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Corydoras sterbai fry that hatched about six days ago, at 1x zoom and 10x zoom on my phone camera: I'll see if I can turn the video I have into a gif the way @mountaintoppufferkeeper does. I think I got it! Here's a quick gif of the then-three day old* cory fry hiding from me under a magnolia leaf: *I think; I pulled eggs for three straight days into that breeder box, so I'm kind of guessing.

After maintenance. I did remove the big main water sprite plant. Separated a bunch of the smaller bunches that had decent amount of roots and they are now in the tank. I'm pretty sure the anubis has a potassium deficiency going on. So that will definitely be on my next order from aquarium coop. Or I may be taking the 1hr drive down to the store in Pueblo that is supposed to carry coop products 🙂 Now you can see what's in the tank.

For some on the forum the saga of The Sad Bowl is old hat and for others welcome and we will commiserate together on that one tank or vessel that just seems to defy you as an aquarist. This is my journey with my 11 g bowl. Let’s start with some history in pictures: this was my first effort here in Seattle, the pea puffers struggled with parasites and the constant treatments just never let the biome form Properly. At its best I think, 2022 before the move to Seattle, fireball dwarf platys, blue neo shrimp - so blue LRB and a hermit on the Oregon coast combined to form that line, Madagascar lace plant, some crypts! Magnificent! this was a bowl at its best look at that Madagascar lace plant go! a really stark composition. The lace plant brought it alive. This was when a strange protein source wouldn’t stop that foam from forming on the top. Guppy grass couldn’t save it! To date I think we are on version 6.0. At least 2 versions never allowed any life to be in the bowl. If you look at my main journal you will see it mentioned many times. Since our move to Seattle it has taken 2 forms. 1. A pea puffer community 2. As a mixed Caridina or mischling tank. Alas there’s something amiss in the soil and the gH is solid but I keep getting little blips of kH that kill or stress shrimp. The other issue and thankfully the fish wife is not a forum member I think that she has some behaviors that have thwarted the bowl. She loves to throw open all the windows in our bedroom and the temps can fluctuate massively. Now my thought is this - switch this to a low energy tank - no heater. I will use a new light setup I got from Hiro https://www.hiroaquatics.com/products/full-spectrum-fish-tank-light-led-grow-light-bamboo-stand-terrarium-light I will use a combination of laterite, pond soil, some crushed coral and some aquarium soil maybe with some gravel to cap for the plants. I will use plants that can handle things on the lower end of the plant spectrum heat wise which is actually a lot of plants - room stays around 60-65 most of the time but in winter she can throw open the windows and it can get in the 50s. I have this beautiful piece of driftwood that has a natural opening that would be perfect as a planter. It will be air driven with a homemade UGF. Here’s a couple rough sketches. My other idea is go back to what I had before go with wood, a big centerpiece plant like Madagascar lace or crinum, or a big crypt. Stocking is going to be 1. Celestial Pearl Danios - I bought 20 juices/babies at auction I’m growing out in my sons 10 g. I’m thinking of Neocaridina maybe start a new blue shrimp colony. 2. Go back to the future and do dwarf platys - I’ve got a line on some of Cory’s someone in the club has, and maybe some blue shrimp. Thoughts and prayers are appreciated as we start Version 7.0 of The Sad Bowl! Have fun everyone!

Here are mine. They're WCMM and they're in different stages. Also, I'm not breeding these they just keep happening. 😮‍💨

as long as you dont have food left over on the bottom fungussing etc, ie the fish eat it in a reasonable period of time, you are probably close to the correct amount. feed a consistent amount, and even if its a tiny bit too much, the bacteria levels in the tank will break it down.

