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Just my humble opinion here. Most meds are dosed per 10g. Even a 40g breeder at half full is still 20g so you’d be using double the amount of meds to treat the tank. In the grand scheme of things, the fish are only in the quarantine tank for a very short time. If it were me, I’d keep the 10g as my quarantine and put the 40g to better use as permanent breeding setups or as just regular aquarium

With the fish all being that small, I would use the 10. If something does show up and you need to treat, no need to use twice as many meds.

But… do you really want it back? I mean… seems the fish made pretty good use of it 😂

Well, that technically changes with kids. Sometimes you desperately do

you put in a seeded sponge filter so you now have an established bacteria colony. that is all "cycling" an aquarium is, nothing more than establishing a bacteria colony. slowly add fish, and monitor the water quality as you slowly stock up the tank. dont make it more complicated than it needs to be.

I appreciate the info, at the moment my other tanks are pretty capped out, I could get another tank but trying to chase the 10 small cory across a 6 ft tank would be pretty difficult I'm thinking as long as they are doing okay no need to stir the pot. I'm sure I'll find another chance to get an acara in the future, I wanted to jump on the opportunity because frankly my local options are terrible, but not worth rushing into.

I do as well. I think the employee was correct to warn you that 12 might overload your system in her opinion but should have sold you what you wanted. Its one thing for her to say I won't sell you an Oscar for your 10 gallon but saying she won't sell pygmy cories is a bit ridiculous imo. Silver lining here is that you know that employee cares about the fish more than the sale. Even though she was maybe a bit rude, I'd feel comfortable buying her fish because they will probably be healthy.

I really like this crypt nurii "luminous green", so I wanted to feature it more. It's less brown then the crypt jacobsenii, which I thought was maybe clashing with all the other reds. I also had to replant the lobelia cardinalis street, which is just something that has to be done every once in a while. It doesn't take long to recover. Finally, I got some myriophyllum Guyana to act as a taller midground plant. All the midground was a similar height so I want to break it up a little

Personally, I’m trying to get rid of duckweed since it’s a nuisance when trying to net out fish, move plants around, clean the tank, etc. Aquarist glitter as they say since it sticks to everything, shows up where you least expect it, etc. It has its good points just like any other aquarium plant, but I like plants that are easier to control instead. Frogbit, red root floaters, etc. As far as why you’re having issues, we would have to see your water parameters to give you a better idea of why it isn’t prospering as any parameters too far in any direction could cause it to not do well. Are you testing your water? Do you use test strips or drop tests like the API Master Test Kit? Can you tell us your typical results please? And if you have a series of them, make a chart of list for us if you can. Ammonia: X, Y, Z . . . Nitrite: Nitrate: GH: KH: Temperature: Plus your tank size (is that a 5 or a 10 gallon?), type of filter (or rather what your HOB is packed with - carbon cartridge, sponge, Biorings, other. How often you add your fertilizer? Do you check your nitrate level afterwards to see if you’re getting to the level you need / want? I can’t find the nutrient analysis info on your fertilizer. I do have this handy chart for comparison for others including Easy Green (which looks very good in this comparison chart). To get more precise nutrient control you have to start mixing your own. If you can get Easy Green from ACO, it’s a very good fertilizer as you can see for yourself on the chart.

I mention the specific tank as it's a popular recommendation for first-time aquascapers, which is why I got it...I looked at a bunch of scapes in this tank model before making mine so, I wanted to make this journal easy to find for similarly-situated newbies I started my tank with plants (...and hitchhiker bladder snails) only in November 2023, added my first intentional livestock mid-January 2024, re-did the scape with the same materials (plus some more plants) at the beginning of this month, and added my centerpiece fish, a pair of peacock gudgeons, on March 30. Here's how the tank looks now: and how it looked when I first set it up: The inhabitants are: 1x Mystery Snail (Gale of Waterdeep), 2x Otocinclus (Dot and Dash, named for the respective shapes of the markings on their tails), and 2x Peacock Gudgeons (as of yet unnamed). Temp is 74 F, pH about 7.2, GH a work in progress (6 at the moment, adding Seachem Equilibrium to bring that up 1 degree at a time every 3 days bc I'm worried about Gale's shell, but I don't want to shock anybody by changing it too quickly), Nitrate about 10 ppm -- actually trying to increase that for the plant health, Nitrate/Ammonia both 0. I'm running CO2 using a DIY system (the kind where you mix citric acid and baking soda in a reactor) with a solenoid. Usually, the drop checker goes green by the end of the CO2 period but is blue most of the day -- all the plants are easy/beginner plants that don't strictly require CO2 so this fine by me, as I'd rather have less CO2 and not risk fish health issues. Goal with the CO2 is to speed up things growing in for a jungle-y look...and Gale was eating the plants I'd added from in vitro pots so I figured they could use a boost.

