Trim brownish plants?

[evil Nick]

We just set up our tank and I def wanted to opt to live plants which we did.

They looks amazing.

We did notice right from the store on plant had some brown leaves which we clipped off but one other plant is more of a thick grassy look (sorry I dont know the names yet) and one strand is quite brown and a bit chewed looking. Doesnt bother me to much actually but out of curiosity is it better to trim the decayed and brown looking parts of the plants or leave them and let nature take its course? usually with regular above ground plants we would trim the dying parts to not steal nutrients from the healthy parts but were not really green thumbed.

They are all low light

One moss ball
One bannana plant
some fern style plants which seem to be great and even some of the clippings seem to be doing well
and the grass looking blade leafed plant.

Is liquid fertilizer safe to add during a cycling period

Thanks

 

[FishCr8zy]

That "blade looking plant" (I am guessing its the one in the back left corner?) looks like jungle val. Jungle val's leaves usually have a brown tint. Trimming brown leaves is usually up to the owner. How long have you been cycling?

 

[evil Nick]

That "blade looking plant" (I am guessing its the one in the back left corner?) looks like jungle val. Jungle val's leaves usually have a brown tint. Trimming brown leaves is usually up to the owner. How long have you been cycling?

god REALLY only like 5 days (I KNOW IM SORRY).
We did a start with chemical additives and just ran the gravel and water for like a day with it and tested. We then got the plants and decor we wanted. Then got the fish (and more plants).
I wanted to do a live cycle with ONLY shrimp and snails since we are going on vaca this week for 5 days and I figured after that I would test and if everything held up then go for it.
The other half got ansy though and wanted a couple fish and since we used the additive and our kit (if using it right) said the water was safe, the rep we were talking to (really knowledgeable guy) said it should be safe. We stuck with the easiest hardiest fish,
dalmation molly
zebra dyno
2 platy (one died right from the store though)

The creatures seem to be doing great.

My concern is I KNOW these blades are crapping out (also from the store) because the snails love climbing up there and nibbling. From my reading they forage for the more decaying and dying plant matter.

I could actually just snip it and leave it at the bottom during the cycle to I guess.
We did like this plant because even though 2 blades were really browned it had a ton of sprouts at its base and we were even able to split it fine.

were finishing a bacteria bloom from the cycle so everything seems to be luckily going well and Im just worried of upsetting anything by either leaving a dying leaf in there or removing it.

thanks

 

[FishCr8zy]

What kind of snails do you have? If you have pond snails I would get rid of them ASAP. What are you parameters of the water? Have they been stable? A dying leaf will not affect the parameters or the cycle of the water. Having an entire layer of dead laves would but just a couple here and there are ok. Though you should still take them out if they fall. If the leaf is really brown with no green left in it, then, yes, I would go ahead and trim it and throw it out.

 

[evil Nick]

What kind of snails do you have? If you have pond snails I would get rid of them ASAP. What are you parameters of the water? Have they been stable? A dying leaf will not affect the parameters or the cycle of the water. Having an entire layer of dead laves would but just a couple here and there are ok. Though you should still take them out if they fall. If the leaf is really brown with no green left in it, then, yes, I would go ahead and trim it and throw it out.

Just checked receipt and its red Jungle val
I'll wait on the trimming for now.
The snails were ivory but the receipt says mixed. Looking it up on google apple snails come up.
If they get out of control I'll throw some assassin snails in there. I'm also possibly looking at a pea puffer so I'll let him take a few out.

Hopefully I have enough light for it even though its supposed to be low light.

 

[FishCr8zy]

Oh mystery snails. They are ok. They do not spread rapidly and if they lay eggs it will be out of the water for easy removal.


Sent with my fingers

 

[evil Nick]

Oh mystery snails. They are ok. They do not spread rapidly and if they lay eggs it will be out of the water for easy removal.


Sent with my fingers

Thanks you got me scared lol. One of them from the store dropped some babies as soon as we put it in the tank. I can see them under the Gravel so when they grow big enough Ill prob return them to the store so we dont have 30 snails but they are pretty fun to watch honestly and man do they vaccum the bottom and plant leaves.
ONE snail seems to be munching on some of the plants regardless of decay or health though.
I think I may have to drop some peas, zuch or lettuce in there before we go away just to make sure all my plants are there on when we return
Maybe Ill trim off the dying leaves and let them drop so the snails will munch them while were gone as well.

 

[Coursair]

FYI it looks like you have a clump of Cambomba plants in the corner near the Val. With stem plants like that, you want to separate them out so light gets all the way to the bottom. You want to plant them so that the leaves just touch the leaves of the plant next to them. Also if they're too tall for the space it's fine to trim a bit off the top if needed.


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[evil Nick]

We have a banana plant
wisteria hygrophilia difformis
The val
The moss ball
And
Hornwort.
Are any of these the Cambodia plant?

Any tips for these?
Thanks

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[Coursair]

This advice is the same for any stem plants. I was referring to the clump in the left by the Val. I may have mistaken Hornwort for Cambomba.

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[evil Nick]

This advice is the same for any stem plants. I was referring to the clump in the left by the Val. I may have mistaken Hornwort for Cambomba.

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thanks Ill have to try and do it when the other half is out. She is the one who clumped them because she wanted to hide the heater. She is a wire nut and gets on my case when she sees wires and mechanics everywhere. I personally couldnt care.

