Check your water parameter; gh, kh, ph, etc.

I put Chinese Algae Eater & to my surprise they are grazing the BBA on the leaves. At first I unable to ID them whether they're Siamese Algae Eater or Chinese Algae Eater & my LFS don't know either. I bought 3 of the fish anyway. Hopefully they eat all of the BBA before they loose interest.

Yeah, you can reuse soil. When you are constantly scaping & re-scraping, you can end up with extra used soil. Just dump them in a container.

For fertilizer, Seachem sold NPK separately while Aquaforest have them in one bottle. Iron is another nutrient that I read very useful if you get it in standalone bottle.

One of my tank use organic compost soil. Plant growth is 2-3 times faster compares to non-organic soil tank, both are low tech setup. The compost soil is the ones sold RM2 per bag. I made a mistake by not sifting it to remove dead roots & small wood chips in it. It crashed with BGA after few months of good run. I end up adding fine sand to get total depth of more than 3 inches to fix BGA. So, if you use organic soil, either compost or top soil, sifting them before using in aquarium. Some people like to "bake" the soil in microwave or oven before using it. Btw, top soil is 5 to 10 inches of outermost layer of soil. Yeah, you can use soil from your backyard. Basically one inch layer of organic soil & one inch of fine gravel or fine sand on top. Some people like to use less organic soil, less than one inch. Just make sure tank is heavily planted, like at least 70 to 80% of the space is covered with plant.

I just want to add one thing. With my experience with dirt tank, is what people called low tech tank with organic soil, I really appreciate the hardiness of the cryptocoryne. I have cryptocoryne "Red" Wendtii & no algae dare to touch it. Maybe little coat of BGA but BBA do not dare to touch it. Java Fern, another hardy plant, heavily infested with BBA.

If you have shrimps, Tank cover is a must I think. You can custom made using plexiglass.

For stem plants, that's how you propogate. Trim & plant. For rhizome plant, you'll need to include rhizome if you want to propogate it.

If done correctly, it shouldn't be any issue. That is why you need a layer of cap on top. Don't worry no fungus. The water also doesn't turn black. There is another method to prepare the soil which is involving baking it in oven or microwave. Also in addition to sifting the soil to remove dead roots & small wood chips, you can submerge the soil. Remove everything that floats.

There are two opinions in using dirt; 1) put only small amount of layer of dirt, 2) deep substrate including cap between 3 to 6 inches. I won't go into details because there's a lot to talk about in this subject. All I know, you can't go wrong with any one of them. One inch layer of dirt is good but if you put more than that, make sure the depth of the substrate including cap must at least 3 inches.

For the first month don't put any fish or invertebrate. You can put feeder shrimps / local ghost shrimp / Thailand ghost shrimp after 2 weeks to handle algae that may appear during that time. Also make sure you use compost that doesn't contain any additives like chemical additives.

What do you mean by seeding immerse method?
I don't know why you need to mix with lava soil. You can I think.

Java fern in clean water after 10 minutes of bleach treatment (9:1 water to bleach ratio) to get rid BBA. The Chinese algae eater did eat most of the BBA. I should have done this sooner. Look at the damages on the leaves because of the BBA.

There's no need to do that. In a month, nitrifying bacteria will colonise the soil & your plants will be growing. There you have two things that will take care ammonia, nitrite & nitrate. Organics decomposition in the soil going to release CO2 which will helps growth. If you setup two low tech tank; one with commercial aquasoil & another one with dirt (compost, top soil, etc), plants grow faster & healthier in dirt tank.

I think you can sprout seedings with compost.

Yeah. It will look funky. I could cut all the leaves & let it grow back in a couple of months. Apparently, some aquarist do this to newly bought fern.

Owh, that fungus. Yeah it'll go away. It may return after you clean it but it'll go away for good. I don't remember whether I got it too but all of my driftwood was boiled for 30 minutes before putting into the tank. Bristlenose pleco is one of the first fish I put in the tank. Apparently bristlenose pleco is one of the animal that eat this fungus. The other two are nerite snails & otocinclus.

Plexiglas. Easier to customize.

Yeah, different people, different approach. For me, if the crop damaged because of algae or deficiency, I correct the problem. When the problem solved, new growth will be healthy. Then I would trim, removed damaged part & re-planted the healthy ones. It would take weeks or months, depends on the severity of the problem. The plants with rhizome, as long as the roots & rhizomes are healthy, it should grow back.

