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The Nymph's Spring (EA900)

I think if a guide is being thought about then the way the botanicals are prepared is another aspect to consider. I tend to use mostly oak/hornbeam/beech leaves and I leave them soaking in a tub overnight (or just floating on the surface of my tank) and then just throw them in but I see lots of people boil everything and either decant the tannin rich water to create the colour depth they are after, or then drain the leaves before adding to the tank.
I'd imagine that boiling the leaves, or leaving them to soak in water (perhaps with waterchanges) would help make the leaves safer to use even if they did leach nasties into the water. I think that how many we use compared to tank volume and maintenance schedule is also important which can make adding a few leaves quite tricky depending on the leaves we choose.

I'd be interested to hear how you prep the botanicals because I normally choose the method that least effort.
 
mort said:
I think if a guide is being thought about then the way the botanicals are prepared is another aspect to consider. I tend to use mostly oak/hornbeam/beech leaves and I leave them soaking in a tub overnight (or just floating on the surface of my tank) and then just throw them in but I see lots of people boil everything and either decant the tannin rich water to create the colour depth they are after, or then drain the leaves before adding to the tank.
I'd imagine that boiling the leaves, or leaving them to soak in water (perhaps with waterchanges) would help make the leaves safer to use even if they did leach nasties into the water. I think that how many we use compared to tank volume and maintenance schedule is also important which can make adding a few leaves quite tricky depending on the leaves we choose.

I'd be interested to hear how you prep the botanicals because I normally choose the method that least effort.
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I also chose the method with the least effort... I put them in the top dry and let them sink over a day or two, no boiling or anything. In the Colin Dunlop article he also just puts them in dry (after wiping off any dirt). Often I don't move them once they sink and let them stay higher up amongst the plants and hardscape, it looks really natural, and makes the layer at the bottom look even better somehow.

Preparation is a really interesting point which I haven't given much thought to, if I want tannin water I just put the leaves in and let them do their thing. I think this is where having different people testing different methods that they prefer would be really useful - though I'd happily try different methods - I think if I try all these things alone every type of leaf will take a very very long time, given that each botanical will need t's own time to test. I am interested in the tannin teas that people make as a shortcut though, I was thinkng of collecting some alder cones this season for it. I don't like their look much (tried them last winter), but they seem to stain the water well.
 
Might be worth starting up your new thread Rosie, so that feedback like this can be added. If you reserve the first couple of posts, you can collate any tidbits you think are of value, in those first couple of posts.

For me though, I rinse my 'collected' botanicals under the hot tap for a couple of minutes to wash of any 'pollutants' and then chuck the in the tank.
 
Hi all,
I've just looked and I still have quite a few stored ones left.

This is the nearest Magnolia grandiflora tree to the lab. The nearest Loquat is on the wall immediately on the right and on the other side of the wall in front are two Camellia x williamsii "Donation".

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cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
I store spare structural ones dry, mainly Loquat Eriobotrya japonica
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That's lucky, I was going to ask about this species. Someone dumped some prunnings in our local wood so I thought I'd try and strike one and only got one from the ten I tried but it's now about 18" high and was thinking it had botanical potential.
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

I think that was good success rate, it is a difficult cutting.

cheers Darrel
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It was the only one I tried in damp spagnum, which seems to be my most successful method for lots of plants now. The others were soil/perlite and failed quickly but I don't know how long the material had been dumped in the woods before I found it.




Completely unrelated but has anyone bought house plants, or plants in general, because they saw aquarium botanical potential?
 
Just got home from the most amazing short holiday and am absolutely dead, soz for not responding to all of you guys and your amazing posts!!! I swam with sea turtles 😱 it was just magical.

I was in St Bart's for my friends wedding (they very generously helped us get there!), and was so moved by the beauty of the nature. This hobby had made me appreciate the tiny beautiful things in nature all around us even more - all the kinds of macroalgae floating about, mangrove propules, small branches colonised by coral, even just the few tropical leaves from the trees around the beaches floating in the sea struck me as so beautiful, when before it would just be random crap in the sea lol. If I had a macro algae tank I could drop tropical leaves in there too! 😂 Maybe that's for another post of this botanicals thread. If I could've I would've brought back a whole suitcase of fabulous tropical dead leaves!!! Sadly apparently it's not allowed but I've got some new plants to try to source in the UK now. At one point I found a fan palm with a leaf-span of 2 METERS and started to imagine a crazy giant blackwater with one of those in, would be so good!!

