u/DetectiveNo2855

I got the female apisto Trifasciatas about 2 months ago. They were so young that it was hard to make out their gender so I picked what I thought was the healtiest looking male (shows how much I know

So fast forward to today and I went back to the LFS to get the male. They are the same batch from the same store but my female has grown quite a bit bigger in my tank than her old tankmates from the store.

I have the male in an isolation tank and right away they seem to be hitting it off. There is flaring of fins and flicking of water. No aggression, no charging at each other.

I'm going to keep the male in the tank for a few more days to monitor but should I be worried about how much bigger the female is?

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My best guess is that this little guy is between 4-5 months old. My LFS got a group of them very young, they had them for about a month and a half before I bit the bullet and bought what appeared to be one of their healtiest looking males. I've had this guy for a little over a month. I'm pretty sure he's a he.

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I talk to the LFS once a week waiting to see if they spot a female before it pairs up. I don't think I went about this process in the best way. 😂

Running surprisingly well given that I didn't exactly plant according to what was prescribed. The riccia fluitans does a lot of heavy lifting. I also have red mangrove trees and some pothos growing out.

The stock is a betta, 6 cardinal tetras, 3 otos, 4 java loaches (black kuhlis) and shrimp.

All four of my tanks are Walstad. I've used different soils. I've used sand of varying coarseness to cap the soil. My tanks are different styles with different fish and light requirements and range from new to mature. But one thing I struggle with across all my tanks is less aggressive growing stem plants always melt from the root up and fail to establish. Plants like certain ludwigia, hygrophila pinatiffida, some rotala. Once established, these plants do well but I had a low success rate.

My theory was that maybe the soil is giving off too MUCH nutrients, or the light wasn't reaching the lower leaves but none of those really seem to pan out when experimenting with different soils and light intensity.

Last month I was flying down a bunch of epiphytes and knocked out a bunch of stem plants that were being anchored down to the ground by the remaing threads of a melted stem. I got lazy and frustrated and just glued the stems sideways onto small pebbles and dropped them back in. I bury my pearlweed sideways to propagate so I knew this wouldnt be an issue for these other plants. Surprisingly these plants thrived. It grew roots from its nodes and started finding its own way into the substrate!

So the big questions is why do you think they were melting in the first place and how is it that they are doing well now.

I'm patiently waiting for the plants to grow and cover up the heater but in the meantime I'm having a good time with my back light.

Total beginner here. Ive always been comfortable around tools and I guess I'm handy but I'm putting a little more energy and time into learning woodworking nowadays. I'm trying to organize my garage and wanted to make a pegboard with some scrap plywood. I made a jig out of scrap moulding, a 1/4" dowel and scrap 2x6.

I'm sure this has been done and probably better but I'm pretty proud of my scrappy design.

I have them attached to egg crate but they are slowly melting. It's been about 3 months and I see just some strands struggling. Is it because the plastic is too smooth for it to spread over? Should I add a window screen type material?

I have had water lettuce in my tank from the start and was always told having a lid on would cause condensation that would lead to leaf rot.

Last month, I saw someone post a picture of a single water lettuce in their tank that one would normally find in nature or in a pond setup. I asked more about it and one thing he mentioned was that he had a lid on it.

My water lettuce are doing great but always stay small but I've been a bit tired of topping this tank off because of evaporation so I figured I would throw a lid on. In the past month a couple of the have really taken to this and I'm starting to get some bigger individual plants with zero leaf rot and crazy spread.

Moral of the story for me is to do the research, be guided best practice but to also experiment for myself.