Lennie

That is a question that is all about personal liking really If you ask me, Id rather have one schooling middle column swimmers, one school of bottom dwellers, and one centerpiece fish. Centerpiece fishes usually end up being more characteristic and have a name. You bond with it more. To me, schooling fish are just visually nice, but that's about it. It is very unlikely you will feel bonded or name a schooling fish That being said, you will be the one looking at your tank everyday. As long as you pay attention to their needs and maintenance, it is up to you really. There is no "better". But, I think especially in smaller sized tanks, it looks nicer and less crowded and balanced nicer if you keep fish from different swimming levels. Both cpds and neons are fairly same level swimmers mainly, so keeping the stock as it is, and adding bottom dwellers for some new variety and a centerpiece fish for character can be nice. But again, it's me

I would personally try breeding my cpds to increase their school with my own fry and collect eggs as much as I can/want At the same time, quarantine the new neon tetras in a separate tank. or I would increase the neon school, leave cpds as it is, and add a single centerpiece fish like maybe a common easy to keep at tap water type of male apistogramma or a betta

Red lizard whiptails are a bit small tho. Not tiny but still small. In your tank size, I think a small group of royal farlowellas would look nicer. But I dont have them and they might not need but highly appreciate wood I believe for camouflage and hiding I realised I forgot to answer the algae eating part. If I am not mistaken, farlowellas are more likely to consume algae as that’s what they basically eat. I would not expect algae eating from red lizard whiptails, they dont even really touch the diatom/soft green algae in my experience

Hello there, I currently have farlowellas and keeping and bred red lizard whiptails I will try to answer your questions They do not eat plants. They jump around from one leaf to another like Tarzan sometimes, it is fun. My red lizard whiptails got fairly inactive when I moved them to a species only tank and breeding started. Their main tank had no pvc pipes and only natural hiding points and such so they were mainly out. Idk if it is the age, or the tank design suitable for their needs resulting in more hide-y behavior Some people say farlowellas may refuse to eat but mine eat Algae tabs well. I try to give three different ones. Red lizards to enjoy more carnivorous stuff in their diet tho while farlowellas are more of a herbivore I wouldnt say wood is a must for red lizards, but likely a must for farlowellas as they tend to camouflage and hide. Both love planted tanks Red lizards are not known very much about. But they kinda love it warmer I believe. Mine bred around 28C but I kept them at lower temps before. They still like it a bit warm but angelfish temps should be fine I believe Malik has a good care guide so I drop it here. It was very useful for me when I got them for the first time. If you have any question, I may help if I know the answer Oh and both love leaf litter. Banana leaves being my red lizards number one favorite thing This is where I used to have my red lizards and planning to introduce them back soon I always had wood included, including their breeding species only tank. But Malik doesn’t have one I suppose?

The downside is, fry barely show interest towards it in my experience. I just see it as an extra food source for my fry between fry food feedings until they are ready to eat live bbs. Since they last long in the freshwater and dont spoil the water and easy to culture, it is a good choice between fry food feedings. Hardly well accepted tho

