Lennie

I personally would say no to cherry shrimp in that tank. Cardinals get big, and there is no real plant/moss cover or valid hiding spots in the tank, especially for any potential babys. Besides that, even adults would be super vulnarable during molting time without a good cover or hiding spots. Introducing them seem like a live food in this tank imo. The tank needs to be very densely planted and preferably has lots of moss, and should include lots of cover/hiding spots. I would personally skip small shrimp in a tank that you can see more than like 30% of the substrate with a look, assuming the rest is like a jungle. Also I don't know how ghost shrimp-neocaridina shrimp would do. Never kept a ghost myself

If you ask my opinion, it sounds good to me! 🙂 Or maybe keep cardinals on 14 and add a peaceful centerpiece fish. Whatever floats your boat. If you enjoy schooling more than centerpieces, go for it! I'm more into the puppy behavior when it comes to fish 😄 Just make sure to keep your readings okay and keeping up with water changes/maintenance. I personally gravel vac every week. It may sound like a lot for some people, I don't mind the maintenance. It really comes to a personal preference of keeping up with maintenance at that point! cheers,

Frankly, I think filtration is a bit overreacted topic in general. I have been using only one HOB that is good for my tank capacity, and filled it with sponge, filter wool and lots of seachem matrix and sera mini, and prefilter sponge on the intake. Never ever had a filtration problem myself ever even in my overstocked tanks. But keeping an extra sponge filter for better circulation and to move it for quarantine tanks/ another tank in an emergency situation sounds like a good idea for sure. My worry would be fish having enough space to enjoy more than filteration. One HOB with full of media and one another sponge filter is like, a lot of filtreation anyway. I have never kept 2 big groups of schooling tetras/rasboras in a 29g, so I can't say whether it is a good idea or not. I'm not sure if keeping around 30 fish from 2 different schools in middle column in a 29g is a good idea. Even sometimes my 10 rummynose school and pygmy cories together seem crowded in a 29g. Maybe someone with experience of keeping such stocking may help.

I agree with this one. My tank is overstocked, but also densely planted. I keep schools of rummy noses, pygmy cories, sterbais, L199 and a honey gourami with lots of snails and shrimps in a 29g. All I see at the end of the week before weekly water changes is 20 nitrate. But I should say, most of my plants are fast growers in that tank, especially the elodea, duckweed and salvinia as floaters. Most people hate duckweed, but it is a great assistant as much as it can be annoying sometimes. The key IMO is, introducing fish very slowly(I took months between additions of schools), keeping lots of fast growing but especially floating plants, and planning your water changes based on your nitrate readings. So in short, I would get the floating plant(s) you like the look of, and keep testing nitrate readings and plan my water changes accordingly. Meanwhile, as a suggestion, If I were to add any fish, I would increase the panda cory school just as you said, but I would get maybe one centerpiece fish instead of a school of 20 rasboras. I think 14 cardinal as a middle column swimmer in a 20g is enough, as cardinals are not really that small in size when grown. Do you enjoy small sized centerpiece fishes? 🙂

I agree with @jwcarlson. Maybe I would add fish that has been kept in very different waters than yours to that exception as well. Tank-bred ones and especially the ones being kept in your local area would perform the best imo. So I would at least try to get fish locally to match your parameters (incase your parameters match the local shop ones), and this was, assuming fish won't spend lots of time in a bag, you can drip acclimate fish safely by adding one drop of prime (just in case) and help it not stress out and increase the chance of doing good. Otherwise, when you get fish shipped, drip acclimation has contradicting opinions, and mostly not adviced as when the bag opens and air goes in, you will likely face a direct ammonia spike and fish will hurt very fast. So in shipping cases, plop and drop after getting the bag in the tank water temperature is generally seen as a better option, but different parameters, especially ph differences may affect the fish negatively. And breeders are unlikely to breed their bettas in 8.0 ph and ship them with such ph from somewhere far to you. So I would stay on the safer side, get one from lfs or maybe a local breeder, and drip acclimate it. I always did this with my fish that like soft/acidic water and have never lost a fish once ever. My water is hard and my ph is 8.2. I've never kept bettas tho. But Ive been keeping lots of other soft acidic water fish. I can't tell directly about bettas.

Yes! Once I dosed seachem equilibrium in my tank but on my the heater by a mistake as I keep it next to filter, and I got a residue all over it. But even then it was not such a thick layer as it is in this pic. In my case, it was a quarantine tank, so when I took heater off and let it dry over night, it came off easily. It was hardy and I couldn't remove it when it was wet tho. Be careful to not dmg the heater in case you decide to clean it. Heaters can be fragile. you may want to give this a try!

I've seen this once before, but like the ones in the video seem to have quite orange-y dorsal fin rims to me. I'm not sure I can tell any difference in this way personally. but I will keep that in mind Also I've just noticed the CPD behind LOL 😄

I wish I was living nearby and able to adopt some. That sounds amazing. I'm jelly!! Would love to see pics one day

😄 If dorsals don't play any role, I have no clue if there is even a valid sign to sex them as juviniles at this point.

Him now:

generally it is advised around 1m 3f ratio, but if you see no agression or problems, let them be. @Guppysnail has kept 6 since juviniles and they ended up as 5m1f and no issues at all!

Good news! Happy to hear that:)

Thanks! I agree that they are amazing. But I've kept the Ceylon version before, so I kinda don't wanna get them again 😄 Also I'm looking for more red/orange colors a lil bit that likes good substrate/lighting but no co2 :')

Okay, they seem to get huge. Looking pretty but I'm not sure about keeping one in a 50x50 now:D

I loved this idea. Kinda got hyped but just checked the stores and none left anywhere! :') The only one I can find with kinda a similar look is Crinum Thaianum. I happen to find "Persicaria Sp. Sao Paulo" in the store. I'm thinking of it for the blue spot. What do you think? Also thanks for a very detailed answer. Very appreciated!

