Lennie

You exactly said it. They survived It is obvious that ammonia and nitrite is a problem for fish health. You can do it without any harm by going for fishless cycle. The only reason why you would go for fish in cycle right now is rushing things and risking lives or even if the fish survive, they will be exposed to ammonia and nitrite. I think noone should do fish in cycle except in emergency situations with the current availability of sooo many products The fishkeeping hobby is all about patience. If one is not patient enough to doa fishless cycle, I see the chances of being a long term success is low. Even simply healing a disease, having an established tank, fish breeding, growing, plant care, searching info nonstop, all fish related activities require some degree of patience IMO.

The big fish keeping guys I know and those that mightve tried snails at some point are; @tolstoy21 @mynameisnobody and @Odd Duck I believe they may help better. But normal pet type snails like mysteries and rabbits does not sound good to me. Maybe pest snails? In that case the population bloom in such big tank can be a big issue

You seem to be doing everything you can for his comfort and well being! He looks nice and much hapoier As long as we be responsible and dont randomly breed fish that might be genetically problematic, it is fine I think cheers,

Good home does affect the bettas in an obvious way. But sadly these type of nemos/kois may have contant coloring. And sadly it is not good. It may increase the risk of tumors/cancer. When I planned breeding once, @Odd Duck warned me about avoiding constantly coloring up kois/nemos to lessen the risk of cancer/tumor. At least that’s what I remember Two of my bettas (one nemo and one koi) were this way. My female is still with me and she is pretty old by now. She is basically almost fully black right now. When I got her back in the years she was mainly yellow based koi betta. She constantly colored up nonstop ending up right now as almost black. Your betta looks in much better shape and health compared to day1 picture. Thats for sure. But sadly this coloring issue comes with problems

I would go for middle sized cories. I had problems matching smallest cories like pygmys with bettas before. I also had issues with bigger sized cories like sterbais or gold lasers in smaller sized tanks like my 96 liter tank before when they were fully grown. So middle sized cories are the best imo. My pandas do great in my shallow nano tank with the dimensions of 50x40cm Kuhlis hide a lot.

I used giant val in my shallow tank. 110x40x25cmh. It looks clumped but I love that look too. they gradually grew more and more. I just found the first setup day pic in my gallery. They still looked good to me when they grow more leaves From left all the way to right. Rather than going directly up, it grew in terms on the tank length of 110cm which looked nice to me

Especially during night time gouramis love to sleep near the surface in my experience. On one side HOB pushing it away and having airstone creating big and constantly bubbles and creating a pushing effect on the other side would leave no space for gourami to safely rest and sleep in my opinion

airstone just aerates the water. Has no negative effect on plants if turned off. I did some reading and saw some people say it is normal. @Cinnebuns is more experienced with thicklips. I have never had one before so I don't want to comment and mislead you without any experience. But pretty sure that's a domestic colored thicklip and not a honey gourami

I would also probably not use air stone there. That creates a disturbance on that side of the tank. Also on the right side there is a HOB and it has a pushing effect too. A gourami would love a calmer surface with low current. I would remove the airstone and jsut keep the HOB filter. IF possible attached to the right or left side of the tank in the middle for a better turnover

Pretty tank KH is needed to keep ph in check. But you use aquasoil. Aquasoil itself usually have a buffering capacity. So aquasoil itself should manage the ph I believe. Do you check ph? Have you tested your tap parameters? Can it be the aquasoil absorbing your kh? Your gourami is not a honey, but a domestic color of thick lips. These guys tend to lose colors from what I see from time to time. Idk if it is a result of selectively bred coloring or maybe stress/disease related issue. If you read no ammonia/nitrite and only nitrates with your stocking and aquasoil at this point, and if there is no disease related issues, I would increase the number of cories and add a middle column swimmer schooling fish. Having calmer swimming crowded schooling fish around would make your honey gourami feel more comfy

Highly recommend to check this out https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/science/depressed-fish.html There are even studies that believe simple creatures like brine shrimp may feel anxiety and depression https://csef.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2015/Projects/S2203.pdf In my opinion, the reason why we avoid believing animals like fish to have no feelings or so is people are so used to seeing them as a food source in a normal life. Nobody would like to bound with a food source or try to relate with an emotional creature and then kill/eat it afterwards. This works exactly in the opposite way for the animals that we see as friends. People would barely claim a parrot, dog, cat or a horse have no feeling I think. In a level, we try to think and interpret many scenarios that show extreme stress of dogs as a positive. Like internet is full of dogs look like smiling with teeth showing and we believe they are happy or dogs lift their paws and we imitate them as they want a hand shake. Many of us don’t even clearly know the emotional behaviors of our closest friend animals in the common pet category and treat them wrong many times

I first realised they do when Lily (my f discus) lost her partner Marshall (my m discus) She was legit trying to wake him up and return him back to life. She was acting so sad. Poking his body to make him swim again helplessly. Trying to get her partner back to life. It was not like a fish picking on dead fish or something. It made me tear up witnessing that scene. That was the day my feelings towards fish being emotional has become stronger.

