Tayturs

I don’t dislike this idea, my main concern is that the nano fish won’t be visible enough through a webcam, and it’ll just look like I have an empty tank behind me. I may try a female betta (more peaceful, and I like the short fins better anyway) and I have backup tanks to put her in if she doesn’t get along well. I typically like bettas more than gouramis, but I’ve had them before and wanted to try something new. 🤔

My Chilis do this as well! My school of ~7 seem to enjoy riding the bubbles / upwards flow from my sponge filter. When I had a HOB filter they liked to play near its outlet also. At first I worried it was lack of oxygenation making them hang out around the highest areas of transfer, but I think they might just genuinely enjoy flow…?

Hello folks! I have recently set up an aqueon 14 gallon cube (apologies for picture fogginess, It has since cleared up and is cycled via medium from an established tank). It has lava rock, fluval stratum substrate and spider wood as well as live plants. This tank is directly behind my desk so it is seen when I’m in zoom calls for work. I want the stocking to be something colorful enough to be visible and pleasant looking even over webcam. My current thoughts are a female betta, a blue neon dwarf gourami and possibly some blue axelrodi rasbora OR neon green rasbora. I know some of these may be incompatible however, so I wanted advice from any with experience keeping these species together, or other possible centerpiece fish suggestions? Thank you!!

Depending on your tank build, you can nix the capsule entirely to avoid the annoying floating or turning to jelly. My last setup I cut the tips off the capsules and just dumped the contents into the bottom of the tank before putting in my sand layer on top.

OMG I LOVE THESE SO MUCH. I especially love the first one, he is so sassy 😂 Do you post your work to social media or twitter or something...? I'd love to follow, or maybe even commission a similar transformation drawing, if you're open to something like that!!

I am both excited and dreading the time when my juvenile angels are old enough to start this behavior. Such cute parents! Totally unrelated, what type of gourami is in that second picture? It's so red! 😍

This is a great suggestion. You should not need to have it set up for too long for quarantine, but it would also be good to have in case any of your fish get sick. I believe GirlTalksFish has a great video on this exact thing. Keep plenty of meds on hand in case you need to treat your entire "regular" tank (IchX, Maracyn and Maracyn II are what I keep excess of). You don't want to end up in a situation where ich is in your "regular" tank and you have to wait a few days for meds to arrive in the mail. It can get much worse in just a few days. It will be more expensive to dose larger tanks also, so that is part of the pain of not having a separate quarantine. Another less effective suggestion is to be extra picky about where you get your fish from and which you take home. Try to buy from local breeders or your local fish store instead of big box stores. Make sure they have no signs of illness in the store, the fish you are buying or any others in the tank. This will not be a foolproof method, obviously (I have gotten fish with ich from my LFS, fish are stressed and more susceptible to illness no matter what when they're shipped) but it might help prevent outbreaks.

I would LOVE to keep some BB gobies but I've never used salt outside of quarantine tanks and would be a little scared of hurting my plants... but I will look more into their care to see if its feasible for me! Thank you for the suggestion! Unfortunately my water situation is complicated, we are on a well but the water is really terrible... dirty and even higher PH than I quoted in my original post, with nothing you can do to adjust it. We have to use 5 gallon jugs to fetch clean water from town at places like water stores or fill stations. It seems like not every place I go to has the same parameters, so I try to make my tanks as self sufficient as possible to minimize water changes needed (I've been pretty successful with this in the past). That's why it's harder for me to pin down pH. I think the water changing dramatically when aerated is also part of what makes it tough for me to track- I have done this test in the past with water from a fill station near-ish to my home and it went up dramatically overnight. Sooo frustrating. As a general note to everybody who has replied, HUGE thanks to all the informative posts. Was not expecting so much help! At this point I am feeling much more confident in the idea of keeping cories as long as I am deliberate in the species I pick. 🥰

I definitely don’t want anything that will get too big. Good to know that pandas seem to be better fits than my other preferences. They are pleasant looking also, and I hadn’t considered them so this thread has been enlightening 😄 At this point I think my best bet is to wait for the swords to arrive and let them settle for a few weeks, so I can see what exact pH and hardness I can stably maintain. And if I feel like I want more activity in the tank, reconsider my options at that point. I am also visiting my LFS tomorrow so I will see what I have available to me locally.

I like Smudge Spot or Sterbai, but I was concerned they might not like harder water... or that they might hide? Do you have experience with these? I also like chain loaches but am not sure if the tank size is adequate for a group of them 🤔

Hello all! I have recently set up a 29g that will be housing a trio of red swordtails with the casual hopes of producing some fry. I would also like to put some bottom-dwellers in if I can swing it, since it is a larger tank that what I'm used to and there are many species I've never gotten to keep. That said, I only want to add them if they can thrive in the conditions I will be prioritizing for the swordtails. PH will be in the 7.4-8.0 range Water will be treated with Seachem Equilibrium to be on the harder side Substrate is black sand with some pagoda rock, no driftwood. Moderately planted and I expect the sprite and swords to fill in over time (not sure if I'm actually planting the hairgrass bunch shown in the picture) Suggestions should preferably not be a risk to swordtail fry, not spend most time hiding and not uproot plants. Thanks in advance for any advice given!!