First baby sighting this morning. Problem is it is in the adult's tank. I haven't put a pair in the breeding tank yet. That will happen soon. I'm afraid this one will not survive the adults, but we'll see.

It’s a great look. But you need a ton of little fish. try these. My daughters favorite are brilliant green rasboras. Such a tight scooler Or for smaller. Try these

You don’t need to use bottled bacteria in every water change if you successfully completed cycling your tank. All you need is a water conditioner like prime during a water change if you use tap

Well, who knows…. But, you bought the stability. Might as well use it up…. I am not convinced it does much of anything myself, but it sure isnt doing anything still in the bottle…. Now if the question instead, is should I go buy more to continue the 7 day cycle, I know I wouldnt be… I would probably reduce feeding and monitor daily and water change as needed.

I enjoy cleaning my tanks too (I've only got 3.. so maybe that's why 😂). BUT, Having only 3 ... the 75g, a 29g and my husbands 10g Glo tank, allows me to take my time and really focus on the details and it still not take very long to do. I find it's therapeutic.

If you ask me, it is very likely to be fine. I have never experienced a betta causing problems in a community tank versus other fish, when added last in an existing community tank setup. This includes fairly aggressive fish if added first. Being angels, if added last. I currently have two female bettas and one male betta living in communities, added last.

I have tossed ants in my aquariums before and believe me you won't get them back 😄

Ugh

I never want anything back that has been pooped, by anything.

the long thin area behind the legs looks like the shell some caddisflies make for protection. I say make, but what they actually do is glue bits of shell and rock together to form a shield covering most of their bodies bit far away and blurry for good id though They would live in shallow areas in rivers and streams. they prefer running water. if you have anything close.

probably not dragonfly nymph. dragonfly nymphs are very substantial. girthy as it were. possible caddisfly nymph. would need a closer look

Dragonfly nymph?

To be fair to the PetCo's aquatics specialist, she may have to deal with so many newbies such a my 60 year old neighbor. But to be fair to you, the LFS sold my neighbor a bunch of fish for a tank that was 5 days old ie: a sterile tank. You are far more knowledgeable than my 60 year old neighbor. I will give the PetCo specialist a F on her listening skills, it should have been clear you know what you are doing. I have had good luck buying fish online from Aqua Huna, they only charge $12.99 for shipping and i don't have to pay the local 7% sales tax. For large online purchases, I prefer to use ammonia in a bottle with multiple dosing for cycling a tank.. So with testing, you can verify that bacteria colonies have been well established. With the 29 gallon I just set up, I added ammonia three times. I also added matrix from another tank and clean out a sponge filter in the tank.