 

[Coursair]

Once you separate them out, you can keep trimming and replanting to hide it.

Find out if your heater is safe to lay on its side , then you can lay it along the back and hide it even easier.

I have backgrounds on my tanks usually black, that hide any cords outside the tanks.

I also dislike seeing cords and things so I do understand, but if you don't separate them out so they get light , they're just going to die , and that won't hide anything.

Once things grow in, you can grow a jungle. You'd never find things in my tank.

http://youtu.be/aptmdICahvM


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[evil Nick]

thanks.
I ordered some liquid fert to start adding to the tank. I just need to finalize my lighting situation.
I would love to see these things grow nuts

 

[trennamw]

Id be a little concerned about the fish since you're leaving on vacation ... Fishless cycle usually requires huge water changes during a week.

What do you mean by the fish guy said the water is fine?

The bottled bacteria doesn't necessarily help. Your tank isn't ready till there's a big bacteria colony in your filter media. Unless your water has zero ammonia and nitrite, it isn't cycled yet and will likely need water changes while you're on vacation.


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[evil Nick]

Id be a little concerned about the fish since you're leaving on vacation ... Fishless cycle usually requires huge water changes during a week.

What do you mean by the fish guy said the water is fine?

The bottled bacteria doesn't necessarily help. Your tank isn't ready till there's a big bacteria colony in your filter media. Unless your water has zero ammonia and nitrite, it isn't cycled yet and will likely need water changes while you're on vacation.


Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.

Ive been doing PWCs every few days, watching levels every 2 (tho I couldnt yesterday so Im checking today at lunch)

Ive started finally getting Nitrites so I guess thats good. I wont be able to change the water for a week, I mean thats just that unfortunately. We cant let up on this vaca so I will just hope for the best honestly. I have the light on a timer and after talking with folks on here they advised NOT to use our auto feeder we bought and let the couple fish just wait it out and eat algea, that is if they make it obviously (not to sound mean but again I did NOT want fish in that tank yet).

Also I thought in a fishless cycle you DIDNT change the water? I thought the Ammonia needed to be WAY SPIKED to jump start the nitrites?

One question I have tho back on the subject is I bought a good light. Loving it to, and have a versatop lid.
My plants are doing 200% better already.

MY vals are looking lively and sprouting shoots, my banana plant already pushed a new leaf out and my wisteria is reaching up again. My hornwort will take time since I needed to literally trim HALF of it. She is not happy seeing the heater again lol, but I told her we'll get more val, more wisteria or some fern to cover that . The hornwaort was DESTROYING my filter where it was as well.

Anyway my wisteria though much better has some leaves at the base that were just to far gone I think. They are curled under, not quite brown but much darker than the now BRIGHT green upper leaves, and just looking lifeless. I would pluck them but since they are not "dead" I thought maybe they could be saved eventually. If not I dont want them to kill the rest of the plant. If they must be removed is there a way to do so that would let the leaf grown back so I dont have an entire bare lower stump? If not perhaps Ill move this wisteria in front of the heater to hide it, and float the hornwort where the wisteria is.
Also the wisteria has a brown trunk almost like a tree. The leaves look green and healthy but the lower half of the stem is very dark. Im not sure if thats how we got it but is this normal for this plant?

Perhaps moving the location would be the best anyway since the driftwood would hide the entire lower half of the plant.

thanks

 

[Aliray]

When I did the fish in cycle in my 10 gal I used TSS and 6 neon tetras and only topped the water as it evaporated for 2 weeks and at the end of the 2 weeks it was cycled. Look up fish in cycle using TSS. I just fed them and did twice daily headcounts. The fish were fine. Alison

 

[trennamw]

Yep fishless cycle you use bottled ammonia, and you don't change the water, because there's nothing to hurt with the ammonia levels.

Fish In cycles, you use fish to make enough ammonia to feed bacteria, but you change water a lot to keep the ammonia low enough to do less harm.

At the very least, maybe do two 50% water changes the 2 days before you go, and gradually (a degree or two each day) take down the temp. Ammonia is less toxic at lower pH and temp. Floating plants may help too, I forget if they remove ammonia as well as nitrate.

However, ammonia burns fish. It's painful.

Since you didn't want fish yet, maybe put them on craigslist? Or ask someone at your pet store about taking them off your hands?

It may be fine, but it may hurt them.


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[evil Nick]

Yep fishless cycle you use bottled ammonia, and you don't change the water, because there's nothing to hurt with the ammonia levels.

Fish In cycles, you use fish to make enough ammonia to feed bacteria, but you change water a lot to keep the ammonia low enough to do less harm.

At the very least, maybe do two 50% water changes the 2 days before you go, and gradually (a degree or two each day) take down the temp. Ammonia is less toxic at lower pH and temp. Floating plants may help too, I forget if they remove ammonia as well as nitrate.

However, ammonia burns fish. It's painful.

Since you didn't want fish yet, maybe put them on craigslist? Or ask someone at your pet store about taking them off your hands?

It may be fine, but it may hurt them.


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Did water changes and kept up with checking levels. Ammonia is at zero and nitrites have started. My guess is at this rate nitrated should be there when I get home.
I honestly think the light for the plants may have helped but the timing is there.
Thanks

Also
I didn't want the fish but was using a safe start solution all along as well. Not safe start but and there brand

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