I have recently set up 2 tanks with the fluval 3.0 lights mentioned above and I really love them a lot. They're a bit pricier but it's super nice to just set and adjust times easily on the app, and to customize the color profiles for each tank individually. 8 hours ended up being a bit too long for me but I could adjust both lights within just a few seconds, which lets me experiment more to find the best setup.

The hillstream loach is especially cute 🥰

Omg these pictures are SO gorgeous! 😲 These look like such nice peaceful tubs to sit next to and observe 🥰

Not a nano fish, but a calm and very cool oddball for that size tank could be glass cats. They school and look very cool. I also love the pencilfish suggestion made above, I kept a small number of them and was able to feed them flake just fine, although they did bully my neons a bit (could’ve just been the smaller tank size, probably too small, it was my first setup). Another suggestion would be axelrodi neon rasbora, sorta like a smaller neon tetra without the red. Maybe a goby if you have the flow for it. Rummynose will race back and forth constantly so if you want calm I would suggest against them.

I got the Gladiator racks because they come in white, which look so much nicer in my home office than some of the other colors heavy-duty racks come in. They were a little more expensive but I love the way they look and they went together so easy, plus I have total peace of mind for how overkill they are weight wise. I plan to really load this shelf up over time but I have only set up 1 29g tank so far and a 5.5 quarantine tank. SOMETHING TO NOTE SPECIFICALLY FOR 29 GALLONS, I got the 60 inch wide rack and thought "Surely I can make 2 29s fit, they are 30 1/4th inch wide". What they don't tell you is the 60 inch width includes the width of the side supports, which have diagonal beams that prevent you from actually putting anything in that space. The width you can actually use is closer to 55 inches. I did have to do a little extra work getting wood to put over the wire shelves, painting and waterproofing it. But it is working wonderfully for me so far.

Can you give some details about your setup? How many gallons? Is it planted, does he have plenty of places to hide or ways to break line of sight from the other males?

I think you're correct in your hesitations, plecos need large spaces and panda garra like high flow, so I dont think a sponge filter would suffice. Otos also like to be in groups, so a 20 would maybe be too small as well. Have you considered pygmy corydora? Visually pretty similar to an oto... just smaller! Very charming as well and would be great in a smaller tank.

Wow he is SO beautiful! Im so glad you ended up with a fish you loved and could care for! If mine grows at a rapid pace I don’t think I’ll be able to skirt it unfortunately, I am trying to keep the bioload on my 30 gal low since we have well water here that is basically unusable (ph of 9, super dirty, does not budge no matter how you try to treat it), meaning I have to tote 5 gallon jugs to and from the nearest fill station for water changes.

Now I am second guessing myself… I think I am deciding to keep him another week at least. I would rather try to give him away to another fishkeeper if/when he gets too big, in case I am mis-identifying him. It doesn’t help that many web care summaries and YouTube videos seem to use stock images of many types of “upside down catfish” so they are not always correctly labeled. It’s making it really difficult to know what I actually have. At the very least I can document it for future people with my problem.

Eupterus juveniles don’t look like the adult, and they look pretty similar to nigriventris. Nigriventris has a black stomach and more of a spotted pattern with some lighter lateral stripes. Eupterus juveniles have more of a wandering stripe pattern, which also continues onto their stomach. My fish has a patterned stomach and stripes. I can try to get a better pic of him this morning. Unfortunately they are easy to confuse without knowing those specifics, and the store specifically labeled them nigriventris. To be honest I would like to keep him, I think he stands a better chance in my aquarium than back in Petco, but i don’t know how fast he’ll grow (especially if they can be hydrids??) I don’t want him 6 inches long and eating my other fish in a couple months time.

What do I do about this? 😩 I bought an upside-down catfish at Petco, where I was told it would grow to a max of 4 inches. I did my research and had prepared for a Synodontis nigriventris, cycling a planted 30 gallon tank. He was in rough-ish shape when I bought him. Ive had him in a 30 gallon for about a week and he’s already looking MUCH better, chubbier and with fin webbing growing back fast. In fact, ALL of him already seems to be growing fast… I am now fairly certain I was ACTUALLY sold a Synodontis Eruptus, which look much different as juveniles than adults. They also get to be 12 INCHES!! I am already attached to the guy and happy to have helped him get patched up, but I don’t have a 50+ gallon tank. Should I try to keep him, or bring him back to petco where his health might go downhill again? Try to sell him on Craigslist? Keep him, and hope I can set up a bigger tank by the time he grows out of this one? I don’t want him to eventually eat my rummynose, either… Pic is from the day I got him. Hard to photograph due to them being nocturnal and a little shy.