Aquatic plants

[newbieincalifornia]

So at first I bought the water hyacinth from a junky pet store (had no clue at the time) and they started turning yellow then black, NICE then I went to an extremely well spoken of store and bought a water lettuce (it was beautiful) more hyacinth (Small ones) and a few plants that stick out of the water and bloom (tall grass lookin one, and one that blooms...) now they are all starting to look a bit yellow... I put some of the small plants (weird lookin ones that float around with like one long root) in a separate bucket and one hyacinth that was almost dead and they are lookin better (I also put the gunk from my bio filter in there the plants seem to LOVE it!) now I have been treating for ich with the blue staining stuff. is that my problem? How often should I be doing a water change and cleaning out the bottom? (I do a quarter to a half water change ever couple days when I treat for the ich) should I just get in my tiny pond and make sure allll the gunk is out or is it ok to get the majority of the stuff? I have a nice layer of algae growing on my liner (I love it! I know sounds weird but my fish eat it and I enjoy watching the natural aspect of food that grows on it's own in there and the fish eating it) I bought a thing of blood worms how often should I give that to the fish? should I worry about the tadpoles? what are they eating? how do you make sure not to toss out the tad poles? I usually start a hose to siphon out the water but I worry about my fish or my tadpoles getting sucked up.

 

[DrDave]

It is just starting to get warm up enough for water hyacinth and water lettuce. Plants don't like chemicals either so you might have 2 things working against you.

 

[newbieincalifornia]

Well I think it was a bit of shock from the transplant (and I planted all my plants directly in gravel no soil that could be a problem) any ways I spent the entire weekend by my pond putting in a new patio and cleaning the pond out very well. I found that all my tadpoles.... GONE no bodys, no frogs just gone. I think my larger fish ate them... =( maybe I will try buying a larger size species of tadpoles. Any ways the plants all look better. The lillys are putting out new roots and leaves, the lettuce and hyacinth are putting out baby plants. I al trimming the baby plants away and putting them in my bucket system to grow and they seem to be loving it in the sunshine instead of the shade. I found a few (less than 5) snails. Should I worry about them? Will they eat my plants? other than that... I guess every thing is doing well!

 

[newbieincalifornia]

Oh and I had to catch my fish and they are all healthy looking except that my koi has a long weird... thing on top of his tail fin now and I don't know what it is. It looks like a part of his body (same brilliant white color as he is) I don't think it's part of his fin (fin looks in tact and healthy) I will have to find a way to get a picture online.

 

[DrDave]

If it is not part of him, then it is a parasite.

 

[newbieincalifornia]

I questioned my mother about it yesterday and she said it was a parasite YIKES!!! So I ushed down to the pet store bought some sea salt, the powder packets for treating and killing the parasite and food that will kill it from the inside out. Hopefully I caught it in time. What is this parasite called? Will it cause long term damage? It is long now as long as his tail fin!