Lennie

That kinda sounds like chinese algae eater instead. You can easily find so many horror stories about basically anything online. Don't worry about it too much, I would say. Many people buy CAE instead of SAE, and turn everything into a disaster blaming SAEs online. Considering they have a similar body shape and sucker mouth as juveniles, I wouldn't be surprised if that person actually has a CAE lol

yea same. My friend @beastie has a group of panda garras either 4 or 5, I can't recall. As far as I remember, she said they are not really great at eating algae. So I don't think it would cause much problem in that regard.

your nerites eat food? what do they eat

In my experience honey gourami worked with lots of things I've tried. Angels, rosy barbs, red lizard whiptails, pygmy cories, sterbais, pleco, rummynoses, sparkling gouramis, shrimp, snail, rams...

I have tropica aquasoil in 3 tanks. I tried lots of different plants and easy red plants like alternanthera and ludwigia varieties, all did well and got their red color easily with good light and aquasoil. Tropica does leech. I keep up with big water changes once every two days for 3 weeks with established filter media introduced. Then it balances itself out in my opinion. Also it generally depends on how much aquasoil you have used in what tank size. In my 10g betta tank, It took much longer to clear out ammonia as I covered all bottom size in a 10g tank size. But for example, in my 42g tank, I partially have aquasoil and a lot of sand based on the aquascape. It cleared much easier. All you have to do is lots of water changes and I understand it can be annoying to do once every two days. But in terms of plant growth and health, I am really happy about it. Idk about other options, never tried them. I was gonna give neo soil a chance, but I've been sent a shrimp soil instead of plant. So I refunded and got tropica again.

I would utilize the height. That tank is really tall, so the light will have issues reaching the bottom side of the tank well. I would use bottom plants that can do okay with lower light like crypts on the middle/front, and I would use very tall plants on the background. The problem I have experienced before is, when there is not a strong light going down, which is hard to have in such tall tank, the stem plants directly try to reach the light source, grow having lots of gaps between leaves so has a look that is not dense. It really does not look well on the background that way. I would do stuff like jungle val for this purpose. They will gradually cover the background, has a good height, and you won't bother looking at branches as it will cover the background with its beautiful tall green leaves.

Do you mean hornwort by foxtail? If so, with normal tropica aquasoil, I keep all of those and many more in 3 tanks of mine. They all do well. anacharis and hornwort mainly feeds from water column tho so not the best way to utilize spending on active substrate ngl. for monte carlo planting tips, green aqua has a great video on how to use tweezers on aquasoil for all popular foreground plants and he mainly shows aquasoil. It helped me a lot while planting monte carlo. If you have any questions please ask

If you want some good info on plecos, I highly recommend these channels: https://www.youtube.com/@FreshwaterIchthyology https://www.youtube.com/@AquaMalik/

I have 4 red lizards. Highly recommended. But all whiptails are pretty awesome ngl

I basically feed my shrimp only commercial foods and no veggies. I feed my snails lots of veggies but everytime it gives me anxiety. Maybe you guys have heard of Dirty Dozen. Basically veggies and fruits that are subject the pesticide the most and whatever you do, you basically cannot clean it. And these are meant to kill bugs and such. So, what are snails and shrimp in this scenario. Oopsie daisy. Sadly, the most of the veggies we can offer to shrimp and snails are always in the dirty dozen list. Which means they are super exposed to pesticides. I feel like every feeding is a risk at this point. Also the term organic is not really up to good amount of inspections in general. Strawberries, Kale, Collard greens, Spinach, mustard greens, green beans and bell peppers are all in the dirty dozen list of 2023. Winter squash, broccoli, lettuce, cucumber, summer squash, snap peas and cauliflower also cannot make it to clean 15 list. So they are also in a spot which is very questionable. Carrots, sweet potatoes, and frozen sweet peas seem like the only safe options it seems. Here is a list for people who want to check in detail: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/full-list.php

Get some whiptails too!

I have endlers in a 12g tub, and rummynoses in a 42g tank. Rummynoses looove to swim around with a good size school, so consider them if you have a big and long tank I would say. Very energetic. Their red face is a great sign of how well is your tank doing. If their red face fades away, there must be something wrong. They can easily get stressed even during water changes tho. But they are very hardy in my experience. Endlers aren't so active, babies are adorable, and they are very colorful. I just don't like males bullying females. So I would advice getting one male to 3 female, it helps with distracting male between females a lot. But yea, be ready for tons of babies 😄 Never kept neons or peacock gud so no clue how these would go together, but I personally like one schooling fish unless the tank is quite big. Also I forgot to mention, livebearers would appreciate harder water with high ph. What's your water like?

