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I would definitely get some dither fish! I have a pair of beautiful red severums that just crammed themselves behind the filter intakes and rocks for probably the first month i had them anytime i walked into the room, i was having to setup a camera infront of the tank to get a look at them, threw some scissortail rasboras from another tank in there and within about a week they would come out but were very skittish,I then would not feed for a few days then feeding baby brine or blood worms and just standing back from the tank while they ate, then slowly work my way closer to the tank, now a few months later those two are front and center 99% of the time when i walk in the room!

Ive gone to using foam pond filter foam in my hang on backs, you can get it in a course, medium and fine pack online. Doesnt break down like filter floss does or seem to clog as much, just rinse and ring out and back in the filter. its the kind of egg crate shaped stuff.

Mines needed a cleaning or I would have posted sooner! 6' 125, 7 geophagus tapajos (3 mated pairs that are breeding) a mated super red severum pair, 6 orange venezuelan Cory's and 5 scissor tail rasboras. The val is starting to take off like crazy! Bdbs substrate, fx6 and a tidal 110 just for polishing. The aco sponge filters are what I used to get the tank going and just haven't taken out yet. Tank was free from a lfs that closed, The stand i built myself outta 2" stainless sq. Tube i had laying around. Man I love this tank!!

We have a pretty large nest in a massive and pretty much dead tree next to the tractor supply store in the town i work in, they sure are a sight to see!

I've got all the tidals from 35-110 and love them, i tried an aquaclear a few years back and hated it, could never get it to quit rattling and was allot louder than the tidals.

Up to 55gal i like the co-op heaters, over 55 i run Eheim Jagers

Well pretty sure they ate that bunch of eggs, i've got hope that they might have taken into their mouths but atleast one has been eating, man did that pair get aggressive though! Came home yesterday to find eggs on another piece of slate from a different pair at the other end of the tank. That female is smaller and far fewer eggs, but they seem to be much more relaxed in protecting them. And i do stand corrected on the my father in law bred them, he has bred geo's but not the redhead's, i suppose the next batch i'll get into the breeder ring and see if some success happens, I have 2 more that are starting to show pairing activity, so for now appears 3 pairs and 1 single male.

Here i was all excited my Vals in the 125 were starting to shoot out and grow, then saw this! Picked up 10 geo tapajos at the LFS on black friday, lost 3 to ick when i moved from qt to the big tank, they cured up and have been starting to get real good coloring and size on em. Came down this morning to see the first batch of eggs! Was pretty shocked being they are still young and according to the LFS "he didn't know of anyone thats spawned these out here". Even though my father in law has in the past. So being their first batch of eggs gonna leave this bunch and see what happens, i've got a german breeding ring ready if some do hatch and make it since i have kind of given up on getting the coreys to breed. Excited to see what happens here, i think the bristlenose and coreys in that tank are to small to take a shot at the eggs, but there are 5 other geos and a severum pair in there as well. Just thought i'd share being these are my first eggs, besides the snails!

I would play with the positioning/ angles of your spray bar. Just little bits at a time and observe if anything changes, my 6' tank took a bit of playing with and got to the point of only having debris collect around decor, now that my geo's are getting a bit bigger and digging more everything seems to get put into the water column and collected. I've only siphoned that tank once or twice since getting the flow figured out. Now thats not to say there isnt a pooping corner! My puffer only uses one corner of the tank and leads to a constantly clogged powerhead prefilter. Havent got that one sorted out yet!

He is Cheeto, (the puff!), His coloring in person is incredible and his personality is something else but man can he be mean, i havent tried anything with him since i've had him but in my father in laws tank he was fine for quite awhile than randomly went on a killing spree with his 7-8" silver dollars. He will take food right out of my hand, but will also go after my fingers, so i'm not sure if its worth trying any other fish in there! lol

I run the instant ocean salt in my brackish tank, have also tried the seachem brackish salt and really saw no difference in the fish or enviroment other than the big bag of instant ocean is cheaper and the granuals must finer. With brackish a little salt will go a long way and a bag will last quite some time I've tried java fern in mine, its alive but doesnt do much(doesnt do much in my fresh tanks either though) have recently tried val as well, but the puffer seemed to knock it lose or break it up chasing food, whats left looks pretty good, i'll probably try it again here as it grows like a weed in my 40 gallon fresh. As for the belly color, they change (my ceylon puffer his whole body will change at times) Mine is normally white belly if he's happy and content, if he's stressed or your not giving him attention it'll turn dark, mines truly a wet pet, i can go down and start having him chase my finger across the glass and he almost smiles and his belly will go back to white. I had to drain the tank way down to move it a few months back to lay flooring and he nearly turned completely black from the stress, started filling the tank back up and he loves darting around in the water coming in and came right back to normal color, first thing in the morning when the lights come on he's almost completely yellow and white until he gets moving around then his black comes out, really cool fish to keep! My ceylon loves ramshorn snails, clams, mussels, silver sides, blood worms shrimp and tilapia! Don't be afraid or overthink a brackish setup! I stressed myself out like crazy at first,(especially being it was kind of an emergency relocate from my father in law there was a matter of days to get the tank setup) but it reallly isnt anymore complicated than fresh water, just have a good salinity meter and add the salt slowly.

Might try playing with a wave maker or powerhead to get some movement towards the filter intake. I have a white sand beta tank with real low flow and its a nightmare to keep clean, my 125 is sand and took some playing with filter positioning/water movement to get right but i rarely have to gravel vac anything except around some driftwood or rocks on occasion. That tank i run an fx6, tidal 110 on the side and a aco powerhead as well, took a little while to get the positioning of everything right but once you get it your golden!

I did melafix and have some salt in that tank, i generally play it by what type of fish and where they come from and keep a close eye on em. These i got from a real reputable source that quarantines everything and i've never had issues so i dont overdo the meds. I dont want to stress anything that doesnt need it. Now i do have a LFS that he's a great guy and brings in some really nice stuff, but he's also known for washing ich off and tossing them in tanks so anything from him i do the med trio on. And sure enough my last batch of geo's from him came in with ich! As for levels, i was actually having nitrites jump up a bit in that tank the first 2 weeks, i keep the tank cycled and running and this was the first time i've encountered that. was testing daily and changing as needed. Never had an ammonia reading, and nitrates stayed fairly low but that nitrite kept getting a bit darker blue than i'd like. but just passed the 3 week mark and everythings seemed to stabilize!

I'm currently 2 weeks into 12 scissortails, 6 orange venezuelan cory's and a bristle nose in a 10gal. They were all young enough and small enough i figured the tank could handle it and everything has been fine, now i am changing water every other day but so far so good!

Kasa plugs are the way to go on lights, i run mine on from 6-12 then on again from about 5pm-10pm. Plan on keeping the lights off the first few days when adding fish to keep their stress down.