Lennie

Can I get some red root floaters guppy? Sharing is caring, right? Also those are some big dwarf water lettuce in your tank! You got them big or you have a low flow?

I wish we had those here!! I like their look too. But I have never seen them irl before :')

Thanks a lot. That tank has black background, lots of dense plants and black aquasoil on 2/3 of the tank size! I'm glad to hear that now. Sounds to be fitting what you described! They seem to be doing fine in my LFS whenever I checked them. Tigers were nipping each other at the store all the time, these guys didn't seem like it. Hope I don't face any issues. And I definitely agree with you. Barbs are so beautiful. It was just their potential nipping issue that worried me so I've never given them a chance before. Some say they may destroy some plants, I hope not 🤣 I'm glad I have them now.

Hey guys, Since my last couple visits to my LFS, rosy barbs stole my heart. Today, I wanted to get them, as I have been looking for mid column swimmers in my 33g/125Liters tank, and they have been in the store for a while now. Seems like nobody liked them as much as I did 🙂 The thing is, my LFS only had 5 in stock for my past couple visits. I assume 3 females and 2 males. I wonder if a school of 5 enough? Not planning to add any more mid column swimmers to this 50cube tank. I want them to enjoy their space. They haven't seem nippy like tiger barbs are in the store. But barb is a barb. I have nothing that has long fins anyway. Should I increase the group size if they ever get into stock again or is 5 good enough? Are they nippy? Is 2m:3f ratio okay? I'd like to hear about personal experiences, besides the info available online. Thanks for the help, Lennie

I have never ordered fish online, only snails and shrimp. So I better not comment on that one. The things I would like to mention about buying from an LFS or a local breeder is, you have a chance to observe to fish yourself. I think that is really important. Also I believe in bonding moments happening with animals. I always connect better with the fish and snails I buy in person. Another thing is, every single time I decide to increase my stocking or start a new tank, my plans change once I enter the store. Fish in videos and pictures online versus fish irl changes a lot. Their vibe and look differs a lot, in my opinion. And I am not talking about colors per se, as they are subject to change at home with better conditions. I found whiptails ugly. I never thought of keeping rams. Rosy barbs seemed unattractive to me, as well as black emperor tetras. When I saw them all in the store irl, my decision directly changed. It happened in the opposite direction too. I thought I would like dwarf rasboras for example, but I found out that they are not something I am looking for when I saw them irl.

She is the cutest. 😄 As long as she is happy sifting the sand, I'm okay with not seeing it happening.💔🥲

Yea. While my gh drops to 0, my kh reads 20 and ph reads around 8.0. So they are both pretty high in my case as well. The problem with that is topping up the water, so potentially kh is accumilating. I also have an RO system at home, so I always top up my tanks with RO water. I do make water change with %50 tap, %50 RO in my tanks lately, but the new one I got is bigger, so I assume I won't be able to do that on that one. My RO system is crazy slow! I will see how it will go. I have no lids tho, so I have much more evaporation in my case compared to people who have lids on their tanks.

I have water softener system in my house too. Plants grow great in my tanks. I also keep Mystery, rabbit, MTS and ramshorn snails as well as neocaridina shrimps. No problem in my case. I assume the amount of salt should be very minimal, if any. But I have never tested it, so take this with a grain of "salt" 😄 Also I don't know if it changes from one system to another. I also increase my gh again with the Equilibrium based on the species I keep in that tank. Because it reads 0 otherwise. Which is bad. I personally am not a fan of the system, but it does not noticably affect anything negatively in my tanks from my experience. I just deal with what I have to tbf. @lefty o seems to have a water softener too. Maybe they would like to share their experience as well

Rams do like sand I believe! That's why I put a lot of sand to my new tank hoping them to enjoy the sand. I am excited to see if mine will interact with the sand. Try to catch a picture when she plays with it. I wanna seee 🙂

@Cinnebuns many thanks. so they may bully both each other and tank mates potentially, if I understand correctly. that’s a bit risky

Well, they are def not on that “peaceful gouramis” list! 😄 That’s actually my concern. How aggressive they actually are? They are quite popular in the hobby but seems like noone really kept them here 🤔 I like pearl gouramis too, but to get them, I have to go for another lfs that I do not trust the stock a lot tbh.

