Lennie

Couple days ago I got this air diffuser. I have been having issues with airstone splashes as well. If you want tiny bubbles and good amount of oxygen, but don't expect the surface agitation as much as the airstone provides, It seems to be working pretty good for me so far. I am currently using the curved special one in my 125 Liters tank. If you have any questions, I may try to help but my experience is very limited for now too. But fish that enjoy high oxygen content in the water seem more happy and active than ever. http://www.aquario.co.kr/neoDiffuser/indexAir.php

Sometimes, my sterbais literally bury down the substrate with almost all their head! I can see them injuring themselves on lava rock, beyond potential barbel erosion. They really enjoy sifting around and diving into the substrate even, from what I've been seeing.

Lava rock tend to be sharp. I wouldn't use it with corys myself. I use some in the bottom of one of my planted tanks tho, it is cheap and good substrate for plants, so it makes it easy to increase the substrate level you may like visually on top.

They take time to start growing bristles, and females mostly grow really tiny ones, if any. Let the little guy enjoy the its time! What's the hurry ;D It is looking super cute 🙂

It is not about the color. They like their own type. They may socialise from time to time, but they prefer and will school with their own type. I would increase the group of the same species min to 6 before considering another school

We have a water softener system aswell, meanwhile it gives me 0 gh, I still have around16 kh, normally you'd expect it to be very low or zero too. I would personally test before adding anything

Do you think old age might be playing a role on that? Any clue about its age?

My nerite snails almost always sleep like this btw, half buried to substrate. Bait him with some juicy leaf mm! 😄 So he has been sleeping still for 11 days?

I think he might be stressed and maybe lost his antenna or something when he was bullied. This might be causing him to be scared of opening. I would personally leave him alone and let him feel safe and comfy for some time, and make sure nothing disturbs him even us as humans. I think trying to move him may cause more stress, cause both being bullied by tank mates and changing tanks are stress factors anyway. As there is no way to cure snails anyway, I would just let it do whatever he wants to do Hope your lil friend does better soon and there is nothing to worry about

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/daphnia-culturing-how-to-raise-daphnia

It looks like lots of stress slime to me. Something in the water might be hurting them. Did you have a chance to test the water? Also I think that crack can be causing a lot of stress and sadly you may need to euthanise it. Let's see what others think @Guppysnail any idea?

If you need any further help or questions, you can always pm me 🙂

They tend to be individuals! Everyone likes different stuff, but stuff you can try are collard greens, spinach, peas, green beans, broccolis, carrots, sweet potato, pumkin and so on. The key is them being organic and not including pesticides, peel any if you can just in case, and make sure they don't include salts and additives. Making snello is very easy and a one time thingy. you may find plenty of recipes online. Here I'm sharing two for you: https://floridamysterysnails.com/2018/05/30/how-to-make-snello-snail-jello/ When you make a batch, it is basically just keep in freezer and drop whenever thingy. I keep feeding my rabbits and mysterys nonstop. They also enjoy algae wafers and Hikari crab cuisine for extra calcium. Don't worry, they are not hard to keep tbh. And they are full of characters. A joy to watch 🙂 And they come with so many colors! Here is a guide I believe that may help you:

Idk your water parameters, but considering you are planning to add nerites, +1 to mystery snails. Not the best algae eater, but they are the best clean up crew member I've kept so far. They eat decent amount of algae, but they find everything that would potentially foul the water or cause unsightly look, like decaying plant matter, any dead creature in the tank, finding uneaten food particles, and so on. they just require blanched veggies and snellos tho. So you should keep them fed, and include calcium in their diet. And they have so much character.

I guess no, but I think it is a stress factor, as it makes them further from their natural habitat, which makes them feel less comfy. 2 days ago when I visited my lfs, I've seen that they still had their dwarf rasboras not sold for 3 weeks, and they were still looking healthy. Today when I visited again, and I saw that only one left and it has been showing lots of stress sign and started developing ich symptoms as well. They had densely planted tank at the store, so very likely that guy hid in the plants and they couldn't see it. So small group may be a stress factor, but I don't think it is a straight dead tho. The number 6 is manmade anyway. The more the merrier all the time. There is no 6 in nature, it just helps people to understand they like to be in a school so you should get enough to make them happy.

