Lennie

@Tommy Vercetti That looks really pretty. I like it! Im thinking of trying something like this. Nooo way I am getting this many plants at once obviously. But it gave me an inspiration! I should visit my lfs to check some wood/stone options sometime. The tank I liked the most by now that seems to have similar look to mine is this one: I've never used aquasoil before tho. So I am not sure if I should give it a try. Im scared of it messing up with my water parameters even if I have a hard water, 20 kh and 8.2 ph in tap. I have neo and tropical aquasoil options available in my lfs. Btw, @Patrick_G, I ordered a better lighting this time. Still on the cheaper end, but also suitable for high tech tanks. Not planning to have co2 system so won't be forcing high tech part a lot for sure, but I may give monte carlo carpeting a try. I only find them being sold in vitro here tho. I heard some people facing melting issues while doing dry start, while others say dry start for in vitro is better. *confusion* I'd rather not do a dry start I guess as I will already have to keep up with lots of water changes for a month if I use aquasoil as they tend to leech a lot, including ammonia. So no fishies for a month after starting the tank already :')

That's really interesting. When I was transferring some plants to my quarantine tank, I washed the cuttings like 10 times and observed them closely, dropped every baby snail I've found back to the tank. . Still found two hitchhiker MTS in quarantine 😄 These snails really surprise me every time 😄 I want them to stay alive, but only in my main tank :'). I can def try this to prevent hair algae transfer or whatsover tho. Very useful info, thanks for sharing!! That looks like a too much work and effort put in, wow. Def gonna read it in depth when I have time! Believe it or not, seltzer water is not common here at all. It is not the same thing with mineral water right? We have some options like carbonated natural mineral waters too. Maybe it is a similar thing but under different names. I gotta read it post in depth before! thanks again 🙂

@Patrick_G To my liking, your tank looks great. I really enjoy the overgrown jungle look🙃. As long as you keep species that dont need so much open space, I feel like fish/shrimp enjoy it as much as we do as well! My gourami loves to sleep on top of floating elodeas every night! Yea, MD just instantly puts lots of plants, woods, etc. directly which really requires a good amount of budget. My main tank is full of MTS. I love them, they help me a lot with the maintenance and keeping the tank healthy, but I don't wanna transfer them to my new tank, at least for now. So I guess I will have to buy new plants from 0 instead of getting cuttings from my 29g :'). Goodbye money. Btw, I tried carpeting plants before. I planted some dwarf hairgrass, but over time they all ended up dying in my 29g which has a 40 cm height. I believe it was my LED as it is a cheap one and probably not great to reach substrate level to grow a carpet. My plants generally have an okay growth but I realize my fast growing root feeder plants create new leaves not tightly until they reach to the surface. Considering my next one is a 50cm cube, I give it a very low chance to grow any carpet. If dwarf hairglass does not work, Idk what can 🤣 And I love the main display tank in your bio. Do you use dirt on the bottom or just inert substrate and root tabs or something? Looks gorgeous man. Keep it up!

Sorry for the late reply! thanks for sharing the blog post. I've also watched the care guides of Cory and Prime Time Aquatics and searched more on barbs. The key seems to be keeping them in a bigger group as much as possible, 12 being the bare minimum. But I've learnt them being jumpers!! No lid guy here. 😶Sounds like a goodbye to tiger barbs. Also Prime time Aquatics was suggesting at least 4ft tank, 55g if not 3 ft bare minimum as they are crazy energetic and tend to be aggressive. Angels have always been one of my favs, and also I know that they are one of the few fish that enjoys height in a tank and they are considerably calm and not super active swimmers. Maybe I can keep one or two in a 33g? I will search more on that one. I read controversial opinions about angels. Some say directly no less than 55g meanwhile others say 29g and above. Idk how 2 would do together if I get them as juviniles and raise them together. I wouldn't like to keep a breeding pair. They breed easily and in very high numbers. Scary 😄 My lfs has kept his 3 angels over a 10 yr in his display tank which is around 29g but high I bet. They literally aged with me during my childhood. They were looking pretty happy and healthy actually. Angels, just like barbs, will be very likely to bully the snails tho. So that is still pretty questionable for me. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/angelfish-care-guide this blog post suggests 4 angels in 29g. I’ve also watched Dean’s video and he recommends 4 adult angelfish in a 29g community tank. I’m not sure how suitable they are for a 33g after reading so much about them. If they are, how many sounds like a good idea? Would love to hear more about opinions/experiences with angels!

