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Who (or what) is eating my plants?

I've had a 10-gallon tnak set up for over a year, housing 1 dwarf gourami, 1 honey gourami, 3 neon tetras, 2 guppies and 1 otocinclus. They've all gotten along very well, the tank has been stable with the current group for a good six months and then I decided to add some live plants... I have about seven aponogetons from pre-packaged bulbs, two lilies from another package, some java moss, and one banana plant. The banana plant was always iffy, i kept it in isolation in an old betta bowl (no betta of course) for two weeks to check for snails, and it kind of died off but started growing again before i put it into the big tank. Not a week later, I noticed munch marks in the topmost leaf, which until that morning had been whole. It looked like just the green had been scraped off, leaving a transparent membrane. None of the other plants (which had been in longer) were bothered. For some reason that one leaf keeps slowly disappearing in the same way: the green will go, then a few days later the membrane will be gone too. If it was isolated to the one plant, I wouldn't really care... chalk it up to the banana plant being from Petco of all places... but this morning I noticed one of the leaves of my precious lilies has the same marks taken from it. I've seen ONE snail, and that was two days after I got the banana plant and it was in isolation in the betta bowl (I then took out the snail and squished it). Nothing at all since. I would assume if it was snails, i would see one... snails are kinda slow, and not quick to move away when i look in on them. Could it be the otocinclus? I didn't think they ate plants... although I have noticed that most of the damage occurs immediately after the algae chip disappears. He can't be starving though... a chip goes in every day, and he gets the bulk of it.

any ideas?
(thanx in advance for any help
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Otocinclus cats are good algae eaters but I don't know about the plant damage. I DO think you have it correctly narrowed down to either the otocinclus or the snail(s).
 
What kind of lighting do you have on the tank?
Do you add ferts to the water?
 
I have that very same problem... no snails or catfish though!
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It's actually just the leaves rotting (i think) But i never could get it to stop once it started
 
elgecko- I add a half-dose of Tetra FloraPride every now and again (maybe every third water change) because i'm a tad nervous about algae blooms with so few plants, and the lighting is one Hagen Aqua-Glo bulb.

Spectabilis- leaves rotting!!
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that could be bad. Would that spread to other plants or is it just an entire-tank problem? the banana plant isn't a big deal to replace (they're what, $1.50 at the very most?) but i do like the lilies.
 
Okay, so it's 3 months later and you are probably studying for an exam, and I was looking for the topic about glowing zebra danios, but snails are also prolific breeders and though you may not see any, it is more than possible that they are still propogating. It's like they say about mice... if you see one...
 
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