Lennie

I do have borneo suckers and L010as. L010as aren't really a clean up crew to be fair. they do eat food that drops to bottom if that's what u mean, but I havent seen them eating any type of algae. They barely touch vegetables like zucchini I give to my snails. They want more protein heavy dedicated diet on the bottom. They just like to play with fine sand and around driftwood/plants. They are more on the carnivore side. Also they like warmer water, min 25C. If you have any questions regarding them please don't hesitate to ask. I'd like to help. That being said, idk how compatible they would be with other fish you like to keep

I use gh+. I used to use equilibrium

You ideally need to monitor gh seperately. My tap reads 370 tds but has 0 gh. By testing tds, you can't really know your gh value really is

Denison barbs are amazing. But if you like sharks, it is generally suggested to keep one species of shark. So this would kinda eliminate your future options if you wanna keep SAE as clean up crew, or rainbow sharks etc. as far as I know. That might be something to consider from now

Thanks for the explanation That's not my type of fish to breed. Fish with quality of life issues worry me. I'd rather have healthy lines overall

See! We all have unique likings that's what makes us different 😄 Choose your side @Jennifer V! Team sand or team gravel! 😄 Jennifer thinking about sand and gravel: I keep mine with sparkling gouramis. they are colorful and lively. Always curious, have funny territory dances, and they Croak!! They are so unique. If you will have sightblocks and lots of plants etc. Maybe 2males:4-5f? They dont school, but they are social. They also like to have their own territory. Maybe besides sparkling gouramis, some small rasboras? Maybe a big school of chili rasboras, or green kubotai rasboras?

Really? Is it because they are natives or something? They are lil funny creatures. I have them in my big community tank but may go for a species only breeding tank soon. They are already a size of a female neocaridina. Can't imagine those tiny babies

Fingers crossed, I hope you and your little friends face no issues. This inspires me to try breeding spotter puffers one day. They always look at me with their cute silly faces and It is always a struggle to not impulse buy. There is so much for me to learn through your experience here.

I kept hearing electric ones dying way too early all the time. Is it genetics, or just like an inapproriate care in general, like black ghost knifefish usually dying before reaching their full size in most tanks? Do you have any clue?

Idk the big ones but I have Cambarellus diminutus and they do nothing to plants. They are too tiny to do anything in general tbh 😄

I think sand is much easier to clean. the dirt just stays on top and you slightly vacuum the top with a hose and boom, all gone! I love to maintenance my sand tanks rather than others 😄 Also cories LOOOOOVE fine sand a lot. but it isn't great for plants in general as sole substrate. What I do is, I fill the bottom with some dirt, roottabs and lava rock or aquasoil, and cover it with sand so plant roots grow freely. Fine gravel is easier to grow plants on. Or, I partially plant some places with aquasoil, and cover everywhere else with fine sand. Fish love to play in fine sand for real. For pygmys, I would suggest a big group, 15 or more, and tank bred ones. You can see why here: As much as I love pygmys, I thought mid column would be alive with them. Well, it wasn't. It is fun to watch them wiggle around sometimes, but they prefer to take a nap rather than swimming in general 😄 So if you are not aiming this as a breeding project, I would also consider some mid column swimmers to make the tank feel more alive

This is so exciting dude. Best of luck!

What you gotta pay attention while choosing tankmates is, African butterflies and ropefish are (opportunistic) predators. And for catfish = if it fits in my mouth, its food. So basically all your choices of fish will tend to eat their small sized tankmates if given the chance, from bottom to surface. They are all pretty fish, I understand you liking them. What I would do is, choosing big enough fish that are also active swimmers, and not small in size (or even if they are not small as adults, small enough to be eaten when you get them) to lessen the change of anything to go wrong. Maybe a big school of adult size congo tetras? Maybe someone with experience may help further. I haven't kept any predatory fish myself.

Happy puffer faces!

Do plants actually need kh? I think not. They usually just tolerate it in my experience. I think your problem might be something different instead of low kh.

