Lennie

Goodluck seeing the pleco 😄 In terms of a "purple" fish, well, in the freshwater world we dont have many options like orchid dottyback or royal grammas the sw peeps have. I think you can go for a plakat betta with purpleish colors. Also your daughter can name it and the betta would be in the heaven in a 150g after a tiny cup. I always try keeping my bettas in bigger sized community tanks and usually works great with a second plan. Just add the betta last. There have been two scenarios I had problems. Male quad red apisto added to an established 160 liter tank where I had a female betta. She hated him. Second one being my plakat orange betta hating my gold german blue ram. Again, gold ram added after the betta. Bettas seem to dislike anything that reminds of another betta, flashy colors and similar to their size, especially if they are added last. I had no such betta being aggressive towards my moliwe krib and black ram, even when they are added later on. Plakat or female is important, with no long fins and dumbo ears. Good swimming skill is very important. Or another option is a school of pink/purple colored glofish, if you fancy keeping a school of it for your daughter.

If I had that size of a tank, I would surely want a school of clown loaches. And a community around it. I love Gold denisonis too, but it is hard to get great looking ones and have them look this way when they are fully grown. OR I would do a colorful african cichlid tank OR I would do Dantum angels and Albino geophagus heckelii and anything that can go in with them in terms of other cichlids and/or schooling fish. OR A big tank of Peru Altums. But you should find Tankbred ones as they have horrible survival rate and adapting period if wildcaught. Plus they can eat plants so this requires a tank building around it. Also, @tolstoy21's Oscar tank looks great. It is hard to say no to these big water puppies

Panduros are one of the aggressive ones just like you mentioned. Dont let their size bait you. Panduros are one of my dream apisto species but the apisto breeder guy I know said they are pretty aggressive so I hesitate to try. Speaking of it, some say they act like forming pairs in captivity and very picky about partners so that is also problematic Also keeping a breeding pair or harem in a community tank is almost never a good idea anyway

Hey Maria If you overdosed prime, that mightve decreased the oxygen levels in the tank. Once by a mistake I overdosed a small tank of mine, and fish got heavy breathing and extra airstone wasn't helping so I made a water change again and it helped. Previous ammonia burn also might have a bit of damage on the gills like Colu said. But if I were you, I would do a water change and make sure not to overdose prime and add an extra airstone just in case Also you don't need to add bottled bacteria after filter cleaning and/or water changes really. Just make sure you clean the filter the correct way, like keep it wet during maintenance etc. and it is all good.

I just said it because you said fish hate water change in your post. I wanted to explain it because, water changes can sometimes be one of the best treatments for the sick fish to heal. In fact, my aquaculture engineer friend who works with fish and is also a hobbyist told me he has seen so many benefits of water changes during sick fish treatments What you call excellent water is quite arguable. We barely test for anything in the water and know about it in general with our home level aquarist test kits. We basically don’t even know why we read X tds unless we remineralize a 0tds RODI water and have estimations on what we dose. You say your water is excellent based on nitrate readings and a few others? Because there is sooo many stuff that we cannot test for. In fact, many even say aquarium grade test kit results are arguable overall. And as hobbyists, I don’t think we understand this concept in detail. For years the excellent water to be wanted for reef tanks was 0 phosphate 0 nitrate and today they realize it is not good at alL. And Idk if you ever checked a detailed advanced reef setups. These guys have crazy setups for stable parameters that they reach from 0 tds RODI water and keep everything stable all the time, testing and dosing many stuff

They will end up being mutt guppies and will sell for very cheap compared to other specific colors. These colors are the end result of selectively breeding, so even tho any babies look like dragons or moscows, it wouldn't be fair to sell them this way because genetically now they are not selectively bred anymore. That being said, if you don't aim for money and can find places that would take your mutts to sell for money/rehome/store credit etc., you may end up having very cool looking ones. And probably healthier ones too. Usually breeding one specific genetic over and over again is not good for health issues anyway. Mixing two different fish would probably lead to healthier babies compared to one that has been overbred for ages to have this specific look. That being said, I would be cautious mixing guppies and in a community tank with many other fish for potential pathogens. In my experience, guppies are very bad at dealing with pathogens and adapting to a new tank environment. The advantage of buying adults is, the babies they have end up having in your water usually does great, even if parents don't. However, in your scenario, you are getting juveniles, and it is gonna be more like, they will either adapt and live or they won't make it. There won't be any babies from the adults adapting, which may lead you lose them. I have 7 guppy species only tanks right now, and I even saw them not handing the pathogens come with cycled filters I moved in from another tank. Tldr: If you want to breed and sell for money, it is probably the best idea to stick with one and add healthy and different genetics gradually and not breed the same fish and genetics over and over again.

