Tony s

You can do salt at 1 tablespoon to 5 gallons. You could go higher but you have plants. It won’t hurt your fish. But can snails and plants. Not sure about shrimp if you have any

And for replying or tagging other people. You can @ them. Just type at and the beginning of their names and it should come up. This will send out a notice to them. For a general reply, you can highlight what they say and a little quote box should pop up underneath. The at took me forever to figure out. Until I was going to ask guppysnail how to do it. It popped up, and , I’m like, you have got to be kidding me 🙃

I wouldn’t rush it. If you have the time to wait. Go ahead and wait. Mistakes happen when we rush things. At least they do when I rush things.

I was actually talking about your pleco that’s in the background. He/she just got evicted from her cave. 😁 but, your puffer is just stunning. And very cute

Right, all males are a great choice. They can squabble among themselves, but don’t usually injure each other. I actually tried sorting once. Males in one tank. Females in another. Didn’t have any issues except the females had babies for 3 months after. I eventually gave up on that idea

I think so. You could even add one more. Total of 3. Everything else is fine. If you know how to sex them, you’ll either want all female or at least 2 females per male. Help stop aggression.

If it’s soft and squishy it’s probably just a bacterial bloom, especially if it’s new plants. Hair algae has a texture like fine hair. Either way it’s not going to be toxic just a bit unsightly. If bacteria bloom or brown algae, it can be cleaned off, but will come back until what it’s eating is gone. Just takes time.

I honestly have no idea. Haven’t ever kept shrimp

It actually is true. And often grow better in fine gravel than sand. The finer the substrate, the lower number of pore spaces and less places for roots to travel in. In nature you won’t usually find plants growing in pure sand. But in sand over soil or mixed in. For an active soil like stratum, I’d give it a light rinse in regular water. Don’t worry about a small amount of chlorine left in the stratum, when you fill with water, dechorinate that and you’ll be fine. Something like the stratum is designed for plant growth, so it has a different set of rules than normal sand

Yeah, I sorta did, not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of extra prime. Once in a while. It’s labeled for up to 5x dosage. But I’ve done that before and had a betta be at the bottom of the tank just be shivering from the chemicals. 80% water change and he was fine. Prime has the potential to drastically reduce available oxygen in the tank if overdosed. So do other things like meds. I had a large tank crash on me 3 weeks ago from meds. I followed the instructions exactly. The tank clouded up and the fish were all gasping for air. And I had put 2 extra air stones in. Luckily I had space to move them. Sometimes it’s about what our animals or aquariums can handle. Even when we do the right things. and if I wasn’t clear before, I don’t believe it was their fault. Was just trying to find an answer for them. One that makes sense. One that I’ve personally seen before. When we’re learning, it’s a balancing act. Between things going on in the tank and things happening to our animals. Adding extra things that may not be needed can throw off the balance. Everything comes together, but it takes time and experience. Trust me on this, lord knows I screwed up enough when just starting. We all do. Then we learn, and we do better. @Josh Giro and for all we know, there was nothing at all wrong. Sometimes animals just pass. Btw, hoping everyone else is still okay?

But now you have a homeless boy. 😆

@Louise02 it’s really up to you. Do what feels comfortable for your fish. We have bettas in 5g. A 10g. A 15g. And a 20g. Some of these are going back in 5 gallon tanks. But we got some more bettas at aquashella and their tanks are not quite ready yet. But every betta is happy and doing great with their tank mates, so maybe they just stay put. 😁

The ones I’ve found that don’t work at all are skirt tetras and lemon tetras. Way to fin nippy for bettas. The skirts were an emergency situation. The lemons were supposed to be very peaceful, apparently not for bettas

@mugofbananas completely agree with this. Then you’d have 2 fish with potential attitude problems in the same tank. Possibly extend that to any cichlid at all with a betta. Too many potential conflicts You can try your own combos, provided you’ve got a backup plan and a spare tank. I would never have thought platys until I tried it. The downside being your fry are going to be gone.

Mostly the same as guppies. I’d add epistylis. Which kind of looks like ich. And possibly columnaris. But the guppies can get those also. Treat them like you treat new guppies and just keep your eyes on them. Otherwise you should be good. Unless wild caught. Then you might treat them for parasites as you never know

I actually had a fine pored one, not the coops coarser one, get sealed up from inside. Couldn’t tell the difference. Except it was a new tank and wasn’t cycling like it should have. Was getting ammonia with a seeded sponge. Until I grabbed it and the surface was a bit hard. Took a bit to get it clean. The fine pores wouldn’t let go of the gunk easily. Once cleaned the ammonia disappeared relatively quickly. so, if you think you need to clean it. Go ahead. It only takes a couple of minutes in the sink. And you’ll feel better about it.

Okay 👍

Now I see it. When he turned his head a bit. Could be the start of a tumor or an abscess. Hopefully it’s benign and bacterial related. Lots of bettas getting weird tumors. Especially ones from big box pet stores. You could try a course of maracyn2 and see if that helps. Could try kanaplex, but usually not in a planted tank. Or at less that’s a warning on the label. let’s ask @Colu But still, parameter numbers would be helpful. Ammonia, nitrite. Nitrate. Gh. Kh. Ph. If you can.

I don’t necessarily see anything, but what is it that you’re seeing? And do you have your parameter numbers? Just so we can check and make sure you don’t have a water issue. Lots of people say (not you) oh yeah, my water’s fine. Can’t possibly be a water problem. Without having checked it at all. 😒

Another alternative is that it’s a combination of a few different fish. Been several of those photos going around recently. Alex from fishstory has done this and prime time used one on a thumbnail. Or just a regular Gertrude that someone altered the color scheme.

Think of something a bit smaller than the size of your thumb, for a large one. So basically anything it can catch it’s going to eat.

Yeah, I have no experience there. I put my platys back together, gave them plenty of cover, and let nature take its course. My population grew up to 30 platys of all ages. From fry to 2 year olds. Then I added a betta because of a bit of emergency and unbalanced my tank. Apparently he was getting some fry as well and the population went way down. Still trying to undo that mistake and get a balanced population back.

She very probably is. I once sorted my platys to control fry production. The females continued to have fry for several months. So they can store embryos for a very long time. She might be having fry currently even. Platys eat their fry, so without a ton of cover you might not see any.

Yeah, that was my thought. Unless you collected something from the wild. There are several things it could be. But I don’t think it’s a dragonfly. Although, the shape is close.

So, you're probably good then. Still, would have been cool to have an antique tank. 😄