Sophia

that tank needs a lawnmower haha :lol:

I'm jealous - mine hasn't had a flower - do all the varietals have flowers? I have the twisted stuff

what sweet little fish re the staghorn: are you game enough to do the flourish excel overdose? I did the big load over a few weeks but one was under sand when I did it and then grew back - for 2 days I hit it twice with slightly more than the daily recommended dose (nowhere near what I was doing originally) and it went pink and disappeared the next day or so later since then I've been doing 1ml a night (my recommended dose) and the algae is very much under control. I used to get light green fuzz on the glass too - no more of that either so far, I'm pretty happy about that. And all with sunlight in the room.

easy snail trap is to put a piece of courgette on the bottom and after a few days it will be covered. But snails are snails... it takes a while for them to get there and many of them still don't make it over there. too.... much.... walking....... so i don't recommend that as a fast fix if that's what you're after. I get more of the mini ramshorns in my tank through the gravel siphon but still they keep a-growin'. I liked them once... now i'm over them :roll:

I'm just a newbie too but I read in another thread that the plants use the carbon in darkness, hence why when dosing algae with flourish excel we are supposed to do it after lights out. I agree with the Co2 killing the shrimpies, my corys were also sensitive to it maybe just too much change too soon for the little guys but at least you know where you can get some more!!

I've seen brine shrimp growing and it looks like more commitment to live food than I can handle white worms I am growing faster than the fish can eat however!

what about grindal worms? they look small enough to fit in their little mouths

just wondering what others do, if anything. I have white worms but they seem too big, and the corydora aren't quick enough to get them before the other fish chomp them. Have even tried dropping them down to the bottom with a tube but no joy, they are too scared of me!

Twisted val in my tank is recovering and regrowing in the presence of the normal daily dose of flourish excel, it only started to die after a prolonged (on and off for 2 weeks?) period of double dosing. I wasn't brave enough to triple dose but it wasn't needed anyway

do you have any sunlight directly on the tank? I do,and I believe it is the main cause of my staghorn algae that is trying to creep back after a harsh annihilation programme - my tank ammonia levels are zero. I got rid of mine originally through overdosing with Flourish excel (use search function to find other threads discussing it as I have waffled on enough about this already!), but some of my fish weren't enjoying it by the end. and don't forget to tell us where you are so people can tell you what's in your area

I will go scrape the drive for some gravel now ... thanks for the info

and you think they will be alright being weighed down or should I put them in pots?

I don't have another tank, is why I want to try it in a bucket.

I would like to make a mini set up like this (ie one bucket worth) and propogate the dwarf sag from Alan and some twisted val - will it work if I anchor each plant with the lead strip or must they be in pots like Phoeonix's? this might save me if the algae that is threatening to return ruins my plants again 8)

finally got my 100 posts star yeee! :bounce:

that's a nice fish

Got myself some white worms (courtesy of helpful Barrie) and they are all getting on like a house on fire in my new wormery....I have 7 cardinal tetra who are the main target for these. I thought to myself I would get them some live food to spice up their little lives and see if I could get the smaller apparently fussy ones to grow bigger. So by now there are enough to feed to the fish... I've dropped some in the tank but instead of the little fish having a worm meal, the bigger fish went nuts and chomped them down too quickly without even chewing! I just shook my head - talk about greedy haha 8) :lol:

I thought they were more likely to get phosphate from the size of the portion of food rotting later - it looked like raining shrimp in there and the fish weren't gobbling it up that quickly!

have just watched this on Youtube - is it true what they say about the phosphates? it's a 2 min clip, they say phosphates are caused by not defrosting the food outside the tank before feeding.

the plants you sent me loved it!! it was good because I didn't lose any greenery in the tank while the twisted val was dying off now just experimenting with the height of the stargrass

If you overdose then the answer is definitely Yes to both: when I was overdosing by twice the amount, it went from 7.6/8 to 7.2ish and my corydora started complaining with their fins. I'm now just started using the instructed amount and will find out if the pH rises at all. Have a read of these threads for more info viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43658 viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43475 viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43940

I have just done an overdose programme with Flourish excel (spot treating areas with the overdosage) and this is what I found - it has lowered the pH of the water (not a bad thing as it was getting to 7.6-7.8ish, but I think the fluctuations caused flashing), it dissolved almost all of my twisted val, it turned my supposedly dwarf sagittaria into 20cm long leaves, made my stargrass double in length over about a week and a half, at the same time I stripped the piece of wood and scrubbed all visible algae and since then so far no more staghorn and beard algae.... I imagine it will slowly come back as I still have some direct sunlight on the tank, and I must have killed some bacteria as the tank is just going through a mini cycle - not high numbers of anything but more than the next to zero levels they were at, should come right soon ....and finally I did upset the corydora. After a few days of overdosing mixed with normal dosing they were skulking around the bottom with clamped top fins. I did a couple of big water changes and they are happy again. I will go find you the link that someone posted for me to read up on first before you do the overdosing thing. ----------- here you go - a thread within a thread within a thread viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43475 8)

how big is your tank? I like the pic of them feeding :lol:

on TM there are some starters for grindal, white and microworm - one guy advertising white worms with 'wiggle action' that fish will not be able to resist!! :lol:

done with avatar! :bounce: