DaniV

100% agree. I'm new to the hobby and I'm still debating on whether I want a Betta or a Gourami for my centerpiece fish. I am in no way capable of handling a Betta sorority when I haven't even learned how to handle a single fish (that and I don't have the tanks to do it if I wanted to, lol). If someone does have years of experience with the fish and can handle the load no problem, I say god speed!

That's such a great, funny story! If you've got other stories of Tilapia shenanigans, please share!

Just wanted to say, I am blown away at how quickly my male swordtail is growing. Took this picture November 29. The tail was just a tiny nub when I first got him and saw it was starting to grow. It's been over a week, look at it now!

After 5 daily doses of Ich-X, there are no signs of Ich anywhere! The last dose was this past Thursday, and so far everyone is looking good. I've also noticed the Swordtails getting real chummy and swimming real close. A quick Google search says it's the mating dance. Oh boy! The 5 quarantined Harlequins have been doing very well. Been feeding them, the water's holding up, so today I attempted the Med Trio with them. Here's hoping these guys can hold out without food for a little bit!

The good news is the Dalmatian Molly is now spot free! I did read that despite this, you should still treat the tank to make sure you get any stragglers, so I'll go and continue the Ich-X treatment for the remainder of the week and observe.

It holds about 7-8 gallons of water.

@Schuyler I've been following some ACO articles such as this one and this one. I added in 1 packet of the Maracyn, 1 packet of the Paracleanse, and 1 tsp of Ich-X into the water. I just came back from the LFS with 5 new Harlequin Rasboras, and the lady I talked to said they've had these fish in the tank for at least 1 month. They are as big as the surviving one I have, so hopefully I'll have better luck this time! I'm gonna feed and observe for a week with no meds and see how they do, and if they look good, then I'll start the trio all over again.

Welp, lost all but 1 of the Rasboras in quarantine! Dang! I think it was because I was trying to Med Trio fish that weren't old/big enough, they looked like they were small fry. The surviving one was the big one, so I just plopped him into the tank and we'll see where it takes us. Gonna go to a different LFS and grab some Rasbos from them and see if it makes a difference. Went and changed out the water, added some more live bacteria, and this time I'm gonna just feed and raise these guys normally for about a week before I start hitting them with meds. I really wanna get this quarantine thing down for when I get my centerpiece fish!

Woke up this morning and see that most of the remaining spots are gone from the Molly! Wahoo! I told my dad about it and he was very confused because I hadn't introduced any new fish into the tank recently. It's been almost 4 weeks since I brought in the Swordtails, haven't introduced any new plants (though I've got some in the ACO cart, gonna wait until this battle with Ich is completely over before I order them) or decor since I set up the tank itself a month ago, and I've got 2 (formerly 5) Harlequin Rasboras in quarantine. The only live things I've been adding has been frozen foods, which I feed twice a week. One day it'll be frozen brine shrimp, and another day it will be frozen bloodworms. That got my dad wondering, is it possible that Ich got carried on the brine shrimp or bloodworms?

I've noticed a big difference already after just 1 dose of the Ich-X. I don't see spots on the other fish, still a couple of small ones on the male Dalmatian Molly's tail. His energy is coming back and he's not hanging around the cave nearly as much. I did a 2nd dose and I added Aquarium Salt as per @Colu's advice, so we'll see how that goes! The meds have dyed the heater and silicone creases a pale blue, and I'm not gonna lie, I actually think it makes the tank look neat!

Last night I saw my male Dalmatian Molly had a few white spots on his tail when I came home from work. Did a little digging to see what to do, and when I checked back I saw a spot or 2 on some of my other fish. I've started dosing with Ich-X and raising the temperature to 82 degrees. Bought some Aquarium Salt, added 2 Tbls after doing a water change and 2nd dose of Ich-X. Good news is, already I see less spots on the initial Molly. Sad news is, I lost 2 of the 5 Harlequin Rasboras. I'm thinking doing the Med Trio all at once on clearly young fish may have been overkill. Maybe I should have done 1 med at a time? Hopefully the remaining 3 will survive. 1 of them did hop out of the tank when I opened the lid to scoop out the dead fish, got him back in with no issue.

Time to consult the experts! I just came home from work and I see that my male Dalmatian Molly has a few white spots on his tail, and from what I've seen on the forums and in research, it may be Ich. I've noticed for the past 2 days that he will gladly swim to eat or hang out with his buddies for a bit, but then he'd go hang out near one of the rock caves I made all by his lonesome. There are 2 other Dalmatian Mollies and 3 Swordtails in the tank, and I don't see anything on them. I've started the tank a month ago, and these were my starter/cycling fish, so they were not quarantined when I got them. I just put in 5 Harlequin Rasboras in my quarantine tank yesterday, currently being treated with the Med Trio, so I don't have a designated space to take him out and treat him. So far I don't see anything funny with the Rasboras, other than 4 of them have taken sanctuary in some pvc pipe. Should I just go ahead and drop him in with the Rasboras and treat the Ich, or should I leave him and treat the entire tank just in case? Here are my current parameters: pH: 7 Nitrates: 5 ppm Nitrite: 0 ppm Ammonia: 0 ppm Water Temperature : 80 This is the best shot I could get of him. He did not want his picture taken! Edit: Oh jeez, I had no idea Ich could move this quickly! I now see spots on another of my Dalmatian Mollies and a spot on the top fin of one of the Swordtails. I'm gonna go treat the whole tank. Does Ich usually move this quickly, or was I just really slow to see what was going on?

Last night I put together the quarantine tank, complete with seeded sponge, heater, and pipes. Went and bought 5 little Harlequin Rasboras from Petsmart, and did the Med Trio. Did not expect the Paracleanse and Maracyn to smell so strong after adding them. Guess I've got the first time jitters, hoping that the little guys can handle the meds. Setting up the tank last night! 1 of the Rasboras is bigger than the rest, I guess it's a few weeks older? Kinda hard to tell in this photo, it was the best I could get right now.Tested the quarantine water to establish a base line of sorts.

Set up the quarantine tank! A tub, heater, seeded sponge filter, and 2 pieces of pvc pipe for the fish to swim through. Gonna have it run overnight then pick up some new fish tomorrow. Here's hoping I get this right!

Assuming I've plugged everything in correctly, I'm understocked...makes sense since the tank is a month old. Give it another month and that'll change. 😛

That baby betta is so precious!!!

I blame Youtube suggestions for bringing me to aquarium videos. After seeing some cool tanks, fish, and all the cool things you can do in the hobby, I decided to give it a shot! I initially wanted to start small, a 5 or 10 gallon, but after going through some fish stores to see what was available, I was like "I wanna have more fish!" So I bought a 20 gallon column hex tank cause it looked cool, a starter kit from Petsmart, so the tank came with a heater, thermometer, hang off filter, and net. I then went and got a testing kit, an air pump, air stone, water conditioner, bacteria starter, and various plants from Petsmart, while I got gravel, a piece of driftwood, and rocks from a different LFS. I ended up buying some Easy Green from ACO at a later date to help my plants out. I was unaware of a fishless cycle, so I went with the fish-in route, and I bought 3 Dalmatian Mollies to start. 1 male, 2 females. I love these little guys, they have been very tolerant of the cycling and my bumbling! Sadly, this is when I made my first major mistake. I initially wanted to just keep the 3 Mollies until the cycling was over before I added more fish, but my dad convinced me to get more. He had aquariums for years in the past, but he just threw fish in, water parameters be damned. I had thought getting some bottom dwellers would be a good next fish to start, so I grabbed 6 Corydoras. Big mistake! One by one throughout the remainder of the cycle, they died. My dad is convinced I was sold bad fish and they starved to death, but my gut (and testing results) tell me it's because I had rising nitrites. I tried my luck again and bought 3 Swordtails, again 1 male and 2 females. And they're juveniles cause the male's sword tail is just a little nub right now, so that'll be fun to see grow! Fortunately, these guys have been holding on just like the Mollies, and everyone is getting along no problem! The Swordtails tend to stay near the bottom and middle, while the Mollies just go wherever they want. After losing my last Cory, that was when my tests showed 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites. I've been testing every 2-3 days, and today was the 3rd test in a row that showed that it's on the other side! I've been gathering everything I need to make a quarantine tank so I don't make the same mistake with the Corys (my dad thinks I'm going overboard and wasting money with all these extra steps. love the man, but he can be stubborn!). Got a tub, a little heater, a sponge filter that's being seeded in the main tank, the med trio, a clean new net, and some PVC pipe pieces for hiding spots. All I gotta do is cut into the lid for all the wires and tubing. I want to get everything together and ready to go before I fetch my next fish; possibly set up the tank this coming Saturday, have it run and settle a few days and get the fish on Tuesday when I'm off work. But I'm excited to have survived the first month with this tank! Here's to a good next month! Ze tank! The results of the water testing throughout the first month!

Hello fellow newbie! The bettas look beautiful, and best of luck to the shrimp!

@xXInkedPhoenixX @Chick-In-Of-TheSea Oh wow, that's a great trick! 1 drop and it started fizzing! I took it out, so hopefully all should be better in time. My pH has been a steady 7.5 for most of my water tests this month, and I didn't know that rocks can affect the pH levels. Good to know! Should I hold onto the rock for a future tank, or just pitch it? Just for funsies, here are the results of all of the tests I've been doing this month. Made and programmed a Google doc just for this!

@xXInkedPhoenixX All that white hard stuff on the rock in the above picture. None of the other rocks in the tank have that and they're all the same kind. Is that something I should worry about, or is that just rocks being rocks?

My first tank is finally finishing its cycling process and I have everything I need for a quarantine tank! I've gotten some ideas from my intro post, but I figured I'd get some more opinions here! The tank is a 20 gallon column hex tank with some rocks, driftwood, and a couple of plants I got at Petsmart. Thanks to the suggestions from my intro post, I'm gonna get some more plants in the future! But as far as fish go, right now I have 3 Dalmatian Mollies and 3 Velvet Wag Swordtails. I'm looking to make a community tank with a centerpiece fish (basic, I know), and I'm aware that because I'm dealing with a column tank I don't have nearly as much area to work with as a standard 20 gallon long tank. I was thinking maybe a betta or some dwarf gouramis, maybe a small group of tetras, but for all I know there's some cool fish out there that I don't know about that could work here. What has worked for you guys in a column tank?

Thank you everyone for all the wonderful suggestions! So glad I signed up on this forum! As far as algae goes, right now there's maybe a very thin film of green on a few of my rocks, but that's it. I actually re-arranged the room (which is pretty much a gaming/hangout room) so I wouldn't have the tank near the window just to avoid potential algae issues. I'll see if I can get a good pic of the rocks when I get home from work. Edit: sorry about the low quality, had to zoom in to show off the bit of green on the rock that's resting on the driftwood. Also one of the rocks has gotten really crusty, anyone know what that's about?

Thanks for the tips @xXInkedPhoenixX! I'll have to hunt down some glue in the future!

Hello! Yet another noob joins the fray! I decided to give this hobby a whirl after tumbling down the rabbit hole that is Youtube aquarium videos. Growing up my dad had a big tank with all kinds of fish in it throughout the years, and I'm honestly amazed at how much has changed from that time. I had no idea about cycling, quarantining, and whatnot, and frankly I don't think my dad did either back then. I picked up a 20 gallon tank about a month ago, and today I saw that the cycling is nearly complete! I ended up doing the fish-in method, had no idea about the fishless method until after the fact. Started with 3 Dalmatian Mollies, and I was told to add more. I (stupidly) added 6 Corydoras...none of them survived. Dad said it was because I got some bad fish, I think it's because the nitrites were getting high at the time as part of the cycling process. I added 3 Swordtails later, and they're going strong with the Mollies! I'm in the process of gathering everything I need for a quarantine tank. I don't want to make the same mistake I did with the corys and run any risks hurting what I've got so far! I put in a sponge filter to begin seeding for the quarantine tank, any idea how long it needs to be in the tank before it's ready to go? In the future I'd like to add some tetras (thinking Rummynose) and either a Betta or some Gouramis for the centerpiece fish. I'm a little hesitant to pick up more Corys since I just lost 6, so maybe a snail? My plant game needs some work too. For now I'm gonna stick with just this one. I'm certainly not opposed to getting more tanks, I just don't know where to put them! And I come with pictures!