Fish LOVE water changes if done correctly. Water changes have a huge positive effect on fish in my experience. Water in nature does not sit in a X gallon fish tank all the time. What's worse is keeping them in the same water all the time just because nitrification bacteria and plants help with some parameters. They probably just hate potentially being stressed in your scenario, not the actual water change. Stress being new water with abnormal parameters or temperature, stress of vacuum cleaning movement around, etc. You don't have to do vacuum clean once a week to be fair. That being said, I have never witnessed my fish acting stressed while vacuum cleaning. Is there anything you might be doing wrong or in a bit too rough? I dont know

Pea puffers are fairly easy to find tankbred. Or at least the first source I found was importing the tank bred ones. I have 11 in a 50 liter shallow tank (50x40x25cmh). I personally don't observe aggression with crowded numbers. They school when they are stressed but otherwise they don't. I have 3 males and 8 females if I am not mistaken. Male female ratio is important. I did not need to deworm mine as tankbred ones were unlikely to have parasite issues if fed with good cultures. I had no sunken bellies or parasites but I still kept them in a barebottom planted and decored tank to observe their behavior and poops to make sure. Feeding them is fairly easy as long as you are willing to keep live food cultures and hatch bbs. Here is a great guide you can check: https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/puffers-in-focus/dwarfpuffercare/ Also be careful. Wild caught ones, besides all ecological and parasitic problems, may come with mixed species from what Ive seen. You may get C. imitator instead of C.travancoricus or a mixture of both which may result in possible issues Idk?

I dont think you “need” more animal protein foods. But you can surely add an insect food there if you like But I think you need algae rich food in there

I would not worry about the gh reading myself. Keep the parameters you have stable

Live bbs is hands down the best As long as fish start eating live bbs, go for it. If apisto babies can eat it directly, I would directly feed it. None of the fish I intentionally tried breeding, except guppies, were able to eat live bbs on day 1. If it is not the case, then I start with vinegar eels and micron fry food. Vinegar eels stay alive for a good while unlike live bbs in freshwater. So between water changes of micron food(as it goes bad and release ammonia as low as 30 mins around 0.5mg/l) I dose vinegar eels to clean water in case they would like to hunt live food or if it interests any better than micron but live bbs is the easiest and the best. If apistos eat it on day one, you need nothing else really. Hatching is super easy. The problems with artemia is, it loses a lot of its nutrition in 48 hours around half if I remember correctly, so you gotta feed asap. So small number of fry means you need to hatch daily for a small amount. Also it doesnt last alive long in freshwater

Hello there, I raised 4 batches of GBR babies but never raised apisto babies. I only have limited experience with triple red cacatuoides and erythruras borellis are one of the easiest apistos and most prolific from what I remember based on the aquarist podcast. 6 fry sounds like majority of them didnt make it already. Also many popular apistos can breed in a regular tap water. I know an apisto breeder in person that even works with quite rare species and he mentioned that he breeds many popular apistos in tap water, like panduro, cacatuoides, hongsloi, trifasciata, inka, agassizi. He is an apisto only breeder and he does this as a full time job. So yea, that explains random borellii breeding part. But ofcourse there are more needy apistos with certain requirements I think it is pointless to move their mom to the breeding box. Either let them stay together in the tank or just move babies and be their mom yourself Apistos can be very aggressive towards other fish in the same tank when breeding occurs. I adopted my friend’s panda cories because his triple red cacatuoides trio decided to make one cory blind in a 100cm tank. So yea, I wouldnt call any fish safe with a fish that wants to protect their babies Frozen daphnia is not small enough for fry to eat. I tried raising my fry on vinegar eels until they get big enough to eat bbs but it failed hard. Micron food until they eat bbs, and live bbs as soon as possible seems to be the key. Be careful, micron foods release ammonia super fast

I would skip kuhlis and add corydoras as you mentioned you like activity. Im not sure how I feel of tiny cpds with big fish Also whiptails are great oddball. I love whiptails. Check them out! I wouldnt add fairly big and medium size barbs with gouramis. They are slow eater and can be shy sometimes. Barbs are crazy energetic, and can be stressing for calmer fish And outcompete them for food and such

Mine does that quite often too. I think I have 1m1f and I am considering to get another f to spread the male’s attention between two females, because he doesbother the female Cant think of 3m:1f, as 1m1f I have is already problematic I am not very experienced with goldfish, as I said, I only have two. But keeping a balanced m f ratio sounds like it is the way🤷🏻‍♂️

doubletail veiltail then. surely not just veiltail. The body shape on doubletails is a bit deformed on bettas, I can see it on the picture to be honest. I would not focus on too hard on gh myself. And I don't think gh caused any kills over night, sounds like a very unlike scenario I would lean towards water quality issues, maybe chemicals used in the same room, problematic heater, anything leeching to the water column, or maybe it is just the time. I don't expect these bettas to live their max lifespan really. It feels like an unreal expectation to me seeing how bad these guys genetically are. Don't get me wrong. I say these because I did experience problems keeping bettas in the past and witnessed the most I loved developing diseases tumors etc no matter how well taken care of.