You really don’t have to worry about under feeding your fish. As long as everyone gets something. Fish don’t have traditional stomachs like we do. So food in equals waste out. Minus growth of course. The more waste out the more problems you can have with nitrates and algae growth. that being said. You have fish so you can interact with them. Feeding is the obvious way. Feeding multiple times a day is fine. But in very small amounts. The 15 seconds they take to feed is probably perfect for multiple feedings a day. As long as they’re cleaning the wafer up in a couple hours it’s fine. Wafers take time

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere on these very forums, that dynamite was the method of choice.. 😉

You can generally evaluate a betta in-store for aggression. I have an alien betta in the tank with a school of neon/cardinal tetras (combined school). He didn't flare nearly as hard at us in the store as any other betta, and that's why I chose him; the outcross to wild-type betta also reduces aggression.

Sounds like you are feeding correctly. If you're slower eaters look healthy that's great. If you notice any change I suggest feeding both at the same time. That is if the nano pellets float. That will give the bottom feeding fish a little more time to eat. @doink

The limia vittata colony that started with 6 has been getting pretty large in the cross river puffer pond. The puffers do seem to enjoy the company and clean up crew. I may need to make a limia trap to relocate the colony if this keeps up though

Nice sterbai and gif congrats

Just finished scapeing the dragon stone!

It's been a minute since I posted, and I thought it was a good time to do an update since I just moved everyone into their forever tank, a 29gal. It was much harder to catch everyone than I anticipated, and I ended up doing a lot of just scoop and pour which ended up injuring a couple of fish, but we're now a handful of days out and everyone seems to have recovered just fine. Current occupants are I think 15 CPD, 20something Blue Dream shrimp, who knows how many Endlers, some pond snails, 2 ramshorn snails, and 1 Bamboo shrimp. During the change I added a Tidal 35 which I adore and gives me nice flow on that right side of the tank while still maintaining the left relatively flow neutral for anyone who likes it a little calmer.

I’m going to have to say yes but here is why. I only have 2. They were in with my Sawbwa resplendens. I use an egg catch cup to collect the eggs from the Sawbwa. The Sawbwa prefer to spawn in the open so I got no eggs from them in the catch cup. I have 2 floating breeders with hillstream babies though from my collection efforts. 🤣 so these are surprise accidental fry.

Thanks! @EricksonAquatics I have a question, my sparkling gourami hasent really gotten along with other fish to well, do you think it's ok to get another one or two sparkling gouramis for this tank or should I keep it only him?

Wow, who knew!! Wish I’d learned this about a month ago/ fewer headaches for sure now! I’ll do this method now on with additions of plants. Thank you! maybe I should buy 10 gallons of seltzer and do the whole tank. I guess that would totally undo the cycling I’ve accomplished however. Duh

I love them aswell! I spent alot of money to make sure I set him up a good aquarium. I have not heard mine make a noise, I didn't know they could do that! If you could, could you post the sound in this journal? That would be cool, thanks for the reply!

I would not hesitate to use the pool, but skinny dipping would definitely be out of the question. I've been a roofer, skydiver and a rock climber. When the opportunity presented itself, I climbed one of those transmission towers before the wires were installed. For some weird reason, risk management mode kicked in 10 feet short of the top, and I couldn't finish.

That pretty much sums it up. I use flake food. Mine get fed a pinch between the fingers once a day. After maintenance they get an a little extra. I'm not weighing the food, so even that might be over feeding. In the real world, fish don' t get a measured amount of food everyday. They spend a lot of time grazing.

The only thing I can think is to increase the amount of leaves that go in at a time, I guess? So that the snails have some but also the shrimp and otos get some, too. On the other hand, that may just lead to a bump in snail population... But yes, while I'm using magnolia leaves instead of mulberry, I've found the snails seem to jump on them a lot quicker and more thoroughly than the shrimp and otos (I've never actually seen my otos eating off of the leaves).