As I am brain dead all I'm doing rn is watching the big tank and it's so lovely and relaxing and beautiful.... A bit overgrown but the fish are very active all over. I know there are often reports that pygmy cories become shy and lethargic but with my group of 25 (ish) they are super active, and right now swimming all over the tank in a school and feeding in the sand, they've been at it all day. I thought this group behaviour might stop after a while but I've had them for a few months and it hasn't stopped - they really make the tank tbh, them and the apistos are stars.

Of course the co2 I installed the day before my trip is empty 🙃 but the fish are all fine HALLELUJAH. First time away since getting tanks!! Was so busy I think the main connection must've not been tight enough. The plants look good too and are really overgrown on top, and no new algae yet so must have run out recently. Will probs do a blackout just in case.

Last week before my trip I bought some new young wild cardinals and they've really relaxed while I was away and are now all over chasing eachother, it was definitely a good choice to add some more - even though they're tiny they have a surprisingly big personality! The big cardinals are out A LOT more too, hopefully they feel a bit more young again lol. I like this model of waiting a good while between adding any new fish and first adding more of what I already have - good sized schools of fish makes such a remarkable difference to behaviour these tetras are completely different! I got them from the Fish Barn, which is a FANTASTIC shop!! I've never seen such clean tanks and healthy fish, and lots of special unusual species. Also ordered some very unusual echinodorus from them to arrive this week 😀 I'm going full echinodorus in the back.

The tank is almost fully stocked but I've requested from them some threadfins in a good mix of sexes, which is apparently hard to source, so we'll see if/when that happens.


Also another big improvement - I have been getting slow pale plant growth for a while. Then I lost my micro salts, which turned out to be very lucky! @Courtneybst came to the rescue and gave me some of his, as well as an extra teaspoon of DTPA iron as he said it helped his plant growth in hard water. It's worked fantastically for me!!! The buces are suddenly all growing, melt is gone and rubbish pale leaves seem gone too. In about 3 weeks things are looking just much perkier. We are definitely on the road to proper lusciousness soon.

Ok brain dump over, will get back to ask this fabulous botanical discussion tomorrow and start the new thread on it!! :)
 
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shangman said:
One of the monstera in our hallway is suspended at the top of the stairs, it has a 5 meter single root growing down, which it has now planted into the bottom-most pot we have a flor and a half down 😂 Those roots are ridiculous and great, they must grow very high up massive trees where they're from, they remind me a bit of very long finger nails.
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Did we ever get a picture of that? 😍
 
Oh my gosh you guys I am so upset!! For a few days my beautiful beautiful Mr Daffodil apistogramma has been hiding in the back. At first I thought maybe I had put in too much co2 and adjusted it down slightly, but today he came out of hiding with his mouth wide open. Apparently this is lockjaw and happens randomly and he's pretty much doomed!! 😭😭😭😭😭

I will hope that he recovers on his own but with apistos random stuff seems to just kill them, I haven't changed anything, my dad looked after them well. It seems like online people don't even know really why it happens 😢

Was right about to start looking over everything for the botanicals thread and an now having a drink to down my sorrows instead. My favourite fish... 😭
 
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I bet that greedy fish ate a whole adult cherry shrimp and is now paying the price ffs!! This is just how his dad died, he died eating too many blood worms

I have noticed there past few days the cherry shrimp have been way more out and about and I feel that doesn't bode well.
 
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Over the past few days since realising my beloved fish is dying I've been doing research, and I think that the tank may be infested with flukes. He doesn't have lockjaw, his mouth is just open to breathe heavily, and also he won't eat, and I think it may be because flukes have infested him and injured him enough that he can't breath well any more. He has no obvious injuries or body problems, no dodgy stool, no redness but his gills aren't on show so I can't see into them to check. A few other reasons I think I have flukes is that on occasion I have seen both apistos flash (maybe once or twice, never much) and twice have seen a pygmy corydora flash over the past few months. As well as this, I read that if cichlid fry are all dying off very soon after they're born, that may be flukes too... I have noticed this with all the past 3/4 broods... I had just not thinkingly assumed the tetras ate them, but I have also watched the motherfish leave the fry to get food, tetra wander over to fry... and ignore them completely. Finally, I made a post a while ago about my betta in another tank having a facial injury, a scale had been rubbed off his face and it got infected. He is ok now, but I read today that if fish have flukes that can injure themselves rubbing on things, so I think that I might not just have flukes, but have them in all my tanks (I don't have enough space to have deidcated equipment for each tank).

