Lennie

Mystery snails easily get skittish tho. If there will be a fish picking on algae on their shell based on their liking, the snails probably won’t open up no matter what. Their eyesight is poor so they depend on their antennas mainly. When you walk by a tank and create some shadow you can see them instantly getting in a position to close up or start to parasnail to the ground. So they can’t manage to understand what’s going on around them clearly So a fish that potentially gonna pick on algae on a shell is not a good idea overall and would probably make them scared

I would add a calcium food here to help with their molting and calcium needs. I use Hikari crab cuisine and JBL novo crabs from time to time for that. I sprinkle NLS community formula 0.5mm pellets and Tropical's Insect Menu pellets/flakes around the tank too. And from time to time I provide blanced veggies/fruits. I don't worry about leftovers thanks to isopods and springtails. Oh also they snack on isopods rarely it seems. That is their overall diet for me. I don't think they will like algae wafers much but you can try I guess? Idk. Also I don't think fruit flies will make a good food option for them. I cannot see them hunting them down. In a 5g it sounds likely a cricket ending up jumping and drowing in the water part and fouling it. Maybe a better idea to try in a bigger sized tank? It is about testing. Practice makes perfect :') Ive mixed organic soil and coconut peat for terrariums. I haven't notice any negative effect on my fish and crabs yet. The thing is, you should set it up in a way that soil does not meet the water. Otherwise, it will constantly be soaked and your plants will die due to having their roots in water. I personally covered all the bottom side with lavarock and sand mixture to create the height until the point I wanna raise the water level. Then I added biosponge and a thin layer of filter wool on to make sure the soil on top won't join the water below. Then, I added substrate mixture on top of the sponge/filter wool layer. There are some videos online that don't guide correctly I think, which looks good on day 1 setup but may likely fail later on. Basically, while designing the scape, keep in mind that your soil level will be higher that the highest point of water level in the tank 👍🏼 + I would also try to increase the 7.0 ph a bit to at least 7.5. I keep mine at 8.0. And have enough gh, My tap is empty so I dose gh plus. They usually go water to molt, so parameters are important for a successful molt. Here is a molt of mine when it dried

Isopods will need fairly a good amount of land space again, I keep wet sphagnum moss at one corner of the tank. You will need driftwood and different leaf litter for them to snack on. And even tho isopods are fairly good as a clean up crew, they are fragile agains molding and stuff. where springtails comes to the scene. Isopods and springtails help each other a lot in this regard, to my knowledge. Isopods usually need a lil bit dry and wet spots they can utilize in their tanks. this guy has A LOOOT of isopods. I followed his info and my oranges and dairy cows do very well in their tanks. I am spotting some cute little babies lately. I believe they would just die as succulents would not really be able to handle such high humidity environment and having their roots being wet all the time. I haven't tried this one. But the vampire crab guy I shared above seems to have a video on it P.S: if you wanna add isopods, have some sort of a small colony going on at least. I saw one of my crabs snacking on one before. So they may end up as food obviously.

I think it would be super hard to fit in a filter to the water part to keep the water cycled in a 5g, considering tanks must be %80 land and %20 water. But if I have to be honest, I really don't know. I have 5 in a 110cmx50cmx25high shallow tank. I have 5 endlers in the water part too, they have good enough space to swim around, and keep the water part cycled also. I also have orange isopods (porcellio laevis) and springtails to keep it bioactive. They help with uneaten foods and molding issues. I am using a filter that are mainly built for shallow tanks like turtle tanks. You can see the cable going behind the big lava rock "island" from the pic below. This is the filter I use: These are some pictures from my paludarium: crab king and his island The water part was blurry here due to sand but it cleared up once the fine sand settles. This pic was taken right after I was done setting it I have a stretch film covering all the top to keep high humidity and prevent them from escaping.

that is a HUGE no. Once your frozen food thaws out, you better send it to the trashcan. It will do more harm than any good at that point. I forgot my bbs pack out 2 days ago, it melted. Instantly threw away a freshly opened pack. Sad but a must do At best, cut the cube into half, or to 4 pieces if it is better for you, and INSTANTLY put the remaining part back to freezer immediately in a ziplock.