Reading this topic, i guess i will chime in here! If you are wanting a betta, slow flow and good tankmates (not to mention, a more peaceful betta, a female could work) can make it happen. For centerpiece fish i was going to say honey gorumai but then i read your husband is not a fan lol. Dwarf or sparkling gourimai i say. Sorry for the mistypes it is messing up my writing for no reason LOL. Oh guppies would be great, not reccomended with a betta though. Plant reccommendations. Why is my typing horrible!! lol. Anubias. The most indestructible beginner friendly plant out there, java fern as well. Good carpeting plants for something like a grass like look. Micro sword. Pearlweed. Dwarf Hairgrass. Floater plants. Hornwort, monte carlo even though it is a stem plant, i find it a great floating plant. Stem plants. Amazon sword. Money wort. So on. Sorry if that is to many, but i love me some plants, and planted tanks. But that is my suggestions.

There is no "right" way to feed the fish. You don't want them starving but you also don't want tons of uneaten food lying around. I tend to feed more than you're supposed to feed. I feed two, three, four times a day. There's never any uneaten food and my fish are happy. My water chemistry stays fine also. Hungry fish are more inclined to forget that "fish are friends, not food" so if you've got a mix of larger and smaller fish the smaller fish can start to disappear if the bigger fish get hungry. The best advice is to do what works for you, keeps the fish happy, and keeps your water quality stable.

I mostly find bettas relatively peaceful with non bettas. I keep them in community tanks all the time as I have no dedicated betta tanks. And have kept 6 at one time in different tanks. Corys and kuhli’s are not an issue. Neons tetras, harlequin and espei rasboras, platys, otos have all been no problem. Problem with fin nipping the betta from danios, lemon tetras, skirt tetras. try these videos for more good and bad combinations

Hello everyone! I'm totally new to the hobby. My stepmother used to keep a lot of tanks (fluorescent gravel and plastic plants, but vibrant and healthy fish of all sorts) and we all loved looking at the fish all day. So when my wife asked me if we should get a fish for our all-things-ocean-loving 5 yr old, I decided to go overboard and we now have a 180 liter (47-ish gallon) freshwater aquarium in the living room! It's great, we don't even watch tv in the afternoon anymore. I'm an engineer/physicist/chemist/microbiologist by trade, so the whole "set up a complex life support system for a self-contained ecosystem" was just my cup of tea. I spent a few weeks nerding out on the net, learning everything I could about how to do this, and what what my step-mom could have done better -she always said plants were too hard. I'll post a journal at some point, but my tank is about 6 weeks old and already doing very well. I went with a father-fish inspired heavily planted, fertilized substrate with a sand cap, but I also figured out how to put an under-gravel filter in there, which so far is working splendidly. I have nice circulation, good aeration, and crystal clear water. Plants are growing nicely, and I've even got fish and shrimp that are enjoying their new home. We uhhh... we had some casualties on the way, and I would like to take a moment to give respect to our fishy friends who gave their lives in the pursuit of the Pond. We will miss you, Casper and Casper2, and Bob and Bobalina... .... So also I learned it's a bad idea to name your fish before they get very established. Anyhow, I love Cory's co-op videos (also a big fan of Alexander from Fishtory) and it was natural to come to a vibrant, healthy forum to ask questions and share my experiences. So hi! 😃

Okay, great. Now you have to be patient still until you start to see nitrates. Could take another week or so. This conversion is from a different bacteria and is just getting started now that you have some nitrites

I use Super Natural Jungle Gravel. I’ve used it for about 4 years now and I love it. I did a layer of old substrate then capped it with Jungle Gravel. It said gravel but it’s more of a sand than anything. Here the two tank i currently have it in. Ignore the larger pebbles. I scattered them across the top layer because I liked the look.

Update: I am finally registering nitrites! The ammonia level hasn't changed, but yesterday there was 0.5 ppm nitrites and this morning it is reading 1 ppm nitrites.

Nerite is the only snail I'd recommend for you if you get one. That is a small tank and Mystery Snails are high polluters and get rather large. Also they are not great cleaning crew and need to be fed to stay healthy. Nerites are hands down better for cleaning, are small and don't eat commercial foods typically. Shrimp are great cleaners. In the end not a bad idea to skip an Oto or 2 as they actually might be outcompeted by the shrimp anyway!