I suspect the pet store employee would be truly shocked to know that I recently plopped 10 pygmy cories and 10 ember tetras all in the same 10 G quarantine tank. Plus I put 16 chili rasboras and 16 kubotai rasboras into another 10 G quarantine tank a couple days later. Both tanks are planted, well seasoned, over-filtered, and have some ramshorn snails running around. I moved guppies out of each tank to put these fish in the grow-out turned QT tanks. Haven’t lost a single one of the fish. I “get away with” breaking a lot of “rules” by having a good idea of the bioload the tanks can carry, by doing appropriate water changes, and by being careful to not overfeed (that last part is a constant struggle for me). Lots of plants help expand the biofiltration capacity of the tanks, loads of sponge filtration whether it’s,y sponge substrate over undergravel filters or sponge in the HOB filters, emerse plants, tiny fish going in the tank, etc, etc, etc. I’m quite certain your 6 pygmy cories produce less waste than that single mystery snail. As long as you don’t overfeed and have rotting food laying around you should be fine. Keep track of your parameters! As long as no spikes you can very gradually increase your feeding (the goal is only tiny bits of food are left for a few hours - a bit like a micro version of blind-feeding to cycle a tank) you can gradually increase your biofiltration capacity (your goal is to grow your beneficial bacteria). You should NOT have big globs of rotten food laying around. A few tiny speckles at most and not even every day. In a week or so you should be able to add another 6 pygmy cories. You MUST be aware that any time there are visible bits of food waste you are potentially playing with fire as a less experienced aquarist. I like fire. Heh hehe, heh heh, heh heh. I also have been keeping fish since 1975. Yes, I’m old. It can be a very fine line! But with 30 gallons and tiny pygmy cories, you have some leeway. Just be careful and be ready to change water quickly if needed and dose with prime if needed. Don’t get too carried away with feeding! Good luck.

Agreed that if you let the Cory’s grow out and then get a juvenile EBA you should be good. Cory’s do take a while to grow out like you mentioned, but patience is a virtue, and it’ll all be worth it. Over the lifetime of the tank you’ll forget all about having to wait to grow out the Cory’s

Quite possibly holding. Can you link a video? Take more photos? This is a difficult shot to make a call on. If you think she's holding, and want more fry, you can move her to a temporary planted tank with shelter where she can spit after about 3x weeks. Here's a video my son made about 4x years ago. As an important note . . . these were hybrids, and that is very much discouraged in the hobby. We did _not_ earn BAP award points for our fish club on account of this. But this video will explain how we moved her out... Here's a different BAP video for breeding Auratus. The "dancing" you mentioned is probably them spawning. Sometimes you see if, but often you won't... Now, you can try to "strip" your holding females of eggs and hatch using an egg tumbler if you want to try. Here's how to do that...

I feel the need to mention that the amount of ammonia is more to do with the amount of food you put in and not really the amount of fish if you feed the same amount you will get the same amount of ammonia I’m going to be getting some (hopefully) soon and I’m not really worried and I’ll be doing probably 20 or 25 all at once in my 55

I'd just monitor it and see. What's important to understand is that the sponge filter you moved in doesn't know how big of a tank it's in. It just "knows" how much fish waste it normally processed and will be able to process that much now. The good news is that an established filter can increase in size pretty quickly. I've only added Stability when using some existing media if I'm trying to seed new filters and know that what I moved over is not sufficient enough to quickly bring everything up to "cycled". If I'm squeezing a cycled sponge or two into a new tank, I wouldn't bother with the Stability as it seems like the sponge squeezings really do a good job of cycling things. You can easily avoid cycling issues (high ammonia/nitrites) with water changes in the interim. In a big enough tank with reasonable stocking you can probably get away with a change every 2-3 days. You'd want to dose the Stability after a water change. I also avoid wiping down sides while cycling as I think a decent amount of bacteria covers those surfaces at least initially.

Sorry got my threads mixed up. Is another one using a full dose of trio meds at same time. For his betta.

Methylene blue and salt at that concentration shouldn't have a negative effect on angel fish I don't recommend preventive treatment for ich if your fish don't have any visible ich it's just a waste of medication and is unnecessary stressful to the fish exposing them to medication when they have been put in a new tank if you have individual that were already weak the medication can push them over the edge

Your luminious green looks a bit different than mine; it seems to have more pa-hang look which is another crypt that is somewhere between nurri rosen and luminious green.

There's not a lot to go on sound like there becoming weak that could be to illness lack of food can you post some pictures of the angels were they thin when you got them did they have a sunken belly any rapid breathing hanging out near the surface spitting food out flashing white stringy poop @Gliderzz

When I asked about breeding them, someone very experienced said that I could put my school of 20 into a 10 gallon tank as a bedding setup. I bet they would fare better as a group. I started with 9 and when I went up to 20 they started coming out way more. I suspect the employee is wary of people coming in, lying about their tank, killing fish, and then coming back in to get them replaced. Would cut them a bit of slack. At least they're on the cautious and animal welfare side.