Tried 3 different bettas with them. My bettas are peaceful versus everything, even barely flared vs each other. Whenever I introduced a betta to sparkling gourami tank (33g), they directly swam toward betta and watched them. Bettas? They chase them always until they are out of their vision. They don't care about any other tank mates including shrimp. I have my plakat male in the tank with them now and the tank is quite planted, but he just does not like them at all. That's for sure 🙂 I would not advice it tbh. Here is a selfie of honey and one of my sparklings from my tank ;D

for sure even my male rummy noses struggle eating 0.5mm size pellets. Can't imagine chili rasboras trying to eat it Also if your fish already like flake food, I would try xtreme or NLS just as I mentioned, and support their diet with baby brine and daphnia. No reason to go for pellets when flake food already works tbh

You can have the best food in the world. As long as your fish don't eat it, it means nothing really. Ideally try to feed more than one food with good quality. Maybe another food brings a tasty option for your picky friends. You can also find good flakes too if your fishy friends prefer those. Xtreme and New Life Spectrum have pretty good ones. Every animal has its own type of picky behavior when it comes to food. None of my dogs, cats, fish, tortoises, etc. like every food the same. Sometimes they just eat something they don't like in a level they survive. I don't think it is a good way to provide a diet. That means, there should be a change in my opinion. If they spit out, it can be just big. I even crush my 0.5mm pellets and my fish love to eat them smaller. Try to crush your food and feed it that way, maybe it is too big.

I'm happy to see that you have given them a chance! If I was not a snail guy, like @Guppysnail, I would def try some loaches as well. Yoyos in my LFS are sooo small 😄 They look adorable. would love to see some pics if you!d like to share some day

In my experience, my honey gourami and sparkling gouramis did not care about each other. They lived super peacefully. But sparkling gouramis and bettas hated each other.

I sadly had to remove male from the female's tank, not because of the issues they have together *at least for now* but due to male having very long fins and the tank is full of plants and lots of driftwood, I worried he is gonna tear up the fins trying to swim around small gaps. So I moved him into my tub where there is no driftwood but only smooth rocks and plants. I think that is much less risk for his fin health. So at least for now, I can't try to keep a pair together forever sadly. Female is fast and she would eat all the endler babies I have in the tub if I move her there too :')

I am personally not bothered by the look that much, my problem is the problems it caused. I've never dosed any chemicals to fight algae in my life. I explained in another topic but I almost had 4 fish/inverts died due to hair algae just in couple months. Stuck on the gills, juvenile fish got imprisoned motionless, snail got trapped from its head, berried shrimp got her leg stuck. And these are the occasions I've witnessed because I was there to save them. So it is a pass for me :') Also it holds crazy amount of detrius, turns into a poop sponge. Same reason why I don't like moss tbh

She is family ❤️

I already have a male in a 10g tank, and I got a pair today. I can put them in one of my tanks but I am not certain where they will go, or if they will go together for now. I have 3 options, so starting with a backup plan already otherwise I wouldnt get a pair ngl. But I will surely update you guys in that regard and tell how it goes. Tbh, I usually find horror stories being told more than good stories being told. I def agree btw, my guy loves to swim. I intentionally got him a shallow tank with a wide footprint, so he enjoys the tank for himself. Bigger is better for sure. I may try the couple in my 33g tank. Or just put one in my 45 liters tub, and another to one of my community tanks. We will see how it goes

Yes! It is amazing to hear it from someone that is very experienced with them. I do believe they belong to groups as well. Like cichlids and angels turn into monsters one day even kill their partners, but somehow it becomes like cichlids are cichlids, and they still are being kept in so many community tanks or cichlid tanks. Why bettas are so eliminated and people directly say it is impossible. During these researches I’ve come across so many people commenting and talking about their experience with how it actually works pretty good. Thanks for sharing it guppy, amazing to hear these fellas are misunderstood from a breeder too

Meanwhile If I were you I would introduce the sponge filter in an established tank to get it seeded if you dont have a spare one seeded on hand @GCH

And you probably know that but you will need a lid. My betta jumps on a daily bases, even inside to a HOB due to excitement. It wouldve died numerous times if I didn’t have a lid on top

I would buy a betta you fall in love with . They are literally puppies. Have that bonding moment before you decide to get one. They are not like any other fish I have in my 4 tanks. Bettas are different. And yes, I already have other fish that have that puppy like behavior a bit, like rams. Cherry shrimp and tankmates seems to be dependent on the temperament of the betta, but I would suggest avoiding long finned and/or flashy colored tank mates. I have black rose neocaridinas in my betta tank on an aquasoil which is quite planted and have shrimp tubes catappa leaf wood pieces etc. They work well together, my betta does not care the shrimp. But the color red blue orange etc would be more attractive I believe. Shrimp are food at the end of the day, no matter what the bettas temperament is. So black colors makes them less jnteresting and gives them much more opportunity to camouflage and hide imo. If you wanna keep a betta community tank, let other fish to settle in first and try to introduce betta last And you should have a backup plant just in case anything goes wrong for sure. You never know