Peaceful Fish

I converted 3 tanks to planted tanks about 3 month ago. I bought a lot of Anubis and 75% had rizhome rot and died. Ironically, only the ones I bought from Aquarium CoOp survived. I know Corey stopped selling them because they were seeing rot issues but his were the only ones that didn’t rot for me.

I prefer White Clouds and Cherry Barbs over the smaller tetras.

Can you set up a tank and put him in by himself?

I personally think adding an air stone is a very good idea. I really like white clouds and cherry barbs for nano fish.

Yep. Your crypts will definitely melt. Just trim off the dead leaves and the new ones will grow. The pogo will likely be fine. They seem rather bulletproof in my experience and transition easily.

Cheap way to polish the water is add a cheap $15-20 HOB stuffed with polyfil. Keep the sponge filters for biological filtration. I run two sponges and one of these in my 55 gallon. https://www.amazon.com/Tetra-78002-Whisper-Gallon-Filter/dp/B01NB1GCQY/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3M95SUZ0CLN7I&keywords=whisper+iq30&qid=1689214726&sprefix=Whisper+iq30%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-2

Odessa barb Neon rainbow White Cloud Cherry barb Reticulated Hillstream loach

Agree with redfish. I bought several Windelov plants that were not grown submerged and they all did the same thing yours is doing. The old leaves die off and you start getting new bright green leaves growing typically as their root structure starts growing.

I’ve kept red eyed tetra in a community aquarium and never saw aggression to other species. They will chase each other around to establish a pecking order. I’ve never had a community fish fin nip a Bolivian Ram. They are surprisingly fast unlike a beta.

ACs are expensive for such an old design and cheap material. Out of the box, it looks absolutely cheap.

For the IQ 30, I removed the bio grid and the media chamber is 2.75” deep and 4.5” wide and about 5” tall. I just bought a semi coarse sponge off Amazon that was 2.75” thick and cut the width and length. It flows from back to front so sponge and filter floss would work well. Bagged media is probably not ideal. I think sponge is the best media personally because of the mechanical and biological filtration. If I ever needed to run carbon, I’d just pull the sponge and run a big bag of carbon. The filter isn’t really set up to run multiple types of media at once like a AC or Tidal that flow up from the bottom.

I recently bought a Tetra IQ 30 HOBjust to add a little more flow to my 55 gallon that has a sponge filter. The Tetra IQ was $19 on Amazon. Pump is in the aquarium and the lid design is tight. It’s super quiet. I’m just running sponge in it. I like it so far. I’ve had ACs but they do rattle and you can get a leak if you don’t stay up on your maintenance. I had a Tidal as well and I hated the surface skimmer.

If you aren’t using an aqua soil, you probably have it cycled if it’s growing algae. If you are using an aqua soil, I would definitely get test kit and make sure you are testing for ammonia and other water parameters before adding fish.

I’m sure it works great. I don’t care for the potential of a leak or restart failure with a canister filter. I’d rather use an air pump with filtration inside the tank (sponge or UGF) and eliminate any potential for a leak on my hardwood floors. I sleep better with simple and low tech in my tanks. Certainly everyone is different. I’ve run almost everything and now prefer simple and minimalist in my set up. A gravel vac or sponge rinse is easy for me to do with a water change.

20 gallon works fine with a sponge filter, under gravel or hang on back. I would not consider a canister on anything smaller than a 75 gallon.