How big were the angels? I ask because losing an eye can be from other fish picking on them and so can red spots on the body. That makes me wonder if you didn’t have an angel bully (they don’t always have angelic behavior). Then the deaths caused ammonia surges that started everything in a downward spiral? Speculative at this point. I agree with @Colu on doing a very strict regimen on deworming since timing is critical to break the parasite’s lifecycle for the best chance to fully clear the parasites. Gill redness is often secondary to excess ammonia, nitrites, or long term, significantly elevated nitrates. Your parameters don’t sound bad at all, but you could still have had some transient spikes. In a mature tank the spike can get pretty high fast and then clear before you test it. Gasping at the top of the water implies either low oxygen in the water or gill burn causing poor oxygen absorption from inflamed and thickened gills. I definitely recommend an extra airstone or 2 with any history of fish gasping at the surface. If cories are gasping at the surface (not just their normal dash and gulp but persistent gasping), things are very serious and you should immediately add extra airstones, test the water, then change water, or otherwise dramatically increase water surface exchange / turnover. Angels are more likely to surface gasp because they are more likely to spend time at the top. But it’s still a very serious symptom for the tank as a whole. Is there any film at the surface or persistent bubbles on the surface? I know lots of questions vs. the answers you want. But we can figure out more with more information and give better quality of advice if we know more.

They color up, often have very beautiful spangling and with mood often change colors

I have been looking at these from a Florida farm (imp. Tro.) for a few months now. Not so colorful. But very interesting looking

I’m no Betta expert either, but I don’t see an ovipositor. Keep an eye out for that as the fish develops and that will tell you everything you need to know. If it ends up being male, just change the name to Iggy, like Iggy Pop

Thanks for sharing this, I suppose i'll be patient and see just how big my corys get. I've had bronze corys before and they took quite a while to get to full size, not sure how fast the venezualans will grow.

I think you’d be fine. After letting the corys grow for a bit. And adding a juvenile eba. for eba tank mates

If you want to get an acara type then look at the Laetacara araguiae or curviceps. They stay small would not be an issue for your corys.

Mine were just fine wandering around the tank. They’ll need some source of food. Either algae wafers or algae. We raised 75 with minimal effort

UPDATE: Roger is doing fine despite broken shell. Here is a picture of my two mystery snails Roger and Dave this morning. I saw a similar pose yesterday thinking it was "Tenderness". After seeing an egg sack on my glass, I'm thinking it was more "I'll Take You There". To avoid content removal for inappropriate material, I added a censor bar. 🐌 "Hey Dave, I still bet no one knows why our names are Roger and Dave"

if your readings stay good, and you bump the amount of food up just a tiny bit to emulate what you will feed with the extra fish.... give it a few days to a week for the bacteria levels to grow, then add more fish.

Employee seems a bit misinformed and out of line, really. I tend to be fairly understocked in my tanks unless they're growout tanks with lots of fry in them getting lots of water changes, but 12 pygmy corys shouldn't be an issue I wouldn't think, though I have not kept them. It's not all bad staggering the loading, but water changes solve any concerns of ammonia or nitrite spikes.

Try the picture frame aisle from Walmart.

I have gone through various types of glass and acrylic sheeting lid options. At first I was buying sheets off of the internet and cutting them myself, but I found it too difficult to control the blade to get the precise cuts I wanted. I also found that the 1/8 inch sheets I bought bowed when exposed to the warm water of my aquariums. I ended up finding a plastics store near me that would custom cut 1/4 inch acrylic sheets. They will do cutouts and drill holes for airlines and easy lifting as well. With the 1/4 inch thickness there is no bowing and the insulation is terrific. I do have one custom cut glass lid, but don't like it as well as it's much heavier, more awkward to work with, and there is always the worry that I will bonk it the wrong way and shatter it.

Clean water and quality high protein food. Live food usually boosts growth the best. Live White worms, grindle worms and live black worms really help

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.

I cut mine with a utility knife (though it might end up using up all of a new blade).

Some cut a sheet of polycarbonate for a lid. If you have a Lowe's or HomeDepot check them out. @Spaghider