Whiptails/farlowellas

Hobby is not nature. That is an important point to keep in mind. With this mentality, it would be impossible to keep many fish (especially so many community tanks that everyone does right now), corals and anemones that exist in the freshwater, ocean or seas to start with. OR basically anything really until we perfectly have what nature has. Consider how high a regular home tank is no matter what. Imagine reflecting the need of a depth of an ocean fish or coral directly by using the same height at home. Technically we cannot keep everything alive in the home aquaria, but we do for many too, that comes from very different requirements and depth. None of us can serve what nature does. Our home tanks are limited with what we introduce to an X liters of a glass tank at home. Even a glass of water from a regular pond or a lake would be nothing like a glass of tank water at home. Besides everything that exists in the water of a natural freshwater and saltwater biome and the natural balance, it is basically impossible to imitate what nature goes through. Even on a daily basis. Seasonal changes. Their effect on eating habit and breeding. And numerous other things. In our home tanks; -we use mosses, plants(which are commonly not even fully submersed in nature at all but you keep them this way at home aquarium) woods and rocks that come from all around the world from different places, -we do not reflect the seasonal and daily changes by any means, match "natural" water parameters, try to imitate their "nature" by using pvc pipes, pleco caves or cichlid caves which surely does not exist in the nature at all, -feed them so many different foods that besides not reflecting their seasonal feeding system, commonly not reflecting what they directly eat in nature at all. That being said majority of the food being the flakes or pellets itself, and nature does not dump in flakes/pellets once or twice a day; -use botanicals and woods/sticks and rocks that probably don't even exist in their nature in that region, -keep fish, plants, corals and woods from all around the world with different needs in the same tank, that being said the "fish" here probably subject to selective breeding for ages to look better to the human eye and nothing like their wild counterpart, which makes the fish itself not a part of the nature as it is -using filters, artificial lights, heaters that keep the tank stable temp all day and year long and many other equipments... co2 dosing, high tech setups, Aquascapes... -Stocking fish, critters, snails, corals, anemones and shrimp from all around the world in the same tank. - Only wanting what's pleasing and positive to the eye of us. A regular introduction of a leech, pest snail, detritus worms or a parasite directly leads people to use of medication/treatment and getting rid of anything we don't want in, where they are plenty in nature. -And most importantly, water sitting in an X gallon of glass, with no freedom. Only stocked and look as we please. How is that nature? How do we reflect nature here? And you think I mislead people by saying well maintained and properly designed/planned overstocked tanks result in happier fish is misleading? Well, that's my experience that ranges from very lightly stocked tanks to crowded well balanced overstocked tanks with a fishroom of 24 tanks. I share my experience and I say it directly, not saying it as a scientific fact. If you ask me, fish don't like being isolated and much happier in a good peaceful community tank. Even the shyest of my fish start dancing around and swimming freely if they are kept in a well maintained and scaped overstocked tanks. I would appreciate to hear from anyone that has the opposite experience for a peaceful community tank. And by overstocking, I don't mean dumping in 60 different same level swimming tetras in a 30g tank ofcourse. Any reasonable person may understand what's being meant here Also, as they home aquariums are limited by every perspective and are not truly a part of the nature, many stuff that works in the nature may fail hard in the hobby. HAve you ever seen a regular discus in nature? And how pristine the tanks and water parameters are in general for hobby discus keeping? OR their natural diet being mostly algae based and changing seasonally depending on the rainy and dry seasons, while discus in the hobby being almost totally fed like carnivores? There are soooo many things to discuss until it comes to the difference between 25 cm to 35 height difference being misleading and comparing it to the nature of the fish. Both does not reflect the true nature of natural height anyway. Especially considering the water levels can be even subject to change based on the season itself

Population control on MTS does not exactly work like any other in my experience. Having food options available indeed helps them to increase their population. But in any case, they increase their population no matter what. My advice is; learn to love them. Accept them as a part of your tank. Otherwise, you cannot use anything from that tank again, because it will be never MTS free. These guys are everywhere. Only a single baby hitchhiking or surviving out of thousands is enough to come back after months. Good thing is they are beneficial, and they dont really come out during daytime. They can be also good for some cichlids as some cichlids can be too aggressive to keep together with any clean up crew members

I disagree I would rather see height as an extra positive side but wouldn't compare it to depth and lenght in general. At the end of the day, fish don't swim strictly up and down. Almost always swimming back and forth. I am keeping my a.erythruras tio and triple red cacatuoides in 25cm high tanks with no aggression issues. I bet it was your tank's footprint and design. There is no way a tall 20g Hex tank is better than 20gLong for apisto if you ask me. Or to be fair, for any fish overall. Your apistos and kuhli loaches maybe acted in a better way due to having dithers around on top or having more space. More space is always welcomed anyway However, that does not make length and depth less important than the height tho. Believe me, shallow tanks work wonders except for tall species like angelfish or discus. I have 17 shallow tanks and I have not seen any observable difference between shallow tanks and normal height tanks, excluding tall fish. It is all about the footprint. Some of my shallow tanks are 110x40x25cmh for example. Although they hold less water than my 50x50x50cube, they are much better for fish due the swimming space it provides. That being said, every fish that requires a tall tank, already needs the length and depth anyway. In my experience, long and deep overstocked tanks with proper care and scaping are the happiest tanks. Tall but lacking lenght/depth or small tanks overall serve to the human eye or needs, not the fishes. The reason might be wanting to try a nano tank and finding tall tank aesthetically pleasing, lacking space, cost, or any other. But small or only tall tanks do not prioritise the fish needs if you ask me.