Personally, I keep fish like rummy noses, honey gourami, pygmy cories etc with my water parameters which is pretty hard, gh around 7, kh 20, ph 8.2. These fish naturally like more acidic and softer waters. But I have been having them successfully, 0 disease, 0 deaths, whatsoever. My cories started breeding recently. I got them tank bred and from my local lfs. To my belief, the question is if you are keeping fish that has been raised in water parameters that are similar to yours, or if the fish you are keeping are wild caught or raised in very different water parameters to yours. Because, for example, if a rummy nose fry is raised in a hard water and high ph, it has never been in the wild life parameters during its whole life. I feel like, putting such fish into an acidic super soft water which meets wild life parameters would cause the actual damage at that point. Same goes for the opposite. If you try to keep a wild fish or a tank bred fish that has been raised into and used to live in water parameters which are soft and acidic, introducing it to your hard/high ph water later on is more likely to cause issues. Sensetive breeds like caridina shrimps would be an exception for this and better be kept at what they require I believe. In this regard, I think it makes sense to pay attention to if they are tank bred and if so, if they have been raised in/being kept in similar to your water parameters. Also keeping the same parameter they are used to is a better option then playing around it a lot. Fish enjoy stable environment. I have around 10 nitrates in my water. I used to mix my water changes half RO- half tap water to decrease the kh/ph a little. But for the last 4 months, I stopped it. It didnt really make much difference on my parameter readings no matter what, also it makes it a bit complex to try to balance the minerals and such with the RO water addition. You may check this topic. I'm not super experienced about tap water nitrate readings. But all I can say is my tank is overstocked, and I see max 20ppm nitrate right before weekly water changes thanks to keeping easy buy fast growing plants. Floating plants such as Elodea, duckweed, salvinia, hornwort, etc. help a lot with nitrates. Some people keep the roots of fast growing plants in the tank like pothos too. Changing substrate in a 200L can be a lil harder compared to a smaller sized tank as it is generally adviced to seperate a good amount of old tank water before emptying the tank for the substrate change. I've used JBL Aquabasis as soil in my tank, and topped it with clay based substrate for a good 6 cm, this way it does not leach also the dirt is made for the aquarium use anyway. I wouldnt use normal plant soil personally, especially after I've seen it killing all the roots of the aquatic plants in one of MD Fish Tanks' tank. It was really bad looking. I'm not experienced with active substrates. Also, You dont need soil to grow plants. If you are gonna use sand, then yes, using a substrate on the bottom that will let plants to grow roots is a good idea, as sand kinda blocks it. But you can always use root tabs in inert substrate. You can check MD Fish Tank's setup videos, he has plenty!

LOL happens! At least you have a clue regarding dwarf rainbows and rummy noses' behavior vs honeys from my experience! 😄

No, honey gouramis are not a schooling fish. They can show signs of communication with each other in tanks where they are kept with other honeys like @Guppysnail mentioned! But even 1m:2/3f ratio does not seem to play any role in her experience which is usually adviced. That is why I love hearing about experiences rather than reading on paper alone 🙂I'm sharing @Irene's video below where she is also talking about her experience about keeping honeys and seeing no actual schooling behavior, or even some bully action between the females in quarantine tub! I keep mine as a centerpiece fish in 29g. They can do great alone. They have kind of a reputation to be shy, but mine has never been shy since day 1. But yea, if you are searching for a schooling fish, they will not show the schooling behavior you want. But if you want a centerpiece fish or as a small group, go for it! All the schooling fish you mention are great. I'm keeping 10 rummy noses in my 29g with a honey gourami. They seemed to be interested in its long feelers on the first day and randomly tried to nip the feelers, but they stopped such behavior afterwards. But in the store, they were keeping honey gouramis with dwarf rainbows and they were somehow bullying honeys and stucking them to the corners nonstop. They didn't let them swim at all. I would not keep them with rainbows after seeing that personally. Here is the video!

