lynxfishy

Whoa this is so helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this out! I have yet to work with live food and will do some research on seeding tanks--I'll also look into frozen daphnia and spawn and grow rapashy. Right now I have the community repashy gel food some of my other aquarium fish like--maybe I'll see if they are interested in that? I was planning on doing a very heavily planted tank, similar to this aquascape below but with a 10 gallon so I was planning on waiting a while to get fish anyways. Dang, that is kind of a bummer with the coloring though, do you guys think it is possible to keep 2 males if my tank is going to be densely planted like the image below? https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7ru2tyfu0nowz7nnr0had/Screenshot-2023-07-24-at-6.33.22-PM.png?rlkey=9td7jd1i684cun3tnp68ag1l9&dl=0 ah image isn't loading, sorry it's this aquascape oh wow that's such interesting behavior! Hopefully none of the others were hurt!

adding to this has anyone had any luck with freeze dried foods, like the cubes aquarium co op offers?

Hey Everyone! I recently bought a 10 gallon tank on sale and wanted to stock it with 6 rocket/clown killifish, a scarlet badis, and maybe some other nano fish like green neon tetras, pygmy Cories, or khuli loaches (not quite decided there). I was wondering if it would be ok to get just 1 scarlet badis? The internet seems pretty divided on if you should keep them alone (super territorial, feisty) or if they should be in groups of 2 or 3? I am also unsure of what to feed them? I see everyone mention they don't usually take to process/flake foods, would a diet of just frozen foods (bloodworms, brine shrimp, beefheart) work or should I be hatching live baby brine shrimp and alternating with frozen food?

Hello everyone! I've had this neon tetra with this strange white blob on its side for roughly a year now, and I am unsure of what it is? The neon is the biggest one in it's school, is very active, eats well, and overall has very normal behavior. When I first saw this white clump I instantly quarantined the fish and gave him the med trio. Nothing happened. After a while the fish became very nervous without his/her school and starting to display signs of stress, so after 2 weeks of nothing happening I simply returned him/her to the main tank. None of the other neons have this, nor does my dwarf gourami. I am wondering if I should be worried about this? My parameters are as follows: pH 7.6 Nitrates 0ppm/low range this is a very heavily planted tank but I do dose aquarium coop easy green once a week Hardness I believe I have hard water, around 150GH Nitrite 0ppm Ammonia 0ppm KH/Buffer low 40KH Water Temperature 76F

ahh this is so helpful!! Thank you so much for this! I'll also do some digging on YouTube and look for that video!

Thankfully this was my first test from this bottle, so hopefully it will still be ok! I just opened this kit this morning. One question: why do you have to replace the nitrate bottle? Does the important stuff just get stuck to the bottom of the bottle or..? haha sorry if this is a dumb question, I am honestly just curious

Aw thank you so much! I really love this hobby and have tried my best to research as much as I could. I am very tempted to get a 20 gallon long tank and try out hillstream loaches, they look so cute!

This makes a lot of sense, thank you for sharing! I was really worried I was missing something here, but it seems the plants are just doing their job extra well haha

I do dose with ferts! I use easy green 🙂 Ah! That could very well be my problem with the API test kit, I only shake mine a little bit before using it, I'll for sure try out the shaking method. I was curious if I could just stop doing water changes and just check out the perimeters every week? Do you think the tank can sustain itself at this point? This does make me feel a lot better haha, I was sure I was doing something wrong, thank you for explaining! Thank you so much for this video Cory!! It explains so much and I really appreciate it! I really think this was my problem--I wasn't really shaking the nitrate bottle that hard for that long. I'm going to try testing again doing this method. I am curious if I'll be able to hold off on water changes for a while since everything seems balanced

Hello Everyone, I am fairly new to the freshwater aquarium hobby and I had a question about my aquariums not cycling (I wasn't sure where to put this question so apologies if this is the wrong spot). I have two aquariums: -the first is a 5 gallon has been up and running for 2 years now. It houses 1 male betta, a nerite snail, and a good amount of aquarium plants (frog bit, Anubis nana petite, bacopa, java fern, and rotala trimmings from my larger tank. - the second is a 10 gallon community tank that has been up and running for 9 months with 1 dwarf powder blue gourami, 5 neon tetras, 2 amano shrimp, and a good amount of aquarium plants as well (frog bit, java fern, Anubis, bacopa, rotala, and some moss balls. neither tank has cycled. Every time I test both aquariums with my API test kit it reads as zero in ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. I've tried adding beneficial bacteria to both tanks via fritz turbo start but nothing happened, and my tanks still read as zero. I still do weekly water changes on both tanks, changing 1 gallon of water from my 5 gallon, and 3 from my 10 gallon (my house plants love this water). I thought maybe my API test kit was expired/faulty so I bought a new API test kit and it reads the same thing as of this morning. For both tanks I have the following reading: PH: 7.8 Ammonia: 0PPM Nitrite: 0PPM Nitrate: 0PPM Am I doing something wrong? I read that sometimes a densely planted aquarium will not cycle, and I wonder if that is my case? Is it bad if my aquarium isn't cycled? Having a cycled tank seems like a fundamental thing to do, but mine just won't seem to cycle. I tried doing a fishless cycle for my 10 gallon tank when I was first setting it up, and it did cycle that way. but when I added my dwarf gourami, the cycle broke and it never cycled again, even after I added other fish in small quantities. I would love to hear any thoughts on this topic, and have attached pictures of my tanks below (my 5 gallon's frog bit needs a trim so please excuse the jungle look haha)