Unless you have extreme parameters, they would spawn. These fish are not needy and don't require very specific conditions. Thats the only real way of being sure of a "pair". Otherwise, sexually mature cichlids in general don't spend time together nonstop. If they look like a male and female, and tend to be together all the time, I would say very likely they are a pair. Speaking of the "pairing" here, I remember @beastie sharing her experience about her b.rams not exactly forming long lasting pairs. Maybe she can share some experience as she started with a group of juveniles ended up having two spawning pairs.

Im not sure if the question here is purely salt. Reef tank and saltwater tank salts have many things added besides the salt itself, as people use RODI and use these reef/salt mixes to reach ideal tank water.. You might be seeing the residue of many things and I don’t think it is just salt, if any

Walnut is a question mark. Especially black one. And there can be hybrids I guess, I don't know but I remember reading something like that in the past. The toxicity is mainly related to juglone from what I understand. Some people say they face no problems meanwhile others mentioning they faced deaths. I have been gifted some leaves from a friend but I hesitated to use any. There are studies that show the toxicity of juglone on fish. Also, Ive seen people mentioning problems they face too Idk how it works or a few leaves pose any danger to the tank, but I prefer to be safe rather than sorry. So I did not use the leaves in my case

Hello Chuckie, I would not go for monte carlo in a lowtech setup. I invested in it in three different tanks with different heights and lights (one being hightech light= including aquasoil but no co2. Never worked for me. It really needs that juicy co2 if you ask me. Crypt is a great idea. Maybe you can change monte carlo with crypt lucens, they are tiny crypts, so may help you to have a more naturalistic look due to varying sizes of plants, popping up next to a rock or wood work, etc. Java Ferns (both normal ones and windelov) are accepted as beginnner friendly, but they never do well in my tanks. Only way to figure out if a plant would work for your tank is to try. And this can be sadly costy. I would surely buy a bigger sized anubias, not petite. Petites are super small. Nana for smaller size and barteri for medium size is a better choice imo, unless one is willing to invest in so many petites to create a different style. For your tank size, I would go for nana instead. Ive never had microsword so I cannot comment on that one.

Yes you can. I always hatch them at room temp. So it takes around 1.5 days to hatch bbs at max rate for me. I use magnetic eggs soo all unhatched and hatched eggs do not mix to the water part. I add some of the water full of bbs to a new cup. I add one drop of prime. I noticed this helps a lot to prevent it going bad and smelly in my experience. Then, I fill up the cup with the new brine water I make and add an airtube that works on very low. This way I always have a small batch available for fry until the next batch is ready. That being said, there is a study done about bbs losing caloric value. So the sooner you feed it, the better. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=srhonorsprog

Dear Ryan, I am no mod here but the link given and opinion shared about a website/company that is not stated in the guideline seems to be against the forum rules. I would delete the topic personally. https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/guidelines/

I would also lean towards cycling the filter with bottled ammonia rather than fish food in a 125g. Thats big and would require dumping in so much fish food that would create a big mess. I dont like adding fish food directly to the tank anyway. I also dont like adding fish food directly to the tank as it is messy,so I would either add the fish food in a very fine purigen bag and add the food to the tank this way ( I cycled my reef tank this way by putting shrimp in a purigen level fine bag), or directly use bottled ammonia like Dr Tims. Or, my fish food preferred method is, cycling the filters in a tub. Add bottled bacteria, squeeze filters in the tub and add fish food. Reaching wanted ammonia levels is much easier in a tub, and, you can just squeeze the nasty stuff before moving cycled filter to the actual tank