If I happen to saw baby kuhlis, I would lose my mind over their cuteness. 😄

@Lots Of Loaches Hey, just by your name, I thought maybe you may help! As she was interested in loaches the last time we talked and as she explained some above. Any ideas? 🙂

Did they breed?? Or you just didnt know the total number? I got excited 😄

Turkey! Don't question why would I give invitro ludwigia a try. Because I don't know myself😄😄

Potted plants are cheaper in my country, sometimes they are even half the price 😄 The carpeting plants can be somehow hard to find potted here for some reason. And I agree, I had a struggle to grow even very low tech plants like in vitro ludwigia before. Sometimes only one version is available sadly.

If I manage to grow some carpet with the existing monte carlo in front, without co2, I may add some more of it! I'm observing them, as I failed carpeting dwarf hairglass before in my other tank but with worse lighting/inert substrate. I see some melting but they were invitro, so that's normal I guess. If monte carlo fails, I'm skipping carpeting 😄

Feeding nocturnal fish during night time is the best idea. Same goes for plecos as well. They are generally shy, and even smaller fish bother them and move them away from food during day-time feeding, even when they try to be brave! 😄 So try dropping a piece of food when the lights are off. They are likely to go for it! Maybe check in an hour or so, if they show any interest. with a low lighting flashlight or something maybe. Sometimes trying different type of food is better. You may wanna try giving them some other food options too. Also observe how much they eat for some time, like if you wake up with some uneaten food, next time try dropping a smaller version of food! It generally means you are overfeeding, even if kuhlis had a chance to take a bite. And overfeeding will cause to foul your water. Also if they are new, let them settle for a lil. Keep feeding in smaller portions. Maybe you can try repashy or some other stuff. small frozen food too! I usually try to drop small portions next to my fish when they are new. They tend to be more skittish, especially if they are nocturnal.

Hey guys, I hope you are doing well! As maybe some of you have seen, I have been setting up a new tank, a 50x50cm cube. I've planted it to some extend with the following; On the wood: Java fern, Bucephalandra needle leaf, On middle to front side: Hygrophila difformis, Cryptocoryne beckettii, Cryptocoryne wendtii green, Hydrocotyle verticillata Background: Ludwigia ovalis (right side) Cardamine lyrata Vietnam (left side) My water parameters: around 7 gh, 20 kh, 8.2ph. Light and substrate: I have a high tech LED, and my substrate is Tropica Aquasoil No Co2 I wanna try new plants in this tank, and I already have amazon sword types, elodea anacharis, java moss, salvinia, Hygrophila polysperma Ceylon, dwarf lily, Limnophila Sessiliflora on my other tank. The plants I've failed to grow before in my water are: Cabomba and sp. japan. I think the locations I marked on the picture seems empty even considering everything will grow and cover those areas sometime later. I feel like adding more variety sounds cool, especially some colors, as it is mostly green plants. I wonder what would you guys suggest. I don't wanna add any moss to this one. Was planning to introduce a subwassertang, but it came in a really bad condition. Here is the picture of the tank and spots: I thought maybe I can train my extra Lily to stay low on pink circle. and Alternanthera reineckii mini on red part. No clue about the other spots. Many thanks in advance! P.s: ignore the airstone and heater, just there for circulation and keeping it at 24C for now.

That's interesting to hear. If you happen to have a post about breeding them in a tank or willing to write one someday, I would be interested in to read that one. I love reading and learning from experiences. That one sounds like a such a unique and rare experience. I wonder what their babies even look like! 😄 You are right, almost all fish, except the mix-breeds and such, started from a point to be bred in tanks but collected from wild before ofc. I agree with ottos being one of the most abused ones as well. It is just I don't understand why they are so popular and seem like a must in a algae clean up crew. I thought maybe its the small size of them, like you can fit ottos in a size where you cannot put a SAE group in for example. But even Cory mentions that he only has 6 in a 800g tank of his in the video. Considering they need lots of surface to graze on, and enjoy a big school, it makes it harder to keep them in small tanks happy anyway. Cory also mentions that maybe you keep 5-6 on a 30g, but suddenly lose one on 10th month, because they cant eat enough over the course of time. So their small sizes does not make any sense to me when I try to relate to their popularity. So yea, I just can't understand the point why ottos seem crucial part of a clean up crew, but not something else when the internet is full of experiences that they die in very high numbers and do bad in general. I personally have not ever met someone wanting to keep a tank for the look or characters of ottos and build around them. Maybe it is just me. I've heard tons of stories of people talking about their cichlids, gouramis, loaches, corydoras, etc tho. So I can't understand do we really need them, if it is not something only specific to them. Just my thoughts, feel free to ignore please. I'm thinkin out loud :' People also still discuss about the prices of cpd or even cherry shrimps in some countries, and they are quite easy to breed, even for a regular person at home. I don't think tank bred ottos becoming a part of this cycle anytime soon, as they are super hard to breed, even for breeders, or maybe just less valuable economically? It seems very hard to meet the demand with tank breds, or maybe ever, until we understand them better some day. But it is ofcourse nice that you had a chance to breed and rehome some. It sounds like an exciting and very rare experience. And it was succesfully met the demand of some people you rehomed them to, which is definitely something worthy. I wish I could have a chance to keep some tank-bred ones. I believe they are doing much better than wild ones in the tanks. Would love to see pictures one day if you have any saved. I love baby fish 😄 Have a good one!

Hey, I was watching my 29g and wanted to show you what a baby mts look like, next to a juvinile. Not even an adult:D