There's no reason to mix soil. Just use one or the other.

You don't need to quarantine new plants. Rinse with dechlorinated water is all you need. Your soil still leaching ammonia I think. I think you should focus on your plants first. Once you done re-scraping your tank & the plants grow well, then you can add shrimps. I would check ammonia at least before putting any shrimp.

No, they don't turn yellow

I read that vine plant can grow under water & they look beautiful when they grow out of the water.

Plant in second pic, I did try & they did grow well underwater. It even produced shoots & flower. However, the lower part, from root, melted after a while. Maybe nutrients deficiency because I did not dose anything that time.

I just take a look the 2nd pic again in my computer. I think that is different plant that I tried in my aquarium. The one in your pic have jagged leaves while the one I tried have non-jagged leaves.



This is old photo when I tried the plant in my tank. The reason is because they grow well naturally in the water. On land they grow shorter.


This post has been edited by kizwan: Dec 29 2020, 03:40 PM

End of 2020. The only year we won't missed.

Hello,

I need help identifying this fish. They're bottom dwellers & very active. Like to eat blanched zucchini that I put in for my bristlenose pleco.

Thanks to my cat, from 6 down to 3 of this fish in my tank.

EDIT: Nevermind. It is Silver Flying Fox (Crossocheilus reticulatus), also known as the Reticulated Siamese Algae Eater, Fishnet Flying Fox, and Reticulated Flying Fox, is a close relative of the more common Siamese Algae Eater (C. reticulatus).





This post has been edited by kizwan: Jan 13 2021, 02:50 AM

I need to get nerite snails. Mine died few months ago.

I saw some seller sell complete set for RM300 at aquascape fb club. Or you can try DIY co2 using acid citric & baking soda. Even with DIY you will be itching to get a solenoid. If I remember correctly, solenoid for DIY co2 is a lot cheaper.

I agree but I have seen a lot of success with DIY co2.

tehoice

I think you are up to a good start. Your experience have served you well. On the fertilizer subject, I consider myself in a camp where I don't believe excess nutrients can cause algae unless there's deficiency occurred as well. Since I & others have experience phosphate deficiency, I think you should dose phosphorus as well because I believe the amount of phosphorus in our tap water is too small. Also since Nitrogen (nitrate) & phosphorus go together, you should dose Nitrogen as well.

It is good idea to start Flourish with once a week until your tank balanced & after that you can increase to 2 times a week & as your plant grow more, 3 times a week. I read plant can store phosphate really well, so once or twice a week should be enough.

This is just opinion. 😁

I have been dosing micro (Flourish) & macro (aquaforest af macro) on the same day. So far I don't see any problem. I read since we're dosing ferts in large body of water, there should not be any issue where other nutrients such as iron reacting with phosphate to form a precipitate (I read if it does it will form a cloudy white powder that fall to the bottom).

BTW, I just destroyed my first tank because of BBA. Mine confirmed BBA because it is black & hairy instead of white. Grow on the edge of the old leaves. When new leaves grow, the new old leaves also got infected. CAE did eat BBA because majority old leaves become clean from BBA but that is not enough because it reappear on the new old leaves. The plants was growing so well. I dip all of the plants in bleach solution but the mixture is too strong & I dip too long. 9:1 water to bleach (clorox) mixture for 5 minutes dip. Well it turn out many people dip in 20:1 or 25:1 mixture for 1 to 3 minutes, some people do it less than a minute. Majority of stem plant died. The ones that survived, majority of the leaves fall off but recovering because new leaves appearing. I trimmed plants from my other tank & planted them in my first tank. I'm either buy new plants or wait a couple of weeks to trim plants from my other tank & plant it in my first tank.

This post has been edited by kizwan: Jan 27 2021, 12:01 PM

For macro, they need in large quantities. Before dosing macro, my stem plant doesn't grow well. Typical phosphate deficiency, like small new leaves, stunted growth. I don't think our tap water contain enough phosphate. However, my other tank that use organic soil (compost) doesn't have phosphate deficiency. I think the plant get extra phosphate from the soil.

Yeah, I agree. For now let see how your plants progress first.

I've decided to try dosing macro & micro on alternate days. To see how my plants react to it.