I had picked the honey Gourami but they didn't excite the husband. 😞 I will look at the others you mentioned to see if any appeal to the man-child. 😉

Without knowing anything about tank size, I would suggest doing higher numbers of the schooling fish. So instead of 3 zebra and 3 silver Dania, do 6-8 of one of those species. Same for the cories do 5-6 instead of 3. Also I don't know much about Neon Blues but Gouramis can be pretty aggressive so I would be careful putting 3 in there with 2 angel fish. (Angel fish can get aggressive as well.)

I am in the Puget Sound area also and i have never found a place to re fil tanks. I just swap mine out. I know it means you won't have that shiny new tank look but it's the only way I have able to do it.

6 June 2024 (Day 31) Wandering through the subwassertang jungle hunting for foor 9 June 2024 (Day 34) First scud hunt recorded

Howdy! I have found a lot of useful information from this forum just from google searches, so i thought id join the club! About 6 years ago i had 8 bettas (2 were half moon male, 4 were hmpk male, and 2 were hmpk female), a pair of what i believe were paleatus cories, and a trio of sterbais. I was successfully breeding the paleatus for my lfs when an unfortunate accident from misreading a label took not just the paleatus but also my sterbais. Im now looking to get back into the game with dwarf cories, guppies, and of course some snails and shrimp (not going to breed snails and shrimp, at least not intentionally lolz). My plan is to do better, give better, and care better. I always pour my heart and soul into my animals always doing my best to give my best care to them as possible. Ive had many animals in the last 12 years besides fish, 2 dogs (1 miniature pinscher who passed last summer, and a great dane who will be 4yrs next month), 2 cats (both gone unfortunately), 4 crested geckos, (2 male 2 female), a gargoyle gecko (male), and a leopard gecko (female). I have many many pics of my animals but i will only post the fishies unless asked for the others. First and second image is of spot and dot and their babies (paleatus) 3rd-5th pics are of the HMPK, the only one who i definitely remember his name is the 5th pic: patriot Last 2 pics are of my HM bettas toothless (blue) and cloud jumper (white)

Yes out of the two, nerite snail would be much better, as of in size, and actually cleaning up some algae and all. Not saying mystery snails are bad, but i love my nerite, he has cleaned up a ton of algae!

Your water is similar to mine and isn't ideal for Chilli's so you really have to keep it clean and feed appropriately. I feed lots of small live foods and frozen cyclops and the tank gets at least one 60% water change a week, usually I do it twice. Tank is 90 litres which is roughly 24 gallon US with ember tetra and cherry shrimp, sponge filters for filtration. I did try using RO to soften my water for breeding but only went down to 7.0 as I wasn't confident I could maintain stability below that. It doesn't help that whenever I look at Chilli's in my local stores I can see at least three separate species all being sold as Chilli Rasbora 😞

Hey Rube, No, I have no experience on that one. I have only kept a single honey gourami as a centerpiece unlike all other gouramis I had. @Guppysnail had 4m:1f from what I remember (she got them as unsexed juveniles at the beginning) , but she also had no issues if I am not mistaken. I bet it is the breeding aggression tho

The female tends to hide much more than the male but both can be difficult to spot because their brown bodies blend in so well with the all the brown wood. The male will tend to come out an beg for food when I approach the tank and he is not afraid to take the bloodworms from the tweezers. Again the female is more shy and will not come out as readily to feed.

Just wanted to report back that things appear to be cleared up now. I did follow the Ich X + Maracyn-in-food method and that worked. Of the fish that were affected, I lost at least half. Idk in numbers, maybe about 50 or more fish since they were mostly in schools. The worst hit were the Amazon puffers, the rainbows, the dwarf chain loaches, and the goldfish. (Again, in different tanks.) I also lost my sweet wet pet, my black lancer catfish that I got from Dan's Fish. What's kind of crazy is some fish didn't get it at all -- all the other catfish including my cories and albino hoplos were fine, the tetras were symptomatic but I didn't lose any, the kuhli loaches seemed fine (though the heavy meds got them in the end too). What's interesting is we are still having this disease pop up in a few tanks, all adjacent to each other, at the fish store. They are tanks that I maintain, and they are also near where the Amazon puffer was kept, and my suspicion is that he is the one who brought the disease in. If it keeps coming, I'll try to save up to buy a microscope. I am REALLY curious what wiped out my tanks. At the end of the day, I didn't heed my own advice: I always tell people, balance your tanks and take care of overstocking or else nature will take care of it for you. Thank you again @Colu and @Tony s for your sympathy & advice.

