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I just received them yesterday and they’re all setup. All of the connections are metal and it feels sturdy. I stood on both yesterday and it felt really sturdy.

Ah - the quarantine tank maneuver. "I can't risk infesting my tank, but this could take some time" Then proceed to make it look really pretty and be very happy with the way it looks "What a shame that it has to go down once the fish are safe"

My understanding is that a Beta is actually much happier in a 120 gallon tank as opposed to a 5 gallon. Just let your wife know that you want to make the Beta as happy as possible...

I agree with @AllFishNoBrakes on the tetra 150. I switched to using these from the already pretty quiet battery backup ones just because I had to many running. I run 5 of them and they are even quieter than those. I run 8 lines powering 4 tanks each very easily.

Thanks for the tag Gup!♥ I personally would not keep mystery snails with any other big snails if the one you have is a male. God, these guys literally try to mate with any snail and bother them too hard. I saw mine bullying rabbit snails and viviparus. If your mystery snail is a female, then other big snails are okay to have. Rabbit snails like it warmer, so it may shorten the lifespan of mystery snails a bit. And mystery snails are big and fast, and has a really good sense of finding food, so may outcompete other slower species, like rabbit snails. The speed difference on moving and eating between a rabbit and mystery is huge. I think the best buddy to a mystery snail is another mystery snail. Good thing is, mystery snails come with so many colors and their population is super easy to control, just like Gup mentioned. I usually feed their clutch back to the tank and they eat it for nutrition

Snails are so awesome. I would get Leroy a friend or two. They lay eggs on the glass above the water so population is easily controlled. As far as Nerite type. Choose the ones you like the color of. Some very fun snails that you can see have babies without getting overrun with babies are livebearing snails. There are rabbit snails @Lennie . Japanese trap door snails. You can click on the links in my signature to see more on Taia naticoides Piano snails Filopaludina martensi White Wizard snails My recommendation if you are stocking the tank with other snails avoid the ones that are labeled “pest” bladder, pond, ramshorn or Malaysian trumpet. Snails need to be offered their own food not just algae and whatever the fish miss. Blanched vegetables, algae wafers, calcium foods to keep the shell healthy. When you are Feeding Leroy and whatever others you decide on that food will get gobbled faster by the “pests” than your pet and the “pest” will over populate. I love all snails including “pest” snails. I’ve run enough snail tanks to know the outcome though.

Thanks for your help. I'll keep you updated.

It could just be adjusting. I bought quite a few Java fern recently and they were emersed grown, so they take a little while to settle in, convert and get growing.

I agree with everyone that it will be just fine. The one thing I would worry about is water being trapped in the void. Depending on the finish of your stand that may or may not be a concern.

My absolute favorite is hornwort which is usually available at big box chain stores, you can float it or plant it (altho it wont grow roots). Its also a nutrient hog and great indicator plant for being under fed. Its usually the first plant to show signs of nutrient deficiency.

It kinda depends on your hardscape as well. If you have a lot of brown driftwood, then maybe you don't want a similar color substrate. My driftwood actually has some black streaks in it, as do my rocks - so I went with black sand. It highlights the hardscape and makes the green plants really pop. My cory cats also have some black in their coloring (mostly pandas) and the black substrate really makes their black "more black" - if that makes sense. I added some small, smooth, black "scatter rocks" around, and it really ties the room together.

Frogbit is more tollerant than most floaters and doesn't usually need a 'settling in' period. I would suspect its cannibalizing itself in an effort to find more food. Id up my fertilizing routine a bit and see if things improve Edit; also if you have 20ppm nitrites and no nitrates there is a problem with your tank being "cycled"

Thank you so much for the quick response! I will give the salt treatment a try 🤞

Second for the twin wall polycarbonate (greenhouse) sheets. They come in 2'x4' sections and can be customized however you want to cut them. I cut them to rough size using a circular saw and then used a utility knife to cut slots for cords and filters.

If your only purpose is to keep the fish in, than light diffusers 'egg crate' used in ceiling fixtures are easy to cut for <$20. You can add water and feed the critters without removing the lid. Don't buy the shiny chrome version.

I have a hygger 10 watt adjustable air pump that would work it can run six sponge filter not loud

I have started following the adventures of 2 shrimplets that hitched a ride on plant clippings into my 1.8gallon tank, its fun to watch them just do their shrimp thing, and its easy to observe in a small tank. Speaking of Shrimp, the ones in the family shrimp tank have been thriving, there are probably too many at this point, over the weekend i might catch them all out and sort them, leaving the best reds in the tank and taking the culls for myself or for friends A few weeks ago i got some water wisteria from my friend and decided to float it. It has started growing rather well and one of the stems is putting out a bunch of roots.

