alanmin4304

I have (true) siamese algae eaters and clown loaches with my killies to keep the plants clean and control snails. Plecos will need peas or zuchini added to keep them off the plants---more maintenance.

I have not seen it in nurseries as a seed or plant even though there are lots of other lobelia. There is a red leafed variety sold as an aquatic but it is a disaster if submersed in my experience (I tried growing it last year for the last time)

If you use approved plumbing fittings you can't go wrong. Put the rest in the garden or glasshouse.

It may be that the plant was grown emersed or by hydroponics and is struggling to adjust to submersed growth. Was it in a wee pot with rockwool when you bought it---if so it had been grown by hydroponics. If grown emerse it is harder to tell but the new leaves will be different to the old. If the leaves all melt just leave it and it should grow new leaves and be OK. C. ciliata is pretty hardy and should be OK with the conditions you describe.

I should add that I put mine into a bare heated tank with no filtation or airstone as I think a decent filter would blow them all over the place. Whiteworms will stay alive about a day and I siphon off what excess there is each day and put in fresh. I only feed whiteworms for the first week to give them a good start, them start giving as many other foods as I can get to get them use to it. I don't sell them until about 7 weeks but I go by size. I have a heat lamp and reptile light for the babies (not the adults) as they are in the garage with no windows. The water goes green after a while and I use that to grow daphnia (fed also to the babies)

I feed JBL baby turtlefood and white worms as well. I usually feed the whiteworms when I first remove them from the incubator as they instinctively go for live food that is moving (siphon off any excess regularly)

I have added flourish excel with killies and had no problems.

I would stay away from CO2 in a small tank like that as you could get massive shifts in pH which is not good for any fish.

Positive it is mouses ear--- I grow it emersed and convert it to submersed before sale. As I said earlier what you see in the shops is grown emersed and the emersed form of plants is always different to the submersed form--- but same plant.

Slow growing, needs good light and will branch if cut back and replanted. Not realy commercial (slow to grow and a long time to convert from emersed) so not normally sold in the shops. I am trying to get some going and hopefully will have some on this site late summer/ autumn. This is the only submersed one I have at present.

Lobelia cardinalis submersed.

Rotala rotundifolia flower stem. One of the many plants bought as Rotala indica which is actually Rotundifolia.] Close up of the flower of the same plant.

On a second look at the third picture it may be that the smaller leaves in the foreground have grown submersed like the tallest leaf and may become a nice wee plant. You can see by the algae that the existing emersed growth doesn't do much and any hope is in the new growth. If it is the older cruddy stuff could be removed later leaving a submersed plant.

How do the plants grow with the lights off?

The only time I can see any point in a fishless cycle is when tanks are being set up to put a lot of fish in quarantine after importation. But many importers don't even do that.

Since we only see pumice in the bathtub down here in the real world, can pumice be drowned by holding it under water?

You are way ahead of us. We got our first eggs of the season laid this week

Fish produce urea as waste and bacteria break that to ammonia then nitrite, then nitrate. Ammonia and nitrite are toxic to fish and nitrate is used by the plants and is not toxic in normal concentrations but can cause algae problems if you get too much. Bacteria grow to convert the urea to ammonia, then nitrite, then nitrate and this is called cycling the tank (nitrogen cycle) The tank cannot cycle if you add products that remove the ammonia as there is nothing to feed these bacteria that you want to encourage. There are two schools of thought---cycling with fish or by adding ammonia or dead prawns that produce ammonia. I prefer cycling with fish and would plant the tank out to get your plants established (and eventually use up some of the nitrate) Then add a couple of fish each week until you get the tank set up with the fish numbers you want. You can add the fish more rapidly and do water changes to reduce the ammonia and nitrate but this upsets the natural balance somewhat.

I think the second plant is sold down here as sawtooth or some similar name, is not realy an aquatic and will probably struggle to survive. Because people like red plants people grow them to sell to the shops but most don't survive very well. I grow alternanthera roseafolia reineckii but not rubra or Ludwigia perennis (of which I had two forms) because they do not handle submersed growth well and they croak on most people. I forget what the scientific name is for it----someone else may know. Perhaps we could rename it Petshop ripoffii

I understand they are making biofuel from the algae in oxidation ponds at the sewage works. Perhaps the Govt could forget about the fart tax and give evry household free epsom salts. Liquorice might be more socially acceptable.

In the end it is a personal preference but I think you are missing the point completely. Bacteria will multiply (usually doubling by binary fision every 20 minutes in the right conditions) to suit the amount of urea, ammonia and nitrite present. The leval of bacteria in a cycle with fish will be directly proportional to the waste produced by the fish that are present and so a balance will be struck with the actual situation. In a fishless cycle you or anybody else has no idea of the amount of waste (urea) that will be produced by the fish that you intend to put in the tank so no balance can be established. Therefore there will be not enough or too much bacteria when the fish are added. If there are not enough bacteria there will be an ammoia and nitrite spike until the balance is reached. If there are too many bacteria they will die off through lack of food and cause an upset in the balance also. If the tank is planted well with plants that are actually growing and using nutrient (including nitrate) and a few fish are added slowly to allow the natural balance to be established and maintained there will be less stress on the fish than there will be if you dump a heap of fish into a tank without having any idea of what the balance needs to be. Grandfather had never heard of rock wool or fishless cycling but grew plants and kept fish pretty successfully. I think we need to think about what we are doing sometimes and not just do things because it is fashionable or Mrs Google thinks it is a good idea. I will stick with grandad--- it still works for me.

The folded ones are usually not fertile, but not always---patience is the go.

They provide the micronutrient that may be missing. I think they are basically dried clay

My advice would be to keep the shells moist (and therefore soft) and let them do their own thing. There can be major differences in hatch times even in the same batch and the temptation is to try and rush it. They sort it out themslves best I think.

It is a nice wee plant when submersed---a bit like mouses ear ---grows slowly and needs good light. This has been grown emersed. I will try to get a pic of it submersed sometime.