I have in my aquarium, first pic is what I was sold as flame moss. Looks christmasy…

After dosing the chemiclean Red Cyanobacteria solution twice, I can finally say it's all gone. I considered doing a water change to get sludge out, but there is no left over dead material at all. I think my snails got it take care of.

Also I can't do a water change yet anyway cause it would spike my phosphates and GH/KH.

This might be a tank where I only have to do a water change every few months, so far the high plant count and filter have it taken care of. Stocking will be generally low bioload too since it's all low bioload animals.

So far I've got Least Killifish (Heterandia Fermosa), Blue Dream Shrimp, and a lot of pest snails that I added on purpose like Trumpet, Bladder, and Ramshorns.

I'm planning to add Zipper Kuhli Loaches (Dwarf species), and Pygmy Corydoras. This will be a 3 species community tank for my 20 gallon.

sooooooo so so many different kinds of plants. i kinda just get whatever looks cool tbh (there are 20+ fish in here ;) )

Is this snail damage on my anubias or something else? I apologize for the bad pictures this is a curved tank.