Hey guys, Hope you are doing well. I wanted to ask about some personal experiences regarding gold/three spot gouramis. I know they have a reputation of being a bit agressive, however my LFS has a community display tank with some 3 spots in it, and they always seem very peaceful! I wanted to learn your experiences, whether you have kept them in a community tank, and if you did, how was their temperament versus others in the tank and between each other? What is the ideal min group size/m:f ration of them? Keeping them in a group helps with agression or makes it worse? Thanks for the help. Here is a cute picture from online:

Idk about Beanbo's partner, but you are convincing me guppy... Tell me more

Hello Welcome to the forum. I use tropica aquasoil in my setups myself so I may try to help on this one. I believe that hass nothing to do with capping tbh. I always use it without capping in my setups, in large amounts. I have never seen anything like this before. Are you sure it was aqua soil? Or can it be substrate or something? Because substrate needs to be capped, aquasoil does not have to be

They are cute 😄 Mine died thanks to MTS. Outcompeted. In my experience they were the most fragile "pest snail" but I don't know. I find them cute. Looks great as a part of the jar family!

Seachem does not recommend to use this on planted tanks due to ingredients may be harmful for plants. Equilibrium is adviced for planted tank gh increase

It died on me too. Meanwhile, the vietnam one is thriving. If you ever can find it, I would give it a chance. They look quite similar. Plants are weird 🙂

Yea I assume so! Can we accept the babies of mutt guppies in your pond as cross breeds at that point? they are really a joy to watch, so many colors, just like you said!

I am by no means experienced in genetics and I have no degree or career on this area. But as a person who has been keeping so many animals since childhood, from chicken to a guineapig, from pigeon to a horse, etc., I think generally, crossbreeds do much better than pure breeds. There have been times I've managed to observe the opposite as well, like one of my stray cats have been the one that struggled the most to reach a healthy life but there have been many issues behind this, being not related to breed genetics really. Usually, trying to break the transfer of collective genetic diseases over and over again is nice. So is trying to stay away from the genes that affect the quality of life of animals, in my opinion.

You mean just the babies that carry the genetics you desire to have right? Or they don't breed enough in general? Otherwise having lots of babies culled means lots of babies in another tank AaAaAaAaaa so many babies dude 🤣 scary!

Good news, I would try to stock the tank pretty low at first and keep the food minimal in order to let the tank keep up with it. Excited to see your new fish friends!

Well, to be fair, there are already problems with inbreeding with these "pure" breeds, as these species are the result of inbreeding itself. They are generally not as hardy, more prone to diseases and genetically weaker. But inbreeding with the same family members constantly may take it to a further point I believe. Also they are likely to come from the same batch at the first place as well when you get them. So you may end up buying siblings as your starting point too. Also I have seen this resulting in bended spines and some of the fry needed to be euthanised as a result. So yea, not a nice experience. You may contact to your lfs to see if they would be willing to get babies, or may consider rehoming. But your lfs seems far away, and guppies breed like crazy. I'm not sure how much would they make up for the gas price or something 😄 I feel you. I loved how beautiful panda guppies are at the store! They were very adorable. But livebearers scare me with the constant breeding :)) I've kept guppies once. Never again 🤣

Yea probably that's why yours are doing well. On the middle is pretty good for most species, and even considerably on the high end for some others. Otherwise in my 0 gh, things would get affected negatively pretty much, especially my snails and shrimp

Any potential power outages? especially if you have HOB that dries out during power outages or something? If not then Idk, these are the main things come to my sleepy mind :')

I meant your dad if he topped up the water or made any changes. Just a thought