I have them all including salvinia in my tanks. +1 to this About the splashing part, I think all floating plants are fragile to water splashes accumilating on them. I think generally it is good to say floating plants don't like flow and being wet. If I were you, I would try to eliminate all duckweeds I find in the tank, you have beautiful plants. Duckweed grows much faster than any others, may compete them for nutrition and can be very hard to eliminate after some time. Just get rid of it. Here I am tagging a video part that you may find an answer to your questions regarding all floaters. hope it helps!

I'm not familiar with some products available there as they don't exist here. So I cannot comment on that one personally. It just feels super hard to remove all substrate and setup everything new in a running tank to me 😄 Also aquarium soils can leach lots of stuff when they are new. I'm not sure how safe it would be to put when they already have fish. Besides leaching stuff, huge water changes every 2-3 days may be stressing as well. So aquarium soil seems to be out of the plan I guess

I've personally tried sand, dirted bottom with clay based plant substrate with roottabs, and lava rock bottom+ aquasoil on top. 75 gallon is big, but I cannot recommend enough how aquasoil makes everything easier. If you have a chance to consider aquasoil, I would highly recommend using some at least on the background for heavy root feeders. MD almost always uses it in his tanks, you can see how he utilise it in different setups. It was really a big relief to not worry about root feeders and their nutrition intake, and you can just use a roottab easily whenever you feel like it. Here is a comparison video in case you haven't seen it before. Edit: Sorry. I thought you are planning a new setup, I misread. Hope you find a way to utilize what you have on your hand. It is not a mistake btw, it just can be harder to reach success in my opinion, I'm having issues with my other tanks too to utilise them better. Hope others may help better!

I once tried siesta thingy for my 29g. I don't think it was any better from my experience. So I ended up setting my tank to 6 hours at the beginning, and increase it gradually to 7 or max 8. I find the most success at 7 hours personally. But I always start at 6 hours, until plants start adapting to your tank and start showing a good growth. not related to the question above but, At what temp do you keep your tank at? Because danios, shrimp and juli corys like different temp than GBR, while GBR wants it hot hot, others prefer it on cooler to mid level. I also believe 6 otos in a new tank is a bit too extra, they tend to starve a lot. They usually do much better in seasoned tanks, and I think 6 is too much for a 29g under any case. Do you see them accepting commercial foods?

I thought so. So they don't touch any of those plants?

What's that orange fish in the middle of two angels that has some sort of stripes?

I would try to shade the anubias a bit, it seems likely to get algae in the position in my opinion. They still do pretty okay under a dim light from my experience. As they grow pretty slow, they tend to do better with lower lighting or have more distance to one. Since your tank is long but short, it will be getting lots of direct light in the middle. +1 to this on wood. For background plant options, my new fav is Cardamine lyrata Vietnam, especially if you have a wood around. It goes both tall and also holds around the wood and covers it a lil. That may look pretty beautiful with a big driftwood!

Yea, I def agree that they look like thick lipped ones rather than honeys for sure. I've also seen many classify them as honeys in latin too somehow. Even flip aquatics mentioned them as colisa chuna. There is surely a confusion going on both hobby name and latin name I bet. https://flipaquatics.com/products/dwarf-honey-red-gourami Also Prime Time's care video on honey gouramis but they seem to be red robins, so thick lips to me 😄 In person, the red robins and honeys had very distinct look irl when I saw them both in my LFS. That's what I can tell. So they probably are thicklips afterall as you mentioned!

I've found a gamer! 😄

Tetra has an application for reading 6 in 1 test strips. It expects you to match them in order before and after testing the water, and it gives you the results. In my experience, it does not work perfect. Especially for nitrate and nitrite readings. I obviously see pure white on nitrite and it shows nitrite meanwhile I obviously see pink color on nitrate readings but it says 0. I would not solely depend on its results but at least something good to have in case it helps you by any means. JBL also has proscape, but I haven't used it myself. You can look for its comments as well.