That is interesting to hear. thanks!

I am very confused reading it. Could you please explain the questions you have more in detail? Would like to help if I can! Besides all that, all of the fishes you mention require bare min of 6 but preferably at least 10 school size. The more of the same species the better. But I believe considering those fishes all share the same level of water column, mid swimmers, I would stick to good size of 2 schools ideally. In 200 liters, I believe you can easily stick to 2 big groups of schooling fish or one rly big group depending on your liking. Therefore, I highly advice to choose one or two of your schooling fish and to increase their school size slowly over time. 11 total fish out of 4 different fish that should be kept with many others from the same species does not sound like a good idea. You may want to decide one or two from the cardinals/embers/barbs. Handling this issue should be a good idea before considering to add any bottom dwellers 🙂 I personally would not keep my corys or bottom dwellers like them on a gravel. Round gravels would pose a less potential dmg than sharper ones for sure, but you can easily see how much they enjoy sifting the sand/small soft substrates. They spend most of their daily time doing either that or just sleeping. Being damaged by it is another question, but gravels don’t seem to be what they enjoy the most, that’s for sure. So I would not get and put them in a tank that they won’t enjoy as they won’t be able to perform their most basic action on a desired level ever. What bottom dweller you wanna keep is also kind of an important question here I guess? I couldn’t understand the 50/50 part and lfs water difference part well. If you explain further, I may try to help cheers,

Honeys are adorable. What is your m:f ratio? There were only bois in my lfs when I visited, they all seemed to keep their territory even in the store tank. So I thought keeping one could be the best choice for me. I would love to see more of their natural behavior if I had a chance to keep 1m:2f/3f or something

Im cheating and adding some of my pygmys sleeping on anubias leaves after a meal. They are here to steal your heart

@TheSwissAquaristIt is java moss! They have been doing great in my tank, and I barely trim them as my shrimps enjoy spending time inside it a lot. Sadly it got covered in hair algae recently as I mentioned above. They seem to enjoy it still, so I’m okay with the look as long as they are happy. Not planning to dose anything for algae, I’m learning to live with it 😄 I have no experience of spawning them before! But plant cover seems to be a place they prefer to lay on as @Guppysnail and @nabokovfan87 mentioned! But I believe feeding frozen brine shrimp/bloodworms followed by a cooler water change what triggers the spawning rather than mosses! As I’ve seen hem laying eggs on the glass even when there are so many plants/ rocks/driftwood/seramic pleco home around.

Here is a pic of my 29g to give and idea how planted it is for cory eggs. Sadly dealing with mts bloom and hair algae since I left for military service, and I got my taken care of my parents when I’m away. No biggies tho. It will gradually fix itself I believe when I keep up with the maintenance! Lily bulb sitting in front expecting it to root again to maybe use in on my new tank too. Also ignore the sponge, my black one died, so I put this in temporarily:) I couldn’t see any cory eggs in the morning with a quick peek. I hope there are some hidden well:)

Thanks for letting me know! A bigger but longer tank was also around the same pricing where I was shopping, but it had a lid system and a topping furniture (how they are called exactly) which are not something I usually like going for. So I decided to buy this one! My current tank is one I've been keeping in the basement for ages, it has in built filter system and t8 fluorescence light lid normally(yea it is old). I removed everything and got a HOB and LED lights, using it lidless 😄 Thankfully the tank itself was in good condition and no leaking whatsoever at the end of a year. I can't seem to be deciding on my stocking plans yet. If I got something bigger, I would get tiger barbs tank and introduce rabbits to 29g community maybe. But 33g cube doesn't seem tiger barb friendly. Those guys are really active and energetic!! I will see more on stocking options. Any opinion is welcomed again. cheers!

