Lennie

I don't know if it is suitable for the tank, but I wanted to say it is not always about the parameters only. In fact, it really isnt about parameters. Botanicals/woods may release stuff that can be even deadly for the fish and critters in a tank environment. Especially considering how small a tank volume is compared to nature itself. That's why it is always a good idea going for the safe options. By testing parameters, you can only see effects like slight ph decrease and such based on your kh reading. Maybe decaying wood releasing slight ammonia and such? You can't see potential harmful stuff/toxins that the wood may release. Same goes for many animals. Like there are safe wood options for my parrots and there are unsafe/unknown ones to use. It is always a good idea to stay in the safe zone.

What sort of a tank are you planning to keep them in? With or without fish?

Amanos born in brackish water and swim to freshwater and again drop their eggs back to the currents that take them to brackish water from what I know. I use a water softener as well and I had no issues with amanos myself. I don't exactly know the sodium amount for mine. I also keep many snails and neocaridinas. It is hard to comment for me, as I don't know how "water softening" procedure works even tho I have it myself. I personally haven't face water related issues yet myself I always run a.carbon in my filter if I am treating with medicine in the food or after Im done with treating by dosing meds to the water column.

I personally think there is no exact answer to that. Usually breeding comes with aggression for many species. So keeping only females, so no potential breeding, sounds like a good way to increase the chances of peaceful actions. But based on some group dynamics, females may fight for dominance too. My gold gourami females were crazy aggressive versus each other once they reached adulthood. My sparkling gourami males were in total combat mode for territorial behaviors, but my gold male gourami was an angel even tho it is known to be an agressive species. I have never kept thicklippeds so I can't comment on that one. @Cinnebuns may help as she kept thicklippeds

To get your filter work, your water should move through your filter all the time. It is hard to see if water constantly goes through that part of the tank or not. If the area is isolated and barely have any flow/water movement then it is not ideal. IF it is an area like sump where water constantly moves, then it is good. I would be hesitant to dose antibiotics to my main tank unless it is quite necessary. Is there really no way around?

These are also thicklipped, and they look like females. The top fins are very rounded unlike your male

Vinny, As I mentioned in my previous post, you should choose such setup as your "biotope" location. Nobody can really tell you buy X and Y and create a setup like that. What part of the river are even even talking about? Amazon River itself is too rich and big to cover it as only a general biotope really. You can't create a general biotope for a river as big as a continent almost. If you are interested in biotopes, you should do lots of reading and researching. What is biotope? What could be specific examples? You will need an exact place, species that live together naturally, reflecting the nature in that area. You can't keep all the amazon river species together mixed in a tank and create a random tank with species/plants and call it a biotope. Don't get me wrong, you don't have to do a biotope, but biotope itself is losing the meaning very much in the hobby. So either do it correctly or don't call it biotope, I would say. You can do lots of Heiko Bleher reading/watching to learn about biotopes. Examples for Rio Negro for you: Igarapé do Daracua, the small forest stream of Rio Negro river, near Barcelos, Brazil Brazil, Rio Negro, flooded forest at the source of a small igarapé in Cambeua Rio Unini and junction to the basin of Rio Negro, Brazil Rio Urubaxi, Rio Negro tributary, Amazonas, Brazil I didnt check all videos in detail but species need to be living together and even on similar depth level naturally too. In the same part of the river, under similar conditions, etc. Like for the following video, someone said "Rummy nose tetras (and pretty much any small tetra species) and corydoras never live in the same habitats with Discus, especially Heckel Discus. Discus live on depth between 1,5m and 5m, which is way too deep for small fish. Corydoras duplicareus and Silver Hatchets need temperatures under 27C, whereas Heckels are used to much higher temperatures. "

As mentioned above that’s not a honey gourami, it is the domestic color of thicklipped gourami Honeys are very peaceful and unexpected to have problems with. Thats why I wanted to ask for a picture You can check out the belowmentioned topic to notice the difference between them

@Pepere uses/ used to use UGF if I am not mistaken

Can you share a picture of the aggressive fish please?

Glass surfing and such behavior sounds like a stress behavior to me, unless they are breeding. I witnessed breeding cories acting the same too sometimes. However, I personally had issues with my adult bigger sized cories like sterbais in such tank sizes after some time. Upgrading the tanksize and losing my only male in the group stopped that behavior and they started swimming peacefully and acting cozy, sifting around on the bottom, never shy, swimming slowly. I have gold lasers, pandas, pygmys and sterbais. I can say what you describe is not their casual peaceful happy daily behavior. Likely stressed due to being in a new place. Providing dim places, hiding points, lots of cover and dither fish activity on top of them (in my experience safely overstocking even) makes cories act on a different level. different cories do not school together really. So how many of each species you have in 20ghigh? They need their own group numbers

