Lennie

Or carrying sperm for a long time for the future. My female endlers have given birth 4 times without a male. Now the males from the first batch are ready to mate at this point 🤣 For the guppy choice, in my experience with 7 species rn in different species only tanks, 2 being albinos(silverado red tail and plat white), well, albinos eat their babies meanwhile others( japan blue tails, pandas, pingus, black moscows and red grass) usually don’t care at all. I wanna breed them all but mostly albinos are a failure if left alone. We also talked about this with @Cinnebuns and she has similar situation with her albinos as far as I remember. Another irl friend of mine has albino full reds and hers also eat all the babies. If your concern is babies maybe give albino guppies a shot as 1m:2/3f and any baby that survives will be a happiness for you. I personally dont like full male setups, they can be a lil bullies sometimes

She looks eggbound to me. I would fast her at least for like 5 days and try to make her absorb the eggs. If it does not work then you may need to try epsom salt. But I cant tell the ratio. @Odd Duck could you please help Duck?

Ive kept my honey gourami in a community tank with shrimp in it. He has never show i interest to adults my opinion is regarding the ratio. I personally dont like 1m:1f ratio for no pair fish, I would either do 1m:3f in that tank size or only one. Tho you are quite unlikely to face issues as honey gouramis are usually very peaceful

I personally really never understand a tank “self sustaining” do you feed the tank? Do you top off? Add filteration? Add food? Clean the tank? the thing is water changes are good. I think most people miss the point that water in nature don’t sit in a X gallon tank meanwhile they try to imitate “nature” in their tanks

Here you go, I found this for you https://sulawesikeepers.org/sulawesi-shrimps-experience-peter-baert/

The care of caridinas change from one to another a lot. if you are speaking only for sulawesi shrimp, then you gotta aim higher ph than that, around 8.0 or so. They are usually kept with rabbit snails. Rabbit snails also like the high ph warm water environment. I keep mine at 8.0ph, 26C. sulawesi shrimp have very different likings compared to other common caridinas like red crystals, blue bolts, etc. They like warm water, want high ph, and want some kh in their water. However, other caridinas want ideally 0 kh, acidic and cooler water. Being “caridina” cannot really generalise their needs👍🏻 when it comes to caridinas ideally you should aim target parameters based on the specific species you are aiming to keep. I would check up their required parameters online, but also ask where you will be getting your shrimp about the parameters they have been keeping them at. and your ph seems low for Sulawesi shrimp. You can find Sulawesi shrimp products only, which I am not sure your store would be willing to invest. Even salty shrimp has one

Ah I didn’t know! And no I’m not from US. so they are more common in European countries I guess. It is very commonly available in here

Hey Vicki, I will try to respond to your questions briefly. Plants usually melt when they change environment. Also, the plants you buy can be the emersed version. Either way, when they start to grow submersed leaves, and a plant try to get used to their new environment, they commonly melt. It does not exactly mean they are dead. They just lose their old or emersed growth leaves and grow their new leaves. 8.0 ph is kinda on the high upper limit of "normal", but I have successfully kept so many species with this ph. Also, livebearers and snails would love this high ph hard water tank. What's your gh/kh like? New woods grow slime and it is perfectly normal. If it bothers you, you can brush it of while holding your hose/siphon during water changes but even if left alone, it will disappear over time. Also snails and shrimp love to eat it if you are planning to keep any. So when you are done cycling, maybe add some snails first, so they handle this undesired driftwood look for you, then you gradually start stocking fish slowly. Is your tank cycled yet? So overall, I understand you are feeling overwhelmed but everything you are currently facing actually sounds normal so you can feel relieved! ;D If you have any questions or expect detailed responses about something, let me know

It is hard to count to see if they are actually left alone ;D

yea, That's why they are one of the few tanks I use full RO and then remineralise it later on. My tap has high ph of 8.0, and high kh of 20. Also the tds reads 375 out of the tap. The guy who bred them before said his tds is around 80 and he was keeping them at 6.2-6.3 ph. What actually bothers me is keeping them in a barebottom no decoration breeding tank. I got a custom made tank for them with the size of 60x60x50cm. I at least wanna sneak in a pot with aquasoil in with a big crypt on one corner, or add some floating plants 🤣

these guys are approximately 2.5 year old Do you really think that your fish need %90 water changes? My friend treats his 4 discus juveniles as a community tank member with no problems. He used to breed and keept discus the same way too. I feel like huge water changes are a stress factor for the fish, and doing it in a daily basis might do more harm than good considering stress is likely affecting them more negatively than any slight nitrate in the water column. What do you think? Again it is just a thought of mine as a a normal fishkeeper and I am just new to the discus world. But %90 water change daily sounds quite stressful to me My ichthyologist friend said she also saw the study but they are fussy about eating algae based stuff and she found they feed on algae if others do and if it is on a surface like the glass. Do you keep discus Colu? What's your experience like? Because if they are fussy eaters, then even if it is the best food ever, If you can't make them eat it, then it is pointless, right? I'm not sure I can transfer these 2.5yo fish transfer to an algae heavy commercial diet at this point 😄 I only have microworms and vinegar eels. Too small! :') And I hatch bbs once every two days

I can't comment on that one as I keep my sparkling gouramis and gold gouramis in groups but honey gourami as a centerpiece fish alone however in my experience, they love to have fish around it is what makes them feel secure. At least it does for my male honey gourami. He was in a crowded 29g first(rummy noses, sterbai cories, L199, shrimp), then I moved him into a calm 33g (pygmy cories, L199, red lizard whiptails, so mainy bottom dwellers) but he got stressed and never stopped glass surfing for weeks. Then I moved him to the 42g tank with many other fish again and he directly stopped being stressed. So in my limited experience, they do love to be in a community tank. A community tank that is active and also have mid level swimmers. If I were you, I would consider adding a schooling fish that won't outcompete the gourami for food. That will surely make him feel comfy and cozy.