If you need any help, I can try my best based on my experience. Here I'm dropping a great channel for vampire crabs. He has tons of videos of them. His channel helped me A LOT back then Just a small warning in advance, you will see when you search further, there are soo many beautiful looking colors and species available, but it is not a good idea to mix them in one setup. That is something important to keep in mind

Hey Lily, As you are looking for more interesting options, here are my suggestions. 1) Blackwater tank Cool driftwood piece/branches, some rocks, lots of leaves and botanicals, plants that can handle low light light anubias and some floating plants. One apisto as a centerpiece fish that can go in those blackwater type setups and can do okay with 7.0 ph. sounds awesome to me. Besides the apisto, some green neon tetras or pencilfish as dithers for the apisto. I am thinking out loud about these two because I've never kept any of these two fish. Maybe a small school of kuhli loaches, and tank-bred otos(after some time of settlement) 2) Weird one, But a vampire crab paludarium! Just giving this idea to check maybe you'd be interested in these cuties, and they would be something interesting for sure 🙂 but not a fish I have a yellow witcher vampire crab bioactive paludarium going on. I have I have 5 crabs, they are just adorable. Maybe you can keep like 2 there instead in that tank size, if you are looking for some options other than fish?

I think you might be just fine with 4. whats your m:f ratio? If it is something like 1m:3f, I would keep them as they are. If more than 1m, than adding a few more females might be a good idea (their tail structure is the easiest way to tell the gender I think)

If you are willing to add a bit more floating plants, it can be nicer. Would help block sights and make them feel comfier. they mostly spend their time on top, and males can be a lil territorial in my experience. You can keep 1m:3f there too I believe, but be careful, they are crazy jumpers. I thought one of my females died, and I found her jumped to the HOB filter basket couple days later when I was cleaning the filter... Not all gouramis are aggressive. In fact, even my gold gouramis are quite peaceful, and they have a reputation of being aggressive. In that tank size, I think sparkling gouramis are great but they are hard to sex. Males get territorial, so maybe 1m:2f if you believe you can sex them can be cool. IF you end up with 2 males, it can be problematic there due to the small size of the tank. They are very cool fish with interesting behavior and croaking. Here is one of mine: They are not aggressive or anything versus other fish. Honey gouramis are also very peaceful but I personally don't think they would be a great centerpiece fish for that tank size, in my experience they are very active fish and can utilise all swimming space provided in medium to big size tanks

I squeeze the filters in that tub whenever I start cycling new sponges there, that's why I mentioned that tank. So yea 130 Liters

I cycle my sponges in a 130 Liter tub

No man, I use Sera Liquid test kits for ammonia/nitrite. When you squeeze filter, you basically introduce big amount of detrius to the tank if your filter is dirty enough ( which I keep them dirty before squeezing to cycle). So when your tank can't already handle the existing bioload, you add more detrius and ammonia source to that tank even more. When I fishless cycle this way, it helps me to jumpstart cycling progress even. Without letting fishfood decaying for a couple days to release ammonia

You can use anything you like basically. But shrimp do like to pick on stuff constantly. So addition of moss and/or susswassertang can be nice. However, def not a must. I have 6 shrimp tanks and I don't have moss on any bcoz I don't like it. So I can easily tell it is not a must. They also like to play around floating plant and roots in my experience from time to time. Amazon frogbit, water lettuce, and me floating some other plants elodea or hornwort. They love it! And they look funny hanging on them :')

Very nice looking tanks dude! could you please inform me regarding the lace plant? I wanted to keep them but I remember reading them going dormant after mid 20s C temperatures. So I quit the idea. What's your experience like?