I have them all. They are all considerably easy plants. You don't need anything extreme or something to force your budget for these plants really. That being said, plants are weird, there have been times I've witnessed a plant grows insane in one of my tanks and dies on another. Plants are usually about trial and error no matter how easy they are I think. I've never tried pond compost, but as a base layer I've used JBL Aquabasis plus a couple times. Still supported my hungry root feeders like swords with roottabs. I'm not from US so no clue what's available there. Maybe someone can help with that one. As you've mentioned you have watched MD's videos, you have probably already noticed that he usually fills the bottom layer either with something bigger size grains, leftover aquasoil-gravel-sand mixture, or anything that would let plant roots to grow a bit better. Then he covers it all with the sand he likes. That is actually the ideal way of growing plants in my personal opinion. If I wanna use sand, I also create a good layer on bottom for roots to grow freely.

I had a chance to try basically most combinations, gravel, sand, lavarock, aquasoil ,dirted bottom, roottabs, clay based substrates like JBL Manado... and tbh, no other combinations were close to aquasoils when it comes to plant growth and colors. Maybe dirted bottoms, but it is hard to balance it right a bit. Plant quality in my 3 aquasoil tanks vs other 9 tanks is observable even without co2 You can use aquasoil as a bottom layer maybe in filter bags like MD Fish tank does. You may find plenty of his videos scaping like that. If you can't, hit me up. I will find some for you That being said, although I personally think aquasoil is the best (I use Tropica, dunno about others), it is more costy. You can still have an okay growth with other combinations. In my tanks where I wanna keep it cheaper, I use lavarocks, roottabs and a lil bit of dirt on the bottom and top it off with sand

This would waste majority of the benefits come with the tannins. Basically the main purpose of catappa leaves really

Beautiful antennas! How majestic

Would love to see some pics sometimes! Especially the snail friend 🙂

Large wood pieces are harder to boil and soak, but it helps to get rid of very good amount of tannins at the beginning. after that, maybe your kh is a bit low? Do you have a chance to test your kh? In my high kh tanks, even with lots of driftwood, aquasoil, alder cones and catappa leaf, the ph gets *tickled*. I barely read any difference on the parameters. The lower your kh is, the more impact these type of stuff have on your ph

Agreed. Same goes both direction actually. Shrimp also bother snails too. Not intentionally, but going on them picking around nonstop even on their faces scare the snail and make them close up. Also it is impossible to control pest snail population considering shrimp are slow eaters and they want the growth of biofilm/algae around and food on their dish. So basically it is like snails having food all the time as well. I personally like keeping rabbit snails or mysteries with shrimp instead based on the species, as rabbits like it a bit warm. Snails are really good for shrimp and also keep the cycle alive as shrimp bioload is very low. Also snails cant digest well so their poop is also a good food source, am I right? Rachel O Leary was mentioning she introduces mysteries to fry tank as fry eat snail leftovers as food when she has to leave for some time I really dont know if you can actually eliminate pest snails in a shrimp tank at this point. Constantly killing them does not sound ideal to me personally. And this will be an endless battle I think. I guess I would just accept the tank as it is and try to control the feedings as best as I can, like using shrimp dish, maybe monitoring food, feeding less, maybe creating a pest snail tank and removing them manually there all the time

That's interesting Also, I was planning to send you a dm about how your yellows doing. Good thing you shared here! Are they still shooting only yellow babies? Have you observed any sensitivity issues compared to other neos? Or still the same? The last time we talked I guess they were fairly new compared to your other neos. Would love to hear as I got 10 yellow shrimplets last week!

Shrimp mainly love the biofilm grows on it when it decays. So it takes a lil bit of time

Nobody can guarantee how the two will go. Angelfish can start being aggressive suddenly. And barbs can be nippy as I mentioned. Anyone who will tell they work will be just sharing a very limited personal experience. Just like I did. You seeing conflicting info online means there are scenarios that go both good and wrong. Who knows which will be yours