I bought a whole bunch of plants for my 55 gallons S. American Blue Acara and Jack Dempsie cichlid tank. I have sand substrate, so I wanted to put the plants in some pots/retaining wall along the perimeter of the tank. Well, I was being overly picky about how to do this, so I basically tossed all my plants in to float. Notice I didn't say I recently purchased a whole bunch of plants, because that would be a lie. Anyhow the plants have been floating merrily along for some time, or so I thought. Some even managed to bloom in an aquatic kind of way.
I finally decided to stop the insanity of finding a perfect potting solution, and just plant the poor things. So I fished out my mass of tangled plants and set about planting. While in the process of pinching off dead leaves, (and I am sure much to your surprise, there was more of this than I care to mention), I came across a nasty little pond buggy. It was dark grey and, except for color and its slightly larger size, looks remarkably like an aphid. It seems to be also behaving remarkably like an aphid, as it is sucking the life out of my plants. A few days ago, I casually noticed the tiny blooms on one of my plants seemed to have become little black seeds. "Interesting," I thought, "I didn't realize pond plants did that." Well today I discovered the long stem supporting the tiny flowers has turned a delightful shade of putrid death. Through my wonderous powers of deduction, I came to the epiphany that those seeds were actually an infestation of pond-bug-critters. (I already warned you that I was an idiot!)
Yes, I know I don't deserve to have plants, but the plants don't deserve to die either. So PLLLLLEASE help me help them. Should I soak them in something. I have rinsed them off and picked off all the buggy boogers I could find. Now what???!
To embarrassed to leave real name