SAE are more commonly advised to be kept in groups, generally 5 or more to prevent territory and agression related behaviors. Meanwhile some people keep them alone, I've read they don't like to be kept alone. I remember reading they can have issues if kept in numbers between 1-5, especially as 2. I used to search a lot about them when I was setting up my 29g. They do get big tho, and a group of 5 in 30g sounds way too much. That is the reason why I personally never went for them, they seem to be a great part of clean up crew but in much bigger tank sizes. Otos are adorable but I personally don't like wild caught fish keeping, as they seem to be super sensetive and very commonly not doing well being introduced to tanks. It is hard but possible to find tank bred ones, but I don't have any here available locally. Up to you! If you are planning to add woods to your tank, what do you think of Clown Plecos? They are on my list for my new tank! Also they will tend to hide during the day and let you visually enjoy your schooling fish display. And whenever you have a chance to see the lil fella, you will enjoy the beauty. I'm very likely to add one in my next 33g!! They stay pretty small in size too. With the addition of snails and shrimps as you've mentioned, they would make a great crew together 🙂

I used to feed twice a day until all my fish are out of their juvinile phase. Now I feed the tank only once a day. I have an autofeeder sitting around for holidays and I can easily set it for the mornings but I still prefer only one time feeding. Ideally feeding more than once but in smaller amounts sounds to be a better option for sure. But when I do that, my rummy noses are active and much faster compared to my L199 and corys, they end up attacking the bottom dwellers' wafers even if I feed them beforehand. Light feeding twice a day means bottom dwellers not getting any food for me. And dropping a wafer in the night means an MTS population bloom, as plecos kinda eat messily. I agree with the friends explanations above. I personally see my sterbais, L199 and MTS to be active in the night, meanwhile pygmy corys, honey gourami and rummy noses sleeping and inactive. I would say based on your fish, you gotta observe how everything is going during feeding time and how active/inactive they are during the night. Hope it helps 🙂

I feel like as long as you get local tank bred fish that are used to your parameters, I think it is unlikely to cause any issues. I am personally keeping rummy noses, cories, honey gourami at 8.0 ph and hard water without any issues. But if they were wild caught, or grown up in very different parameters, that would be very likely cause some problems for sure. Your tank is roughly 30g, I have a 29. I personally like keeping at least one centerpiece fish in my tanks where I see some puppy behavior >:D Tetras,Danios,Barbs etc are great, and considering you have a long tank, they would enjoy the lenght of the swimming space for sure. I still think you can add one centerpiece fish there. Don't get me wrong, schooling fish provide an amazing display and activity especially in a planted tank! But puppies!! 😄 If I would like to keep a schoaling fish only tank and had a big enough tank available, Tiger barbs are on the top of my list. Amazing coloring and display. Crazy, energetic and hardy. But they usually do better in minimum of 12+more groups to lessen the potential agressive behavior. Also 50g+ could be an ideal minimum choice there I guess as they get kinda big and tend to become more agressive in smaller tanks! Hoping to keep them one day myself. Agressive behavior may kill the joy you get from the fishies sadly. If you are only planning to keep a specific shoaling fish, I would go to the store and check what you would like to see in your tank. I personally like the idea of building a tank around what you wanna keep the most. Neons are classic and would look good. If you have asked my mom, she would love neons over my rummy noses any day 😄but I am the opposite. I personally like the behavior of pygmy cories more than any other schooling fish in nano tanks. They sleep on anubias leaves as a group all the time. I don't need to explain much. Would love to see more about the tank in the future!