That is actually very interesting. So they get their protein mostly from algae, however in the hobby they are mostly being fed meaty foods.

Update: I went to my LFS to buy them some frozen food for their size. I got them this: At the same time, I fed them Tropical's D-50 granules this morning. Now they seem to ate them all when I'm back from LFS. So it took like 2 hours for them to eat but they ate it all at least. There was no food on the bottom of the tank! Maybe they ignored others due to their 0.5mm size, as normally I usually feed all my fish tiny food. Maybe they don't like the tiny food even tho they considerable have small mouth for their size. Also seems like Ocean nutrition has bloodworm shaped discus formula. I am planning to order it too

So, I got the pair I wanted. They seem to do well and good. However there is a problem. I forgot to ask about this part to the guy I got them from. they don't seem to be a fan of commercial food diet. Today I talked to the guy I got them from, and he said he usually feeds them frozen brine shrimp, beef heart, and bloodworms. Even tho I am ready to support their diet with these sort of stuff, I am personally not a fan of feeding such food nonstop, especially considering I can't manage to find anything to enrich their food with vitamins and such. And I am not sure I can feed beefheart directly, maybe something like this can work? : Edit: some sites state this "ingredients: fish and fish by-products, cereals, meat and animal derivatives, oils and fats, yeasts, vegetables and other vegetables (5%)." meanwhile some other sites state: "Composition: vegetable by-products, insects, proteinhydrolysate from beef, vegetables (corn,spinach, moringa, garlic), cereals, krill, oils and fats (salmon oil), algae (spirulina, chlorella), minerals,yeasts" I don't have access to bug bites or vibra bites to make such commercial food transition. The thing is, they didn't even seem much interested in fd tubifex. Any ideas how can I make them transition to a commercial diet potentially?

Honey gouramis are peaceful in general. But being constantly around 2 females and breeding action may trigger some aggressiveness I think. If you are not planning to breed, I would just get one to play safe

Great to hear. Both mysteries and bettas are full of character and a joy to watch. I love that guys named them. It creates a bond between you and them I think Wishing your little friends a good happy life

kinda hard to do when you have to feed a mystery snail in the same tank

Your fish eat better than I do

Assasin snails love to bury in sand. So if you have gravel everywhere as in the picture, I would avoid keeping them personally. Yes they are usually kept for keeping pest snail population in control, but at the end of the day they have their own needs and likings. best way tbh

For me it's Tropical. I like their insect menu and hi-algae. Both are pretty affordable and has nice ratios. Gonna try their discus food next. Otherwise, my favorite brand is New Life Spectrum. And It will always be my number one in general until I find anything better as a commercial food. I have 26 tanks rn, and gradually increasing the size. And even small sized packages last pretty long for me. I personally think buying something with best quality you can afford is the better idea overall, to have a healthier animal in general. Diet is really important. I personally aim to buy highest quality foods for all my animals. Otherwise, you will spend more money for vet, medicines, surgeries, and you will probably have a higher chance of ending up with a sick animal on hand. It is always worth to spend a lil more for higher quality of food in my opinion. I'd rather cut the costs on something else rather than from their diet.

Mainly should be fine. Assasin snails are opportunistic carnivores. When they have pontential smaller size no trapdoor foods around, they won't likely attempt to go for ganging up and try to hunt down a big mystery snail. I kept 3 mystery snails and 4 assasin snails together for a short period of time, and while they hunted mini ramshorns, they did not seem to care mystery snails. Maybe a starving situation may affect their behavior but you say u have plenty of bladder snails. Btw, your best bet would be, picking all bladder snails by hand in the new tank and moving to your old tank. You can actually completely collect them all with this sort of dedication

Pretty fish. For me, when I search for a new fish I'm interested in, I always check if Rachel has a species spotlight 🙂 which she does for these species! Until someone shares their personal experience In case you haven't seen her video: They really look amazing, look at them 😍 (I'm biased, orange and yellow are my fav colors on fish 😄 )

I am not sure. I personally never used a mist maker before. But I def agree that they look great. Ive found the video where they make this tank in the first place and it is a lil complex. In case you’s like to see it: At minute 5, they show the cold mist product they use here And this was how they made the dragon stone tank in detail

You dont need to add salt whatsover out of nowhere. Why do you even wanna add salt? If you suspect any diseases or something that aquarium salt would assist you, you can use some. Otherwise using it while stocking a new tank is pointless. Plants can handle salt to some degree. But it will be a limiting factor for snails and inverts. just let all nitrite clear off slowly and turn into nitrate, then you can start stocking slowly and that’s it It really does not matter if its 0.25 or 0.50 to be fair. Both are toxic however shows your cycle has started, unless you have nitrite in tap. 0 nitrite is a must Did you watch the video I tagged you Nick? He clearly explains how toxic both ammonia and nitrite is. Sorry but as I mentioned before, these questions again mean you did not watch it, or paid attention to the answers regarding the questions you had about cycling. I can’t think of anyone potentially mentioning you can stock with nitrite readings there while assisting you through your cycling questions.