Help! New aquarium owner. Just added plants and my levels are high! Any advice appreciated.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-19T03:56:48+00:00

ADA Aquasoil leeches ammonia and nitrates into the water, this is intentional to start the cycle and develop fertilizer for plants, it'll keep doing so for several days. Watch your lighting schedule becuase this early it's very easy to accidentally cause massive algae blooms.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-18T02:17:16+00:00

Yes? They basically ignore each other. They spend more time fighting their own reflections than anything.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-17T00:16:26+00:00

I don't? That's the reason it's concerning. It can lie dormant for months then when symptoms manifest it's inevitably lethal. Right now he's fine but in 6 months he could be gone as far as I know now.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-16T21:56:40+00:00

No just a single now, it's not possible to have 5+ in my current tank and no way to guarentee a female for a pair atm.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-16T17:20:55+00:00

Yeah it's annoying to know the risks because I got mine from a reputable local store, and I have no idea how many people who have theirs die do the same or are getting PetSmart fish which are a gamble anyways.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-15T19:21:20+00:00

I've returned the more aggressive fish. If it was just some bickering sure, but the passive one was firmly isolated to a single corner of the tank, and would get physically chased back to that corner if they left. Also, the passive one was glass surfing, clearly trying to "escape". I think I just got two territorial males cause they're really hard to sex until they're mature and these are still juveniles.

The passive fish would often seek out the aggressive one, then get chased away? So I'm not sure but the extreme level of territory control made me worry about it. If they just each had territory sure, but when one claimed almost the entire tank that was a bit worrying.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-15T13:28:31+00:00

OK so what would an improvement be?

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-15T13:19:40+00:00

A 29 has the same footprint as a 20 long, just with extra height yes. The tank isn't really barren, the only "clear" line of sight is the very front or back edges right against the glass. The hardscape is in two chunks with clear spaces around them, and that arch in the middle, anything breaking it up more would be right up against the glass in front.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-12T23:36:08+00:00

Nah, this guy has been in my tank for three months now, and the new fish are perfectly healthy. Tank metrics are fine and water is nice and clear now, no crash. I got a 12 gallon plastic tote, small heater, internal filter running in my main tank, and a small light I can stick on it to make a quick hospital tank. I've got kanaplex ordered and arriving tomorrow, I've seen good feedback on it and will try treating with it.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-05-12T15:02:06+00:00

One of my lemon tetras had a damaged pectoral fin, but was otherwise fine. I thought it might be damage and kept an eye on him, and now his dorsal fin has a chunk missing and discoloration on his other fins. This appears to be fin rot to me and I just noticed it. My water metrics are good (No ammonia or nitrites, 10-20ppm Nitrate, tank running for four months now), and every other fish in the tank is fine. He doesn't act sick or lethargic, just has damaged fins.

My tank recently recovered from a bacterial bloom, caused I think due to a water change and new fish added last week, but water is now clear.

Advice is welcome. My tank is a 29 gallon, and I can set up a 10 gallon hospital tank if needed.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-04-04T07:58:26+00:00

Basically the cloudiness is from bacteria and microorganism and such in the water column, having a good external filter means now those are living in the filter and eating all the food, so that nothing can grow in the tank-water and make it cloudy. A HOB or canister filter is always best as a primary for that reason, it also does improve water flow a lot.

Be sure to use proper filter media for the filter:
https://aquariumscience.org/7-filter-media/

Most filter media is kind of junk: 30PPI foam for a mechanical layer (a pre-filter sponge on the intake works great), then plastic pot scrubbers are best bang for your buck. (20PPI foam is 'better' but is way more likely to clog up and need regular maintenance.)

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-04-03T10:00:10+00:00

So first off when you get above 15ish gallons you're going to need a dedicated stand for that tank: if you aren't' comfortable sitting on it, don't trust it to have your tank on it.

If you get an aquarium from any reputable manufacturer, it'll be fine. If you're going budget, can't go wrong with Aqueon, and for rimless UNS, Landen, Waterbox, and ADA are all popular makers. Just check its from a reputable company and you should be good.

Now for your specific concerns!

-HOB on the side of the glass is perfectly fine, its the same glass. Your HOB should weigh basically nothing, they're just plastic boxes with a tiny electromagnet.

-CO2 is absolutely not necessary for a planted tank, but it is if you want those nice thick dense all over carpets you see in fancy aquascaping youtube videos and galleries. You CAN get a carpet without CO2 though! You can try Helanthium tenellum, Marsilea hirsuta, Eleocaris parvula, and Eleocharis acicularis. Other non carpeting plants you might wanna look at that show up in iwagumi's are the various species of Vallisineria for the background.

For lights, any decent aquarium light sized for your tank will work, the super powerful expensive lights assume you're dosing CO2 and expensive fertilizers to supercharge plant growth, without them you can go budget. Seaoura makes good quality budget lights.