As for the microfauna as your tank matures the microfauna appear. The my come in on plants, eggs come on food. I always start with adding ostracods seed shrimp. Then along come copepods and daphnia. The detritus worms will find their way in after that. I am the oddball I enjoy several types of hydra. They are fascinating predators that hunt the microfauna. It is an entire micro universe in our tanks. If you have access to a microscope it does not need to be high powered, scoop up a drop of the debris in the substrate. It a soap opera going on down there.

It probably is just fine. But more than likely, You could take the tank off and pull the sides evenly and get your extra 1/4 inch. Especially if it’s come up to room temperature. But it should be fine anyway

What probably happened was the fish died as a result of an ammonia or nitire spike fish decompose really quickly in warm water if they had other fish or snails in the tank they would have started to eat the other fish and the body would start to fall apart if it was an advanced stage of decomposition

Bladder snails will breed, whether you want them to or not. You can't control it directly, because they are hermaphrodites and can self-fertilize. You can indirectly control their population with the amount of feeding: more food means more snails. (In fact, I use their population level as a sort of barometer on how much I'm feeding.) There are also rabbit snails, pond snails, piano snails, spixii snails, and assassin snails, and probably more that I'm forgetting. Assassin snails eat other species of snail, by the way, so you'll likely want to avoid those. There are also Japanese trapdoor snails; I don't know much about them. And Malaysian trumpet snails, which look cool but spend most of their time burrowed into the substrate, which can be useful but sort invisible. Nerites and mystery snails are the easiest to control in terms of breeding. I think rabbit snails eat plants, but that's half-remembered; don't take my word for it. You might also like scuds and seed shrimp, rhabdocoela and hydra. I'm still learning about a lot of these micro critters myself, but I've heard Carolina Biologics is a trusted source, as well as fellow hobbyists. And a lot of them will just sort of show up on plants if you don’t take steps to prevent that. Bear in mind that lots of fish eat most of these small creatures, so if they share a tank with fish, you might not see much of them. I'd classify shrimp differently than those other small animals, but if you like little creatures, you might like shrimp, too, like Amano shrimp or cherry shrimp.

Whatever it is, it’s most likely a schooling fish. You’ll need to get a group, and for that you will just need another tank. lol 😂

Great question and one that is full-on opinion based. This is purely about what you want the fish to look like and each fish responds differently to their environment. So, I like the black background and a lighter colored substrate. The lighter substrate brightens the tank as the light reflects off it more. It also brightens up guppies, imho. I first had dark substrate and for the longest time was worried my guppies were sick. Seriously, where I thought they'd be silvery on their bodies, they were instead dark and dingy. Again, to me that's how it felt. I've heard it said that a darker substrate makes them color up more, and I guess it does, it also makes them darken up more.

pogostemon stellatus octopus is really good and fast growing. good for fry to hide in.

Agreed that a linear piston pump is way overkill for your current set up. I really like the Tetra Whisper 150. I too have a Tetra 60, and in my opinion and to my ear, the 150 is much quieter. Also, setting your pump on a folded up rag can really dampen the noise. I do that with all my air pumps. Either way, the 150 is much quieter than the 60 to my ear. They also work super well for the Easy Flow kits. I agree with you that the ACO pump doesn’t output the amount of air I’m looking for. But the 150 does. I’ve done a single 150 for up to 4 lines with a 4 way metal gang valve and it worked well. However, I knew from the ones I had running just 2 lines, that was really the amount of air that I was looking for. I now have: -(1) Tetra 150 that runs 2 Easy Flow kits. Both sponges in a 55 gallon -(1) Tetra 150 that runs 1 Easy Flow kit, and a second small sponge filter with the air collar. Easy flow in a 29 gallon, and small sponge filter in a 10 gallon next to the 29 -(1) Tetra 150 that runs 2 Easy Flow Kits. 55 gallon tank up top, and a 29 gallon tank on the same shelf as the pump. Going up probably 4’ or so, and then down to the sponge on the 55 -(1) Tetra 150 that runs 3 small sponge filters with a 4 way metal gang valve. It used to run 4 small sponge filters with that air pump, but I put my girlfriends shrimp tank on a single outlet ACO pump that I had in storage and shut one of the valves on the gang valve to pump more air to the other 3 sponges with the air collars -(1) Tetra 60 that runs 1 Easy Flow kit and a second small sponge filter with the air collar. Easy flow in a 20 high on the top shelf, and small sponge filter in a 20 long. Just like the 55 mentioned above, the line that runs up is about 4’ up to the tank rim, and then back down to the bottom of the 20 high tank I can’t recommend the 150 enough. I love it. Some of those lines I mentioned above run about 6’ total from the pump and I still have great flow. Maybe one day I’ll have a fish room where everything is in the same place and a linear piston pump makes sense. For now, my tanks are spread around the house and I use a bunch of the 150’s. If you’re really trying to get wild, they do make a Tetra Whisper 300 (dual outlet). If it’s truly like having (2) 150’s, with basically a 150 to each outlet, you could put a 4 way gang valve on each outlet and have up to 8 lines with enough flow to get it all done. That being said, I would get tired of constantly balancing the valves and sponge filters every time you add or delete accessories and lines like the brine shrimp hatchery or your diy moving bed filter you’re playing with.