Hello everyone, I am fairly new to the fish keeping hobby and earlier in the year I set up a 10 gallon planted tank. I let it cycle for a month and begin adding fish in different waves--adding some fish, then waiting a couple weeks before adding more fish. After a couple months of slowly adding fish and testing the water to make sure there was no ammonia spikes I finally have all of my stocking. I currently have a dwarf powder blue gourami, 7 neon tetras (got an extra one from the store thinking they wouldn't all make it back/through quarantine, I was wrong lol), and 5 pygmy corydoras. I recently lost a pymgy cory, and I am really unsure as of why. The water tested fine, no ammonia or nitrite, I have a sponge filter along with a regular HOB filter so the water should have enough oxygen, and I didn't see anything particularly weird about the dead pygmy. All of my other fish are healthy/acting normal. There was some red on the dead pygmy's underside though? But by the time I found him my dwarf gourami could have nipped at the corpse? He has never been aggressive to the other fish, but he does love eating. Any help on the topic would be greatly appreciated. I've attached a current picture of my tank incase it would be helpful.

That's what I was worried about too, I bought some adorable pygmy corries online and they are all happy and healthy in my main tank. I didn't realize I should have a quarantine tank and I just medicated them with the quarantine trio in that tank. I'd hate it if a Petco neon tetra brought in something bad and they died from it. I will for sure wait a week or two to give them the meds and keep checking on my water parameters in the QT tank. I didn't realize I should wait a week and I think between the stress of traveling home, the med trio, and me not checking the water they all died off one by one. I really appreciate you guys helping me out on this! Lol wish me luck on the next batch.

Will do. Thank you so much for the help, it is greatly appreciated!

Thank you both for all of the information. I figured these fish would have something considering I bought them from Petco, and all of their tanks are connected through the filters, that's why I medicated them. If I get another batch should I wait to medicate them and just feed them and watch them (and the water parameters) in quarantine for 4 weeks? Then if they seem healthy/fine introduce them into the main tank? Or should I just buy from a reputable breeder online like Aquahuna and just not medicate/quarantine them at all and just put them in the main tank?

Ok, I will do that. Does anyone have any tips on how I can quarantine and medicate fish better? I feel really terrible that the water got so bad on them, and I want to do better next time.

I have .50ppm Ammonia, 1.0 ppm Nitrite and 40ppm Nitrate 😧 Really bad water parameters, I should have been checking them more often, but I didn't realize they were so bad. I am on day 4 of med trio treatment, and have a hang on the back filter with a sponge filter that came from a fully cycled 10 gallon tank. I put the sponge filter immediately in HOB filter and ran it through with water. This filter had been in an establish tank for a month. I put it in there specifically for a quarantine sponge filter as I read that would cycle a quarantine tank quickly.

Upon looking at my tank I see I have one little neon left! I tested my water and Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate are very high. I should have been checking the water more often and sooner, as I am starting to wonder if the tank wasn't cycled and that's what killed everything. I put a sponge filter in the quarantine tank that had come from a cycled 10 gallon aquarium, I thought that would immediately cycle this tank? I am not sure what to do with the one neon now, I feel really bad, should I just put him in the 10 gallon tank where the water is cycled and is much better? I did half the medication, I even went a little under half just to be safe.

Hello everyone! I recently bought 6 neon tetras from Petco to stock my 10 gallon black water tank. Unfortunately they all passed away and I was wondering if it was because of the med trio and the stress? I put them in a 5 gallon quarantine tank and dosed the correct amount for the med trio, but I was wondering if dosing all three meds at the same time was too much for them and caused the death? If I get more neons would it be better to dose the med trio one per week? Thanks for any advice/tips, I'm still pretty new to the hobby and need all the advice I can get lol.

Hey everyone! I recently got a 10 gallon tank (my first!) and wanted to make a planted blackwater set up. I am fairly new to the hobby and did a lot of research on stocking choices and beginner friendly set ups, along with how to cycle the tank and the basic care requirements. After a month of cycling I recently got a dwarf powder blue gourami, and I really enjoyed him. Then a week went by and I purchased 6 pygmy corries, and used the med trio on all of them in my display tank (realized I forgot to quarantine them). I find that my dwarf powder blue tries to eat the pymgy Cory's food and kind of chases them away from their food, so I was going to try to hide their food in a place where he cannot reach it. I reached out on another aquarium forum and mentioned I also eventually wanted to get neon tetras for this tank (5) but I was told this was over stocking. I used AQadvisor's peaceful 10g community set up as a base for this stocking and had also referenced the 10 gallon cookie cutter set up from aquarium coop's blog, so honestly I'm a bit confused lol. If it is overstocking is there a different type of fish I could add to the tank instead of neons? I've attached a picture of the tank for reference TL;DR Is a dwarf powder blue gourami, 6 pygmy cories, and 5 neon tetras overstocking in a 10 gallon blackwater set up with driftwood, plants, and rocks?