Are my fish eating my anubias?

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jlbfish

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Joined
Feb 21, 2012
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The culprits may be flame tetras, red eye tetras or cories. Seems odd. Can't tell if it is being nibbled or slowly dying. Looks like nibbles to me.

Thanks!
 

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Odd, most fish don't mess with anubia's. Cory's aren't doing it, they don't eat plants. Both of those tetra's will eat plants. What other fish do you have in there and do you have any snails? Are any of the other plants being nibbled on? My angels like to nibble on dwarf baby tears and rotala wallichii.
 
Forgot to mention that I feed my fish (angels, tetras, and others) veggies at least 2x a week to try to add plant foods into their diet. I've found this really helps on plant nibbling.
 
It's only cories, flame tetras and red eye tetras. No snails. Soon I will be adding some Rainbows. What kinds of veggies do you give them? The only other plant I have is a Java Fern and it doesn't look like it was munched on.

I cut back on feeding because of the brown algae in the tank. I can up it. I don't give veggies now but they get a mixture of brine shrimp, blood worms, flake food and pellets. I'd be happy to get a veggie clip or throw one in.

Thanks
Jana
 
I have found peas are my guys favorite. I take a few frozen peas, put them in a cup with hot water and microwave them to soften them up. Drain the water and deshell the peas (sometimes they just squeeze out and othe times you have to poke a hole to get them to squeeze out), then I smush them up so there aren't any big chuncks left and slowly add a couple at a time. Do this at their normal feeding time, and only do a couple at a time until you know they are eating them. My fish will go to the bottom to forage for any that go down but don't know if your fish do that. That is why I said only add a couple at a time. All my fish including my tetra's love them. You can also add a veggie tablet 1-2 times a week also. I put soften zucchini thin strips on veggie clips in the tank about once a week too. But the need to be softened in the microwave first (mine won't eat on them if they aren't softened).
 
I've seen my fish run over the anubias in my tank, but they are only after the algae.

Holes in aquatic plant leaves is a potassium deficiency. The tears on the edges may be similar or may have been caused by physical damage at some point like creasing.
 
Interesting. So recently in my C Hasbrosus die off we discovered my GH is 0. I added Equilibrium this week. Think that has anything to do with a lack of potassium? We have a water softener.
 
Wow you might have just hit why your little wild caught cory's aren't doing well. Your water softner actually exchanges magnesium and calcium ions for sodium ions! Cory's and sodium (aka salt) are a bad combo. Any way you can use bottled water or RO water? Potassium has nothing to do with GH. Fish waste and food add phosphates and nitrates to your tank but nothing adds potassium. Once your plants use potassium its gone from the system. Thus you need to add it. Do you have holes on the leaves? You would have actual holes, they start out as small, almost pin holes and enlarge. From those pic's all I see are snapped off edges and what appears to be bite marks on alot of the edges.
 
Yes the lady at the LFS figured my High KH combined with my low GH so we are putting in RODI combos to bring down the KH and adding Equilibrium to raise the GH. Maybe I should just stop having Neons and little corys! Once I find a nice combo it maybe worth it to have a nice tropical tank but honestly I have 3 corys left. Sigh.

So as to this big tank the cories in there are doing fantastic and I just added some Equilibrium to add minerals into the water.

I also add Flourish. I only dose for a 60 gallon tank because it is a 75 gallon with one small Java Fern and 1 small Anubias :)

I will try the peas once a week and see how things progress.

BTW when setting up a new tank that will be planted and have fish do you cycle first, plant then add fish?

Thanks :)
 
Just add as many plants as you can right from the start. If you add enough plants you could go through a silent cycle and you can add fish really soon. My tank did a silent cycle within 10 days but the plants weren't added until day 8 due to my filling and emptying the tank to rid tannins from the organic soil. I had fish in by day 10.
 
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