you know when they say that, it sounds like a direct invitation for a 75g 🤣

I'm just assuming furcata are similar. I've got one male who is probably close to two years old and he's (seemingly) huge, got shipped him on accident from AquaHuna with my CPDs and he's been with them the whole time until after the new ones QT'd and grew out a bit so he didn't body them to death. I probably need to pick out 3-4 females to go with my two males. The fry are so stinking small though, so it's another one of those conundrums. 😄 They do seem to hatch OK in my regular tap water, so that's a plus.

I like black substrate and black backgrounds. Using a Moss wall can add dept and make certain color really shine. My tank is in transition so you can get a feel for both. I have a black substrate, a moss wall on the right and a Trip wall started on the back with areas of black showing still. Hope this can help you decide.

Thanks! Yep, I'm thinking valisernia and maybe an aquarium lilly

Well, worst case scenario, having extra spare parts on hand is not a bad thing.

Got to add turbo snails. Military helmet snail. And white wizard snails 🤣

The only snail I can think of that hasn’t already been mentioned are Ramshorn snails.

They’d love it, some plecos even have driftwood as part of their natural diet!

I have 1m-3 f. I originally got 14 very young. All were girls so I swapped 5 f for 3 m with a friend. My gertrudae do good 2f-1 m

If you provide some caves that will help lower aggression the male probably wants to breed with the female that the nipping behaviour your seeing

I am trying to wrap my mind around how a fish would burst? Did the person see the fish burst or find them that way hours later? @Colu is our resident fish doctor maybe he knows of something that would create such a reaction.

@Whitecloud09yes @Bsquaredyeah I bought two and there’s a bigger one (probably male) that was nipping at this one, I might have to return that one 😞

Probably either Splatoon 3 or Pikmin 4, some of the best modern Nintendo games!

If they are standard penn plax type ugf, adapting is very easy.

Update: We got 8 more Corey catfish and 5 more tetras. We lost three tetras in the first three days. I did not think of counting them. Whoops! I just hope we can keep most all of them alive. I will post a picture tomorrow after I can turn on the light and they are more acclimated!

No need to worry, the white fungus that is developing is totally normal for new driftwood. Typically it will go away on its own as the wood becomes saturated but I have seen snails, shrimp and fish all pick at it. It will be gone in no time

Got some better pictures of the guppies/endlers at the school tank, unfortunately lighting was not the greatest. Anyone have anyone idea if these are guppies or endlers or something in between? I'm not sure which one. Also got my ACO order. I got a murphy hat! My old baseball hat was falling apart. Now i have the perfect way to find fellow Nerms at the LFS. I will say that out of the box the quality of the hat is definitely on-par with what i would expect from ACO. It is nice and comfortable to wear as well.

I agree that it's totally subjective. Other than just trying both, which isn't really practical if you're not running multiple tanks, I'd say to look at lots of tanks online and at your LFS, and see which ones just look better to you, and go from there.

Depends on the fish and your opinion.

So that I can move things around and not overflow the tank Also thank you for the compliment, I appreciate it.

Copepods have a reflex that makes them 'jump' to avoid predators. Usually that's the guys you see swimming like they're drunk. They'll have a twin tail of their egg sacks once they get a little bigger. Here's one from my tank:

Water test. No changes. Lots of good growth. Very noticeable pictures by the weekend.

The problem with a comprehensive guide to identifying micro organisms in your tank is that this forum has members spanning the globe. As does the hobby. Not only that but even though many of our members are NA, fish plants and substrates come from all over. And if that wasn’t complicated enough there are hundreds of species of flying insects especially in the warm months that sneak into our homes climb into our tanks and lay eggs… When I or someone else identifies a microfauna we can only guess at the genus or even group of critters it might belong to. Blood worms for example refer to something like 100+ different species of midges! And even more midge larvae aren’t red 😬 Anyway I hope you enjoyed my TED talk and delightfully unhelpful answer haha

@Rube_Goldfish at the beginning of this video behind the two new hatch melini Cory fry to the right are some of my seed shrimp. You can’t see them up close but you can see their movements. If you blow the video up full screen you can see the fairly well

This guy has a pretty good video where he breaks down most of the things you'll see in an aquarium: