New to aquarium forums

[Spider8ait1994]

Hi all.
I’m Spider and as is obvious with my post here I’m new to aquarium advice (and aquarium forums in general).
I keep freshwater fish and have 3 different tank setups.
Previously I’ve kept bettas but lately I’ve had more of an interest in community tanks.
As for my tanks I have a 9 Litre tank that I use exclusively for raising fry when I have any until they’re old enough to either join one of my bigger tanks or sell.
My second tank is a 29 Litre tank that I keep Swordtails in alongside some Darwin Algae Eater Shrimp and Cherry Shrimp. The Swordtails are primarily what I breed.
Finally I recently got a 130 Litre tank that I keep a variety of fish in (4 Cardinal tetras and 1 neon tetra, 8 rummy nose tetras, 2 Pearl Gourami, 1 coral blue dwarf Goirami, 1 flame dwarf Gourami, 2 angelfish, 2 spotted silver dollars, 3 corydoras, 2 Siamese Algae Eaters and 2 Bristlenose Plecos)
I’m still gradually setting this one up to try and mimic the natural habitat of these species (ie jungle river type look)

[Aiken Drum]

Welcome to the community. Looking forward to seeing and hearing about what you are getting up to.

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

You need some floating plants like Water Sprite for the tetra and angelfish tank. It's a bit bright for them and they normally come from black water. Floating plants will reduce the light and encourage the fish out more.

You should also have a coverglass on that tank because the flying foxes sometimes jump.

[Spider8ait1994]

Yeah I do have a glass cover on the large tank and have used a stiff wire mesh to cover the excess gap from the pre-cut section for the stock filter unit the setup came with (which I swapped out for the canister filter).
As for the floating plants I do have some currently on the way. I’ve had to order those in because my local stores don’t have much in the way of aquatic plant stock and what they do have tends to be half disintegrating.
Currently in that tank I have hair grass, blue stricta, variegated lime rush, Rotala bloodii and alternanthera (think I spelled that right).
On the way via post I have some duckweed I intend to corral into a good portion of the tank but leave the area around the filter and spray bar clear, some Java moss and Java fern, floating crystalwort, Anubias Nana and Anubias Isabelle.
I intent to cultivate the crystalwort and Java moss across the bottom of the tank and train it over some of the ornaments in there.
The bubble wall in there I’ve added a bleed valve into the airline so I can control the intensity too.

[Colin_T]

Rushes are normally marsh plants and rot when kept underwater.

re: The blue stricta, any idea if it's a Hygrophilla species or a cardamine species?
Hygrophillas do well in aquariums but cardamine is a garden plant.

Alternantheras are usually marsh plants and regularly shed their leaves when grown underwater. If the tank isn't too tall, they can grow out of the water and do well, but most fail when kept completely underwater.

Hair grass tends to struggle underwater too. It does best in marshy habitats with wet roots and dry leaves.