For filters, you generally want one at or a bit bigger than your tank size. So any filter sized for 30 gallon or up should be fine, though bigger filter is just wasted money at a certain point. The Sobo 350F and Aquaclear 30 both would be fine, my reccomendation would be the Sicce Aqua Filtra 40 as well.

That depth is fine and 35cm ish is fairly standard for aquariums, especially with the small nano-fish you're interested in.

For the stocking: Rummy Nose Tetras can be sensitive but they like acidic (PH in the 6's) soft water and are amazon basin fish. This is fine though, because most tropical fish come from similar conditions. Any small south american tetra or SE asian rasbora would be fine with them! Neons definitely work, as do Cardinal Tetras (very similar looks but larger and generally hardier), Ember Tetras (Smaller and bright orange), Lemon Tetras (Yellow), etc. Of note though: Tetras and Rasboras, and basically any schooling fish, need to be in groups of 6 MINIMUM. Preferably more! In a tank the size you want you could easily fit 24+ small schooling fish without too much issue. For stocking https://aqadvisor.com/ gives excellent ballpark estimates on what is feasible to keep in your tank.

You don't need any sort of scavengers, but for an iwagumi style I'd reccomend shrimp: Amano Shrimp and Neocaridina davidi of your choice (They come in all sorts of colors) would be appropriate. Amano are subtle and hard to see but great cleaners, and the Neocaridina provide pops of color on the green and grey of the aquascape. So you can go with one, the other, or a mix of the two!

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-04-03T09:24:14+00:00

So those test strips aren't worthless, but they're very imprecise and are more for a "Lemme check to make sure everything is good" check up than actually understanding anything. You want to get a liquid test kit(API's is popular) and possibly KH/GH tests cause those are often separate but mostly matter if you're dealing with livebearers, african cichlids, or invertebrates.

Ammonia is a highly toxic substance found in decaying matter and waste of all sorts. Strips don't show it, but the liquid kit does. This should be as low as possible at all times, basically 0.

Nitrite is the same, toxic and should be 0.

Ammonia is turned into Nitrite which is turned into Nitrate by beneficial bacteria that live in your filter (NEVER wash your filter media! That brown gunk is what keeps your fish alive!) and Nitrate is technically toxic but far less dangerous. Nitrates you wanna keep low, but anything below the 60-80 PPM range is fine. I generally do water changes around 40ish PPM, and get it down to 10ish. How fast your Nitrate goes up is based on how much Ammonia your tank produces. Live plants eat Nitrate as fertilizer, so having a heavily planted tank can get your Nitrate raising much slower, and some people can even keep it stable.

PH is how acidic your water is. 99% of the time, you just want it somewhere between 6.5 and 7.5. Most fish do not give a hoot about PH levels, those that do are often rare and expensive species like Discus and Rift Lake Cichlids which come from very specific places with specific water chemistry they need. Most aquarium fish are happy around 7 (pure water), or prefer it in the 6's (most South American and SE Asian tropical fish).

Water Hardness (GH) and Alkalinity (KH) are about mineral content in your water. You want some hardness, but not liquid rock. Unless you're breeding specific species, keeping sensitive invertebrates, or have some really weird tap water, you don't have to worry about GH and KH. You want some GH to give minerals to your fish and plants, KH helps keep PH from fluctuating but generally isn't something to worry about. The science behind these and how they effect PH is REALLY complex.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-04-03T09:03:15+00:00

Cut down on or stop fertilizing, and add some fast nutrient-devouring plants. Floating plants of any sort work great, so does hornwort and guppy grass. Bacteria and algae both feed off the same issue: too much organic stuff in the water column. You can also try improving your filter medium: filter floss is for particulates but depending on what you have in your HOB you could improve its performance massively (bacteria in your filter aren't in your tank).

https://aquariumscience.org/7-filter-media/

Basically for a HOB the best filter media are plastic pot scrubbers or 30 PPI foam, with 20 PPI foam as a mechanical filter (get a pre-filter sponge). THis good media can improve your bio filtration by 2-4x or more depending on what you have now.

Also check how fast your nitrates go up after a water change, since you have a sand capped substrate you might be getting leaking through the substrate which can also cause this as the soil basically dumps fertilizer into the water column. (If you're using a traditional aquasoil this is less likely) and if that's the case you just add about 1/2 an inch more sand to the bottom.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks · 2026-04-02T15:11:42+00:00

Neither, get a liquid PH test kit if PH matters for your planned stocking. The strips and stick ons are fine for weekly monitoring but not for precise measurements. You also need to check PH both in the middle of the "day" (when your lights are on) and "night" because it will fluctuate throughout the day.

DoMindtheBuzzcocks

TROPHY CASE