Hello Nikhil Some pods, cones, leaves, twigs and woods are safe for fish tanks. You can google what are safe aquaric botanicals and what are not. I personally collected my last batch in our hiking trip with my family. I use our pesticide free naturally dried banana leaves from our garden, and I sometimes order catappa leaves and alder cones online. The key here is being safe for the fish tank and not being subject to pesticides and such as well as being away from the car gasses, toxic fumes.. etc. you get the idea I believe In terms of scaping the tank, I would simply google your tank size and check for aquascaping styles you like and try creating something similar based on your own liking and material/plant/decor a availability. You can find many ideas on youtube and pinterest what filter is that? I cant see well. If you increase the water level, without a lid, it would be risky for fish to jump. So better get or DIY a lid first, and raise the water level afterwards. once the water level is increased, you wont see the light reflection I believe. It seems this way just because the water level is low and pic is taken from a lopsided angle

0.25 ammonia can be easily used by the plants/algae or can be a misreading

better safe than sorry. Either you or someone else reading this topic may think bumblebees and assasins are the same snails and could end up buying saltwater ones by mistake since they have a similar look. Therefore I wanted to mention it. Some even call black yellow striped horned nerites bumblebee too. A bit confusing to use that term here🙂

Ghost feed until you read around 1-2mg/l ammonia and let the bacteria populate and work their thingy. Once ammonia turns into nitrite and nitrite turns into nitrate and all ammonia and nitrite clears up and you only read nitrate, you can slowly stock the tank

bumblebee snails are saltwater. assasin snails are freshwater No it is not safe to keep mystery snail and assasins together. I had adult mystery snail death in a assasin snail tank and it was big but not even old.

Doesn't matter. But I feel like mine looked the best on JBL manado. Maybe Im making it up. I kept mine on Tropica aquasoil and beige fine sand too. No obvious changes in color. They are mainly top to mid dwellers anyway

Here is what I would do: Black background to match the bottom side of the tank and cover the filter in the background and look better and complete more naturalistic aquascaping and planting Buying or making a lid, filling water to the top. Such low water level to secure lowering the risk of jumping does not look nice, and the LED reflects to the eye and disturbing instead of peaceful. Add a couple variety of botanics. Botanics take it to the next level And last, keeping the tank glasses clean. It makes a big difference in terms of look as well

First, their origin is unknown. Therefore this makes stuff harder to know about their nature. Some say they came from nature, some say they are selectively bred and some say they are hybrids. Also there are two versions from what I understand, actually red ones and more of the browns/hybrids. Malik says they can breed with close species and this is much easier than breeding the actual reds, ending up hybrid babies that I guess are infertile? Is breeding them easy? I wouldn't say so. To me, I categorise like this: easy is guppies, bristlenose plecos, or basically any fish that requires almost no attention to breed.. Medium level is german blue rams, due to requiring specific conditions and fry needing attention. Hard is fish that are quite hard to reach success, need very specific conditions and environment, pairing, mating and egg keeping process, keeping eggs fungus free and alive, etc. like betta macrostoma. And I would say very hard for rarely or never homebred fish. In my opinion I would say these guys would fall anywhere between medium to hard. To me, keeping them in a species only tank planted and huge wood piece with varying lenght of small hole pvc pipes (even floating options) and lots of leaf litter (mine's fav is banana leaves) worked. I bred them at 28C. Their fry is very VERY hard to keep alive in the main tank. They basically stick themself to the glass and do nothing. I haven't seen them feeding of natural growth nor any grazing too. I have never seen any making it through even in a species only tank by themself. I always raised babies in a seperate container. First couple days frequent water changes between feedings, live plants, leaf litter, baby mystery snail from helping to clean food and their poop may source some infusoria naturally, then live bbs once they start eating it. I know some people do an actual spirulina soup in the tank for whiptail babies but these guys are not heavily herbivores like many others. Now Im gonna mention the negative side. Providing them pvc tubes and making them go for the potential breeding activities fairly decrease their activity level in the tank. And they can get protective and territorial. They are more of a joy to keep in the tank rather than setting up a breeding tank I would say. They would jump from one leaf to another, graze around, play as a group. The breeding acting killed all of these acts. Which is a big negative IMO

Sera Micron until they start eating live bbs. As soon as they eat live bbs, I feed that. I also keep lots of leaf litter all the time