I have one male moliwe krib in my community tank and he is very peaceful versus everyone in my experience. Even towards other cichlids. A pair is not a good idea for sure. I would hesistate dwarf gourami and lean towards more peaceful and healthier alternatives. Thicklips/red robins or honeys are much better options for similar size

No. Because they are needy. Usually wildcaught, need specific acidic soft water parameters, and requires live food and frozen food if accepted. I know a few people tried and failed in the long term. I know Dans carried captive bred ones once but I believe they dont have them any longer. I dont like problematic fish. Needy for food and specific parameters and also being wildcaught is a no for me. My sparklings, honey and gold gouramis were never picky when it comes to food and water parameters.

Agave, my honey gourami, was never shy. He was a yellow colored male, not the wild color. Some call them sunset I guess? The hobby names are all over the place so I cant be sure. He was interactive. Usually taking a nap somewhere and starts coming front when Im around. This behavior lessened when he got old tho He used to be in bigger tanks in the past years but when he got old and got bullied by my other gouramis I moved him to a shallow nano tank Sparkling gouramis are also very beautiful and interesting fish. They also croak which is very interesting and nice to observe. M to m aggression is there but you can keep a small group in your tank as it is big enough and is fairly planted. You can observe their croaking and territorial behaviors. Such unique fish with beautiful wild colors here is one of my males I would not keep a pair myself. Usually is it a good idea to avoid the number two for potential agression. Although it is unlikely for honey gouramis, I would still get either one, or 1m:3f For sparklings 2m:4-5f sounds good to me P.S: when responding it is a better idea to quote or tag the person you are responding to. Otherwise we don’t get a notification and easily miss your question/response

Thank you seahorses are also amazing creatures they accept only live food? Not even frozen? 😞

Hello there, Yes I did keep my honey gourami alone as a centerpiece fish. He was the nicest fish ever. I lost him couple months ago sadly, old age I believe. I surely miss him. If I had a chance tho, I would surely get a trio now. Not that I believe they need a group, but because they are so cute that one does not feel enough. Cuteness overload is needed 😄 If you want to spare your stocking option just for one, then you can surely keep one. Be careful, they are just way too nice. So they can be bullied by any slightly aggressive fish.

Those fish are amazing. I wanted to try saltwater tank ones but they require a specific diet and tank design from what I know. For this reason they are limiting when it comes to tankmates too Can you please provide an indepth caring guide whenever you have time? Im very interested.

I personally have to say dont get more and risk their lives. We cannot test for many stuff in our waters. Unless you go for a perfect 0tds RODI and remineralise the RODI water and start a new fresh tank from zero and use only this remineralised RODI water there only, you are risking their lives and it clearly seems to not work for a reason for you. In my very own experience, amanos dont really do anything amazing at expected algae eating in a community tank environment where they can reach food easily, so one should really keep them if they really love them. At this point it sounds more than there is something they don’t like, There is something that actually kills them in your water or tank environment. Many shrimp can handle fair amount of stressors without dying. You shouldnt risk and try at this point after giving it multiple tries and facing the same result I dont think it is the nitrate reading here but it is hard to comment exactly. I do use a water softener, I do add salt to the machine and I can keep amanos myself. My tap reads close to 350 tds and 0 gh and 17-18dkh. I do add gh+ on top of that and fertiliser, and it boosts gh and tds even higher. My tap also has 40 nitrate, so I never use fertilisers with N in it

Ive seen people complained for both being fin nippers. Probably kerris being mentioned even more I did see their fin nipping for normal emperors with my eyes and their situation at my LFS too. They did damage even each other A lot

They are fin nippers sadly. A very beautiful fish indeed. I always considered some but it is always limiting and risky to have finnipper fish in a community tank. And def not a good idea to keep with gourami as they have feelers

I have to say I have witnessed bettas harming pygmy cories multiple times. on paper it sounded cute but I had to intervene and change the stocking later on. I feel like it is risky and pygmys are so tiny and pure

Pearl gouramis, gold/three spots, etc are big. Too big for a 25g tank. These guys at least need a 40g+, ideally more. Your tank looks very pretty, but it would be very limiting for a pearl gourami. If you want gouramis, better lean towards smaller species. Like sparklings, honeys, thicklips(or domestic red version called red robin). Dwarves are also a possibility but commonly deformed and prone to diseases. So I would not keep one myself. Also they are character based, and can be quite aggressive.

20High is too small for saes imo. Dont you think? I have three in 160 liter tank/ 100x4040cm tank and they are very active. Like VERY active in my experience constantly grazing and also chasing each other. I even feel like 160 liters feel kinda small

I like my aquael ultra heater the best. I also like its look more than any other heather