I think squeezing filter works but whenever I do that it makes me read at least 0.5 ppm ammonia 🤷🏻‍♂️ So I would personally only squeeze filter if there was no fish and when I am doing a fishless cycle

I dont think that 9 month period is valid. My japanese trapdoors breed good enough, I got around at least 10 babies from different females in 2 months at different times. Ive once seen a female giving birth to two in a row too. I feel like they give a birth ~ approximately once a week So at least for my japanese trapdoor snails, I can easily tell there is no 9 month period to give birth to live babies. but that can be considered slow for sure compared to pest snails, and they are also very cute. And tank bred babies with perfect shell growth looks great I can approve they don’t like hot temps but I’m not sure if they can go such low temps, even if then, I assume they would be likely going dormant and mostly inactive

First, you can keep a betta in a bigger tank. I have my female sorority in 33g tank, and I had one of my plakat males in a 42g community tank, with honey gourami and black rams and 2 angels. However, short fins is the key here. Long fins have swimming issues so shallow tank is kinda a must for them. However for my plakat male, 40cm tall community tank and for my female sorority( females usually have shorter fins but avoid big ears), they do just okay in a 50cm tall tank. But no way long fins/big ears can do well in such setups. females usually are calmer in my experience but their temperament also plays a role. my black rams didnt care about my betta. They only didnt like the 3rd ram in the tank and black angelfish. Otherwise even when betta or gourami enters their territory, they didnt even chase them away. I don’t know about apistos much tho, I only have a trio in my breeding setup and I got them around a month ago, but in such tank size I think it should be fine. Most things can work but generally it is a better idea to try if you trust your experience in the hobby, and if you have a backup plan in case stuff don’t go well

I might've missed it if you've shared it somewhere else, but, is there any stocking plan? 🙂

what are the other fish you have? Is there a big size difference between the fish? What's your tank size?

Could you please explain "terrorising" behavior further? Male livebearers generally constantly chase their females attempting to mate nonstop. 1m:4f ratio is great and your females should have enough time to chill when needed. No, don't add another male. This would cut from the potential relaxing time from your females.Consider it like this: when there is 2m:4f, females will be bothered by males much more. Meanwhile when it is 1m:4f, the females will have much less focus on themselves and easily take their time off. probably just a normal male livebearer 🙂

Amazing dude @beastie check them out

I bet it was just a shock and stress of changing environment if they all act normal after day1. Probably they started settling down so acting more like themselves.

Have you tested the water? I would test and observe to see if your tank can handle the addition of 4 goldfish at once, without knowing their size, yknow goldfish are big bioload. I used stress guard many times with soo many different fish and haven't noticed any side effect like that. Just a side note, it is better if you don't dose it with some other specific seachem products like prime, in order to not decrease the oxygen a lot, and some copper medicines. You can see which ones to avoid in their site. If you can't manage to find, lmk, I will try to find for you I don't think it is stress guard is potentially the problem here, as goldfish can breathe from the surface, so even if you end up with low oxygen, would they be critically affected this much? It is hard to speak certain ofc. maybe potentially something else. Please check your ammonia and nitrite results

@Biotope Biologist

This actually does not mean anything. Plants can grow in a tank with ammonia or nitrite present. And keeping small tanks is harder than keeping bigger tanks, as parameters can change or go off very quickly. Otos like to be in groups and are grazers. I would not keep any otos there as it will be mission impossible to provide a natural food growth nonstop and keep them in a group. And neons are too big for that tank. In that tank size I would only consider tiny rasboras, a single betta, or shrimp. I personally have to disagree with other options listed in the comment above, considering I am keeping some of the listed ones myself, I don't think many species are not ideal to be kept in that tank size. Decorations, plants, heater, filter, etc. all steal swimming space from the tank. So actually a 5g tank is not a 5g unless you fill it fully and keep it bare. and 8g is not an 8g with the same mentality. Clown kilis are also small in size but they are territorial in my experience.If you want them maybe get one one male to 3 females in that tank size and def no more than a single male. Scarlet badis may hide a lot. @Guppysnail may comment on it further. Tiny rasboras can give you great colors in a planted tank as a school, and they are tiny micro predators. Betta is always a good option as long as you meet the requirements as other fish.