Hey Vinny, Your title says "Asian Biotope". That's basically the largest continent in the world. Biotopes are done for a very specific location/region. You should decide the location of biotope and then create the closest replication of what nature is like in that very specific location. You just want a tank randomly made with plants/fish originally exist from anywhere from Asia? If so, that's not a biotope. That's basically a tank with Asian fish/plants in it. If you want to create a biotope in Asia, you should do lots of reading and research and end up deciding the biotope yourself. Some biotope examples from my award winning friend that is very interested in biotopes and contests (BAC 2023 - S. America 2th & 2022 3th BAC 2022 - S.E. Asia 2th) His channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ArifhbsAquatics --------

If I were you I would get 3m:7 females or 2m:8f Definitely go for high number of females. Ideally 3 per male I would say. I have no personal experience with cpds. I know they are tiny and such, but I remember they love crowded tanks and big swimming space from @Guppysnail ‘s tanks. She may help better. Sometimes, even though a fish is tiny, the activity level of it may not allow it to be a perfect fit for a small tank. Low activity level of similarly sized fish can be a perfect fit for such nano tank size tho. Like ember tetras for example

My luminatus are pretty hardy. On the other hand, getrudaes were exactly the opposite. 60 liter cube, I assume it is a 40cm cube? If so I think you can keep luminatus there. I keep mine with pygmy cories and shrimp. Even pygmy cories hatch and raise themselves. It would be a better idea to stick with with one schooling fish that uses mid column, and keep something like pygmy cories on the bottom to utilise all level of heights

I grab a piece of filter wool or sponge and clean diatom on glasses with that manually

That is a great topic to mention. I have been thinking of making a topic about it couple days ago and just saw you mention this. It is about the common ingredients harming corals that exist in many chemical sunscreens . Therefore, after seeing about this issue on instagram, I talked to my family about switching to mineral based reef safe sunscreen options. In the video below it explains the effects shortly. Switching to reef friendly option is the least we can do. Thanks for bringing it up again.

hello there First one is blue second one is ivory (both are white shells) but the black foot is dominant. Sad but it happens, when your blue snail passes away, it leaves a white shell just like ivories. So you will more likely get blue babies out of these two as the black foot is the dominant gene. here is the chart of genes this is the color chart for baby mystery snails:

I would not do angels after my experience with them My choice would be one of the followings: plakat betta honey gourami (1m:3f) thicklip gourami One Bolivian ram One male apisto suitable for your tank parameters. A group of honey gouramis would look the nicest in such planted lovely tank. They also look great with some cherry barbs. Red and yellow looks awesome with green plants IMO. Idk if ig links work on forum but a group of gouramis and with some red fish like this looks awesome to me: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C64N9gYJB1C/?igsh=ZTEyZXdvcnQ1ZXdw In case you dont have ig: And your tank looks beautiful and def not small if the species are chosen correctly

Hello there Those look like albino black neon tetras my LFS has. But I am not %100 sure as it gets a bit hard to tell with the albino situation included. They can be albino glowlight tetras too Albino black neons at my lfs don't have such ovious orange line. I just checked the video I sent to Gup before I lean towards glowlight tetras but albinos due to the obvious very orange line on the body as black neons seem to lack it

+1 Also, If I gotta be honest, it is very unlikely for shrimplets to live with such scape even if the adults do. The fish will actively hunt the shrimplets down if not the adults. I would cycle and start with midcolumn swimmer fish slowly. No bottom dwellers, until my plants have strong roots enough to not have my scape damaged. In fact, keeping corydoras on aquasoil is a big question for me ngl. It didn't go well for me before after a year of time. I hesitate to keep cories on full aquasoil now myself. Hard to keep clean and I had barbel issues/bacterial problems gradually.

Silver tip tetras are known to be fin nippers. Rehome them for the peace of the tank, IMO. Thats the main reason why I have never kept them or any other well known nippers really

my tap is 18 to 20 dKH too. Probably plants are not a huge fan? but otherwise it is fine. I heard it might be an issue for egg hatching but standard tap water breeding fish like my bristlenoses never have any issues

The tank dimensions are 34x33x33cm. It also has the sump area in the back. So it is not very different than a 5g tank really. 5.5g tank has the dimensions of 42x27x22cm approximately. Your tank is just taller but considering the sump area, provides less swimming depth and lenght. Most fish utilize the lenght and depth instead of height anyway. I would not focus on 10g stocking and still consider 5g stocking options. Those 10g stocking options are commonly recommended for the common 10g dimensions and not exactly for the 10g water it holds alone

idk, mesh begs are much cheaper than those tho 😄

mesh begs without any metals is what I use. Either plastic zipper or just with a rope to tie on top. Particle size of a.carbon may change so you should choose the bag accordingly