Otto

I thought about an angelfish for the same problem in my 40B but thought it might not be deep enough for the angel. What size is the tank in your picture?

I use Fluval Stratum but have never tried their hardware. I'll check them out too. Thanks.

I keep extra HOB filters on my cycled tanks so the I have cycled filters ready for new tanks. Sometimes I put the whole filter on the new tank and sometimes I put the filter media in a new filter on the new tank. Either way I've never had problems from not waiting to add fish. I start small of course. For example when I started my 10 gallon that way, I first put in my honey gourami immediately. I tested my water every day when I did this. The tests were always perfect: 0, 0, and less than 15 ppm. Ten days after the gourami, I added 8 ember tetras. No problem. Ten more days and I added 8 kobutai and again no problem. I have also started keeping a couple of filter bags full of gravel in my plants-and-snails-only tank to add to new tanks to help with extra bacteria.

Thanks, Thanks, Lennie. Never heard of either of these brands. I'll check them out. Thanks. I never heard of these either so will have to look into them. I had a quick look at the Inkbird website and I'm not sure if hey are heaters themselves or something to control a heater. I need to read more.

None of the heaters I have keep my tanks at a consistent temperature. The tanks range between 72 and 75 even with the temperature set at 80. I know fish can experience a range of temperatures in the wild, but I don't think the tanks being mostly at 72 is good for my Bolivian rams. Most of the sources I've looked at for the rams says they should have a temperature of 72 to 78, so maybe it's ok. I'm babbling now I guess. Does anyone have any opinion about the temps or recommendations for heaters?

Here is a short video of the rams. Sorry about the reflection - I need to do another one after dark. Also they are more colorful than it seems in the video.

Thanks for the tips, Guppysnail. Much appreciated. Yes, four rams. Supposed to be two pair but I'm wondering if I actually have three males and a female. One of the males (?) seems to be guarding the flat rock I put in one of the back corners of the tank. So I thing there may be some spawning going on eventually. I've never had rams and I'm really enjoying them.

I decided to get the rams but I didn't put them in the platy tank (if you've followed that post of mine). So I set up this 29 gallon for them. Eventually they will be joined by a school of brilliant rasboras. I still have the wood weighed down with bags of rocks until it becomes waterlogged. When I remove the rocks I'll be adding some anubias and a banana plant among the wood. I tried to upload a short video but it had the wrong extension so I don't know how to upload a video. The pictures are also in the reverse order I intended! Still learning how to do uploads.rasboras.

I love them. They're pretty and very active as are the kubotais. And, yes, they're healthy. I got them from the best LFS in my city. When I first put them in the tank it was extremely overgrown with plants. Although I liked that look, I didn't see much of the fish nor were they very active. Once I redid the tank to the way it looks in the picture, they became much more active, so I think they need open swimming space where they can see each other to get the most out of enjoying them. I can recommend either embers or kubotais.

My Mister. He's 17 years old - I got him from the SPCA 5 years ago. In case you're wondering, he couldn't care less about my fish.

Thank you so much for your detailed answer. I am going to give it a try. These platys are prolific!

I thought about an angel fish but isn't a 40 too shallow for one (about 15 inches with substrate)? I also thought about selling them on Craiglist. My question is how you got yours out of the tank. Is it a planted tank?

Thanks everyone for your comments - life intervened and I'm just now seeing them. I decided against putting the rams in the platy tank but I did get them and am setting up a 29 gallon for them. Ive never had rams or any cichlid before and I'm really enjoying these four.

Nice tanks. Looks like you're doing black water in your biotope tank. I'm planning a 29G black water tank for chocolate gouramis.

Thanks. I don't have aquarist friends nearby either. I thought of just giving them away (if I can catch them) via Craigslist or something. I'm considering a group of 4 rams from a seller on Aquabid - he promises mixed sexes, so they might breed. If they do, a whole new ballgame but as you say I can dump the spawn. Videos I've watched show happy B. rams in community tanks, not hiding. I'm hoping the heavy planting will make them comfortable. And the platys do hang mid to top level in the tank. One YouTuber said they are slow feeders so I plan to feed flake for the platys and sinking pellets for the rams at the same time.