Hello there! My main tank I have been taking care of for a year by now and started the hobby back after ages is a 29g tank. I am keeping my tank a bit overstocked but I stocked it over the year and very slowly. It is densely planted and I don’t mind keeping up with water changes and gravel vacuuming every week personally. I have a past experience on fish keeping so I can safely overstock a little. In my tank, I have a L199, 4 nerite snails, orange sakura shrimps idk how many, 5 sterbais, 6 pygmy cories, one male honey gourami, one borneo sucker, 10 rummy-nose tetras. You may have some questions on your mind after you read that stocking list: First of all, I would love to keep 6 sterbais min, but my lfs had only 5 left when I was getting my corys and sterbais are generally one of the few that does okay in higher temperatures, and they didnt have them in stock for so long again so I couldnt increase school size to 6. During summer time I even see up to 47C outside, and it make my tanks rise up to 32-33C. so I thought sterbais would be one of the few good choices. They have been schooling well and even spawning now after a year! So I think they are happy as they are. My borneo sucker does great and always seem to be super active and healthy even their best condition is high flow, cooler and very well oxygenated tanks. I watched lots of videos, and listened about Cory keeping them warmer waters and them even breeding. I personally haven’t observed any quality life issues for the fishy too. In opposite, it is looking awesome. pygmy cories were the last addition and I’ve been in love with them forever but generally I believe it is better to keep same schooling species in higher numbers rather than having two schools with a lower number. I’ve seen them in the shop placed in the closest tank to the door, everytime someone uses the door, they were having a heart attack :,) I decided to brought them home. Maybe an excuse to get them! 😄 They are one of the cutest fish I’ve kept if not the cutest. As long as you can find tank bred ones, which isnt hard to do, I would suggest keeping them. They sleep on anubias leaves and rocks together and my heart. Cutest sht ever. rummy noses are beautiful but I would get smaller sized schooling fish for the middle in a 29g if I stock it again. They were just super white faced and showing no color at the shop, they are super duper red and happy rn. Honeys are the best but I advice keeping one as a centerpiece. Mine is a poop machine, I can easy keep one of my pygmy cory school or even more fish rather than having 3 honeys instead. Also keeping one eliminates any potential territory issues. Even they are peaceful, gouramis have personality like bettas that changes a lot. End of my novel. Your stocking option sounds good tbf! I would keep only one hillstream loach, so you won’t have to face any potential territory issues. They don’t really need a school to do well, if I am not wrong. What I would do after a year of keeping a 29; 10-12 tetra/barbs of your liking, maybe 10 pygmy cories/8 panda corys(if they meet ur parameters), one honey gourami, your L333, snails and shrimp. sterbais do get big, and keeping high numbered school in a 29g is hard. 5 seems like the max in my eyes seeing them as adults rn, which is rly the bare minimum for a school, maybe even less I better stop writing. peace, Edit: Even your pic looks to be a sterbai. I feel stupid explaining about them lmao. Ignore the sterbai explanations please:,) Aint deleting since maybe it gives an opinion to another reader, who knows!

I want to keep Angels. Why do they have to be bullies smh. 😠

@Guppysnail I will be extra careful! Thanks for the warning and suggestion. @nabokovfan87 that is some size difference there beyond gender siz difference. Nature keeps the strong and genetically best one alive, that's for sure. I will keep your suggestions in mind in case I happen to find any eggs in these couple days. I went upstairs to feed my snail tank, they were gliding on the glass again!! Your corys look cute 🙂

@Guppysnail I do gravel vac once a week before the water changes! I will be more careful for sure. I'm using Tetra GC 40 as a vacuum cleaner, it helps me a lot to control water flow directly! I usually use it on very low setting as my substrate is super low in weight or else it gets sucked like a sand. Would the fry be easy to see? I have a dark substrate 😞 @nabokovfan87 thanks for the help! I really hope some babies would survive. I adore them a lot. Keeping the tank clean will be a lil questionable, as my tank is a bit overstocked and I mostly keep the tank healthy with weekly water changes and gravel vacuuming. Seems like it makes it a bit challenging rn. You mean it by mechanical cleaning, or keeping water parameters good and healthy?Any suggestions? My tank is quite planted with overgrown elodea and mosses too. The flow is by no means extreme! I only have a HOB placed in the center of the tank, with the capacity of 510L/hour. It does the job for me. So you suggest me to leave to eggs in the tank?