Mr Apisto is currently in a bag of tank water floating in the tank, he isn't dead yet and still has some life in him, I can't quite bring myself to clove him yet but he cna't stay in the tank in case he suddenly drops dead and releases all sorts of stuff into it. I've decided to dose the whole tank with fluke solve and go through that process to hopefully save the rest of the fish in the tank from a similar fate. It's simply impossible to get them all out to treat elsewhere. I will also replace his bag of water with the fluke solve and see over the next 2 days if he declines further or not. I assume he will and I will have to enthanise him, but I want to try to last effort just in case, and I have to treat the whole tank anyway. Am also dosing the betta tank.

In the instructions it says to ideally not do any waterchanges for 3 weeks, but since this is an hightech I think I have to still, has anyone else dosed flukesolve in a hightech? I am thinking I will have to readd a half-dose after a waterchange next week, maybe I will try to do a week and a half to stretch it a bit. At least then I can do a big vac of the soil to get out some of the fluke eggs that are still alive.

Any thoughts? Fish illness TBH is completely foreign to me, though luckily I have the fluke-solve from when my shrimp had nose worms and I successfully treated them. This is all just guesswork
 
You can pretty much change the amount of water you want regardless of any medication instructions, as long as you redose the new water added with the correct amount of medication. Some medications adjust the second dose based on how much they estimate the first dose of medication will have degraded in the water column, like those that are light sensitive, or that decompose naturally. But this should be of minor importance. Especially with these relatively gentle meds.

Im really sorry to hear about this, this is the worst part of the hobby in my opinion.
 
Sorry to hear your problems. I don't have anytime at the moment as I'm already late going out but I'd have a look to see if fluke solve can be used as a dip/bath. I've not used it but there is a similar product in the marine world for flukes that you can do a dip with and if you do it in a black tub you can just about make out if anything comes of, so it's a good way to help diagnose. If it is possible with your meds then at least that might confirm what you are dealing with.

The first sign of flukes that I normally see in fish is them shaking their head. That seems to be one thing that is characteristic of flukes but doesn't happen with other diseases.
 
One thing I will say is I always scold all my universal gear, like nets, jugs etc, whenever I have an outbreak of anything. (would prefer a steam cleaner but i don't own one)

So by the sounds you want to treat with the fish whilst it is inside the planted tank using Flukesolve.

You can use flukesolve as a bath
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From what I read the point of Flukesolve is you use it in reefs when you can't catch the fish, or you have inverts you don't want to harm, but i don't understand how they achieve this at a 50% solution or whether it is truly coral safe.

Biltricide (fish trade name praziquantel) is used to treat infections caused by Schistosoma worms, which enter the body through skin that has come into contact with contaminated water.
Albenzadole (fish trade name Flubendazole) is used to treat infections caused by worms such as pork tapeworm and dog tapeworm.

as far as water changes go if you can't catch the fish, you could change water then re-dose the flukesolve appropriately i presume.

Sorry if im not much help, tried my best with my limited knowledge of fish diseases, hope the little bugger pulls through. :)
 
Thanks for all the advice guys, I really appreciate it. Hopefully whatever he got doesn't affect the other fish in the tank, will keep a watchful eye. I did dose some flukesolve into the main tank, felt like I needed to do something although I don't really know if that was the thing that did it. They haven't been shaking their heads much, I was mostly thinking about the occasional flicking on hardscape. I did dose Mr Daffodil last night too but I think it was just too late, he died this morning. It seems like with Apistos once they've got these symptoms they're screwed no matter what.

My family all think I'm being dramatic but I am so sad about this little fish, he truly was wonderful, so smart funny pandering and beautiful. I only had his dad for 2 months before he died (not enjoying this pattern), and when the babies appeared with his partner 2 days later I vowed to help raise at least 1 to adulthood to continue his line of beautiful fish. I think the advice I got in raising them is what really made me a proper member of UKAPS. I ended up raising 38, causing me to buy the tank in this journal. 8 of them I gave to fellow UKAPS members (notably including @Courtneybst who is basically my fish best friend now, these fish made a proper impact on my life!). I kept 2, including Mr Daffodil. I gave 28 to the LFS, apparently 5 are left there now. At first he was very shy but when he went in this big tank he really came out of his shell and grew to be so magnificent, he went from a 1mm tiny fry to a 3cm juvie an 8cm beast. Even though he lived a short life I like to think that I made it a good one. This fishkeeping has high highs and low lows, very glad I have you guys to commiserate with. I think he makes a fine excuse to have a drink tonight in the honour of, I certainly will have one!

This is the last photo I took of Mr Daffodil 2 weeks ago which is blurry af, but it shows him showing off and looking fabulous as always.

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And a classic "give me food plz" look

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Hufsa said:
Im really sorry to hear about this, this is the worst part of the hobby in my opinion.
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Definitely, the downside of experiencing nature in your own home is that whole sickness and death part, heart-wrenching.
 
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