PHOTOBOMB
Update: still growing a bunch of hair algae. Had to take out some infested plants...so things are looking sparse. Gonna try some H2O2 spray over the weekend. Been doing 1-2x WC 75% and trying my best to scrub the plants. ALso noticed my del has a black rim on her tail. Any ideas what this is from?
Have been catching some good poly photos. Here’s pretty much all of January. Been catching a lot of 2 mokes action and the del being out of the sand.
Firstly, tank looking fire hot. Polys lookin happy from poly-mommas care. Job well done.
As for the black on the tail edge. It's part of the healing process, or growth from others biting and grabbing. No need to worry.... It's not the beginning stages of lepracy. Eel as for the plants. Call 911. Have no clue ;--) The polys are healthy at least. :---)
That darkening on the tail is normal, all 3 of mine have the same thing. It's almost like if they were longer it'd be another stripe.
As for algae it's going to happen. It's pretty much a fact of life with plants unless you want to start adding ferts and other chemicals or running Co2. The trick is to find fast growing plants that will suck up the nutrients before the algae gets a chance. I've had luck with H2O2 in the removing of algae but it still comes back. I've used excel in the past and other chemicals when I had my apisto/tetra tank I had alot of plants and fish it and a couple other ferts really kept the algae down along with about 10 otos. Then I started to dose Co2 and it went really well. I've heard that excel and some of those other chemicals polys don't do well with. I have no idea on the validity of that though. I don't use it because of that and I don't want to mess with dosing anymore. More plants! A little scrubbing or spritzing during w/c and I'm good. Since we need more robust plants they tend to be slower growing get more to compete better. I'm slowly going jungle the more I add the less I scrub. It's a balancing act.