Sorry for your betta mate I'm confused reading what you exactly need help with. Could you please simplify the question Also Sushi looks like a double tail. and a marble orr? Double tails are more prone to bloating from what I know. A lot of bettas today has weak genetics and are prone to diseases and problems like cancer, tumor, bloating, blindness etc. If you want betta, I would encourage you to try tankbred wild options. If not, then I would hesitate going for marbles, scaled ones, souble tails, long fins, long ears(dumbo ears), and nemos/candies that constantly color up. Try plakats with normal size pectoral fins and no such color forms/scales that are known to cause issues. It is very hard to claim a betta is healthy genetically these days, but at least you may avoid some obvious ones to a certain degree. I kept many different color and fin variants and my yellow plakat male is the healthiest betta Ive ever had, hands down. That is hair algae I assume. Hair algae sucks. In my experience, the only thing that really works against this issue in terms of fish is SAEs. But they are not an option for your tank size. You may gradually try to find a balance by changing one thing at a time and observing, like light, lighting period, fertilising, etc. as well as manually removing the algae during maintenance Potentially an amano may help too, but mine never really do. I personally don't think amanos are really good algae eaters at all, and I won't starve my tank to expect any algae to be eaten so I don't know.

I cant see anything from the pics. But in my experience gouramis do sleep on the floor level from time to time. If there is not aggression issues, it eats and swims well, it is just sleeping?

I would suggest finding the centerpiece fish you love, and building a tank around it. I know wanting to hear about suggestions is a very common thing but I barely even remember sticking with the stocking plans I make myself. When I visit LFSs, having a chance to observe fish IRL(videos and pictures online may not reflect what you have IRL tbh) changes everything. I personally believe bonding with fish so I would start doing a fishless cycle, and meanwhile, if you have access to visit LFSs around, I would visit them during the cycling journey do decide your centerpiece fish(es). This would let you observe the fish, making your research about the care requirements of what you love in person, and prevent impulsive buying in the future.

Looks very much like my viviparus babies. I dont think they look like ramshorns or MTS by any means. Sooo congrats! Adorable

If you treat the new tap water in a separate container with prime and add the water to the main tank afterwards, yes. If you do a 5g water change and use a 5g bucket for a water change and use water conditioner there before adding to the tank, dose the 5g in the bucket, not for the tank volume. Otherwise, if you add the prime and new water directly to the tank, you directly dose the amount for the whole tank volume, not just for the changed water part. https://www.seachem.com/prime.php

You cannot say like, X algae looks beautiful on this rock and don’t expect it to grow on any other surfaces such as other rocks, plants, on the glass and substrate in most occasions. The desired look you want in the first picture is probably green spot algae, and it is covered this way in my bedroom display. But it grows on the wood, glass and some plant leaves too. In addition, these is no guaranteed for you to have this specific algae and growing beautifully. There can be many others you end up with, which may be painful to get rid of. Like bba, staghorn and green hair algae There have been a few times I witnessed hair algae becoming a problem in my tank for the livestock in it. In nature, there are probably tons of algae, but it is huge, so many fish feed on it and we cant create a nature at home, at best, try to provide a natural looking tank. When my hair algae issue started accumulating, I witnessed some problems like finding my rabbit snail literally stuck cant move like a dog on a leash, same happened with my pregnant shrimp having her leg stuck in the algae, and while picking on some food particles on the hair algae, my rummynose choked on it and algae stuck on its gills. now these might not sound valid for all the algaes and surely there are beneficial sides, but again, you never know what algae type(s) will grow and if you ever really gonna get what you desire really. At best, you can look what specifically this algae type likes, get algae eaters that eat every other type, and keep the glasses and stuff clean. I have 3 SAEs that keep the tank pretty much hair type green algae free(which is a common problem for me). Maybe you can try amanos and true saes, some shrimp, otos, borneo sucker/hillstream loach, panda garra, etc to expect them potentially eat majority of the algae sources before they find a chance to start growing, and leave the green spot algae behind to cover. This sort of green spot algae is very hardy, and only nerites can eat it. One last thing, I came across someone who used morimos to cover the bottom of the tank before. Maybe you can use them to cover a rock. But I dont think these are same with the ones being sold as “marimo balls” commonly. Morimo is also algae afterall. Or you can check for moss options

I would say, keep your tank with healthy plants and algae free And if you really like algae, consider a macroalgae tank one day. It is a saltwater tank full of colorful macroalgaes in different shapes. Look great and pretty easy overall like these:

The second picture is a saltwater tank btw.

That is a new growth in a different water parameter. Those lines usually refer to the times where they are moved to a new tank. therefore, for perfect looking shells, it is suggested to keep them in stable parameters. it poses no issues tho, just visually less appealing

Ive just seen this part. I wanted to mention it as in my experience they loved to school randomly but not constantly. however, first, I would encourage to find tankbred ones if you want otos. Secondly, be careful, if they constantly eat pygmys food, as they shouldnt be consuming high animal protein diet. It can be problematic. Third, otos need a school themself, but they need constant grazing. So it can be hard to fulfill their schooling needs and provide constant natural growth in the tank so people gotta limit their numbers to not make them starve. I wouldnt recommend to get only one tho. I think otos are very cute, but not great fish to keep in home tanks unless it is a very big tank. Personal opinion