Based on the experience shared above, me being a freshwater newbie and something I remembered about my tank last night, I am rethinking having otos in this tank. Remembered last night that my 20L tank is actually probably closer to 12-13L of water once I take into account hardscape, substrate, water not filling all the way to the top etc. Hoping for a relatively light maintenance burden for this tank, so a lower bioload has its appeal, ie. maybe no otos after all Current thinking now - a small school of fish to start, plus a small clean up crew of snails. Then make a decision about shrimp in a month or few, once the tank matures.

Thanks @Whitecloud09 for the cleanup crew suggestions. I had a quick look here in Sydney and there is a huge price difference between these two snail types! Looks like mystery snails can be had for about $5-10, depending on size. Little bit concerned with forum posts about how fast they can grow though, given the small size of my tank. Nerite snails, on the other hand, are $15-32 each! I have read they have a much smaller max size though, which may account for the popularity, price and generally being out of stock in a lot of places! 🙂

Thanks @Whitecloud09

Pic of one of my male Convict

They are convicts their fins look pretty heavily tattered from constant fighting. If you decide to keep them you might want to get them an aloe based fin repair serum, left to their own devices those fins could very easily become infected

I have 8 angels currently. for the most part they're nonaggressive. they only become aggressive when they pair off to mate. then all heck breaks loose. depending on the pair. I had a non-aggressive koi pair. then I had a pair of marbled get really aggressive. to the point of pushing praecox rainbows to the bottom of the tank. they earned their own tank for that nonsense. Dwarf gourami's can be different. some of them are just born with a screw loose

I would also say be cautious in keeping keeping other fish with bettas they can have unpredictable temperaments. I find that for fancier bettas with longer fins like Rosetails, Double tails, Halfmoons, and the like a smaller tank is actually much better for them. However plakats or crowntails which are bettas with shorter fin types I have found are better for larger tanks they also move much quicker. If you are going to have tank mates I suggest to add the other fish you are going to have first and then add the betta last. Tetras could add some of the that red and blue to your tank.

From my bettas, platys will work and harlequin rasboras do great. Several other types of rasbora should do equally as well. Snails will work fine. Although keep an eye out when starting, bettas can go after antennae. Don’t know about the gold ring danios, but regular danios (rerio) can be too fast and fin nippy. Guppies can also be fin nippy. Word of caution on big box pet store bettas. Unfortunately they are starting to become a bit weak. They usually don’t last as long as they should and develop tumors, which they shouldn’t. Doesn’t stop me from buying them just to give them a better life for a bit. For long term bettas, buy higher end. Either online or lfs.

Thanks for your service, too! It is an adjustable HOB filter. I was thinking of creating a floating "island" of filter plants at the output to slow down the current even more. Thanks for the suggestions!

Welcome to the forum Served in the military myself. Thank your husband for his service. Most of your stock list is compatible. What type of filter on the aquarium? Betta don't like strong current. I suggest java fern and anubias both good plants for beginners like myself. Also prior to purchasing your fish do a thorough observation of the tank the fish are in. If any are dead go to another store. @TinaPax-Peeks

I'd be careful pairing male bettas with guppies. They don't call them the Siamese Fighting Fish for nothing. The bright coloration and bigger fins on the guppy would likely trigger a lot of aggression. That being said, every betta is different so anything is possible. And your 20 gallon tank would certainly be better than say a 5 or a 10. If you try it I'd be sure to monitor things very closely and have a backup plan available if things get out of hand.