That looks soooooo COOL!!! It's going to be gorgeous once it adjusts and starts growing!
I'm still trying to figure out what GH and KH are, what they mean, and how you can determine them. My tap pH is 8.0, but my tank reads at 6.6. It went up slightly the last water change, but dropped back to 6.6 within 24 hours. But my water is very hard.
I do find some small snails, but nothing like I've heard can ("will") happen. I kinda suspect the BNs, my male is definitely an opportunistic omnivore, and I had a betta some years back that would eat baby ramshorns.
Well, thank you for your enthusiasm and praise!
GH is general hardness which is basically a measure of calcium and magnesium. When people talk about hardness, this is what they are talking about. You determine it by testing with a GH test, same with KH.
KH is carbonate hardness more often referred to as alkalinity. This is you buffering ability, something about water's ability to absorb acids. Basiclly you need some alkalinity to keep your pH stable, without enough KH your pH can be affected VERY easily giving you wild swings.
How do you know your water is hard if you don't know how to determine hardness?? Are you referring to your high pH when you say it is hard? A high pH means your water is alkaline or basic, not to be confused with alkalinity.
A big shift in pH like that indicates you have low KH for one thing but for another something is affecting the ph IN the tank. Do you have a lot of driftwood? Usually the culprit. Or a high CEC substrate? Do you use CO2? Do you gravel vac well?
That looks great!! (look, I can type again!!) You know if the wisteria is happy, you're either going to trim it a LOT (often) or move it from it's front & center spot. I like your list of lessons on moss, lol. & your crypts don't look nearly as bad as I thought they might, I'm sure they'll recover
& be fab.
I like ramshorns & MTS but am not a fan of pond snails...except as loach treats, but they often prefer ramshorns too. I think I lost an angel or 2 that liked to try & eat small mts...but they were stunted & not likely to live a normal lifespan (sigh). I've also seen several different species that liked to eat pond & ramshorn eggs masses, good fishies!
As for offering plants w/snails, meh, I belong to a plant club & expect there to be snails & maybe algae. I rinse them & give them a quick look but not anything to worry about. The fanatics can dip or whatever if they're worried about those issues.
Thanks! It feels really great to see the moss ON the wood! So glad that typing trouble is over!
I agree, I prefer rams and MTS over pond snails, I like MTS best cause they also serve the purpose of substrate aeration/disturbing. I usually dip with some potassium permanganate for parasites more than anything else, snails and algae are
ok but leeches and icky stuff like that is not cool! lol