@Flumpweesel I instantly dropped a Sera O nip, it attracts everyone directly. Somehow it attracted her too 😄 She went like, "these eggz can wait, it's o nip timee!" I thought only one time mating could be enough to fertilize the eggs. They gotta mate before every single egg to be laid? Dang it >_> There is no way im moving her with the boi. He would have a heart attack 😄 He is a bit stoopid as well. I would love the see what babys would be like. He makes me laugh 😄 @Guppysnail Thanks!! I feel like I'm unlikely to save any babies from this spawn, but at least I know they are healthy and feeling well still after completing their one year journey in my tank. That alone makes me happy 🙂 Just in case she keeps spawning during the night, I will try to keep my room dark until I turn on the lights in the morning. Tetras seem to be inactive and sleeping during the night, meanwhile my corys are almost always active. I won't be moving her to the quarantine tank then. Sounds to be pointless and would cause stress. They seem to be happier with their school, I agree. Thanks again for the quick help guys. Appreciated!🤍

(This topic includes fish NSFW. 😄 ) 5 mins ago, I've entered to my room to feed my 29g community tank where I keep my sterbai cory school. I know there is only one male in the school and the rest are full girls 😄 The boy is the shiest fish I've ever kept, so I was surprised to see him with a female one in front of the glass. I should've guessed there was something going on at that moment. As you may guess, lil buddies were on some action. I fed them frozen food last nite, and did the weekly maintenance with a colder water change this morning, I was thinking of maybe they would spawn by any chance. Considering I'm starting a new tank, what could be even better than having my own babies moved to a new home!! I got the corys when they were juviniles almost a year ago, and never seen spawning before, so I was not hoping much again. The sad part is, whenever she leaves an egg, it is probably eaten by the rummy noses. I've seen one directly eating literally in less than a sec she left the egg on the glass. She keeps swimming through dense plants, driftwood and rock literally looking at places to lay. I don't know what to do. The only chance seems to make any sense is moving her to my snail quarantine tank for her to spawn? I am scared of stressing her. That's the last thing I would like to cause, especially when she's spawning. Even tho there are lots of plants in my tank, I don't think it is likely that eggs would survive in the tank right? I tried turning off the lights too but it seemed to make her stressed a lil. Maybe I am over thinking. Maybe I keep the lights off and check for any eggs in the early morning? I only kept easy african cichlids and guppies ages ago, and their breeding behavior is different than corys as you can easily tell. How long do they keep spawning btw? Losing eggs to other fish seems to be the only negative side of having a community tank I guess 😥 Thanks for the help in advance!😊

I am shocked reading you guys talking about the shrimp prices. How come they are this pricey considering they are super easy to breed? Are they rare in your area?

You made me laugh 😄 I definitely agree on the fact that they look great. I'm gonna have to use a LED that I will attach to the top of the tank as in the picture but with a proper size. I had a good growth with it on my easy to take care plants in my 29 gallons, and it is budget friendly. I sadly cannot afford the higher quality ones that you hang to the ceiling and such rn. I bet those would go best with such wood out of the tank type design. I usually like how MD Fish Tanks scape his tanks. I will try to get some ideas from his videos. Feel free to share any pics you think that would look great. Your suggestions are always welcomed! Planning to keep rabbits in the quarantine tank for some more time anyway. The problem is, I am very likely not to nail the aquascaping. I have zero experience for aquascaping. I usually let my tanks to turn into a jungle as my fish and shrimps seem to enjoy it much better in this way. Let's see how everything will go with this new tank 😄 I have to consider good amount of substrate left for rabbits to burry and move around. That's a self note there 🙂