Tony s

Wow, so sorry to hear that. What treatments have you used on anything. Or did you lose them before you could treat? I know the Cory with fungus passed quickly. Did you use anything in the tank for that? if you have blue green algae, that could cause you a whole range of problems. It has me. That’s what crashed my big tank when I treated for it. Luckily I had places for some fish to go. I still have it in a couple, but got fritz slime out in this week. bga is capable of producing toxins as well, I believe.

You can try. That’s about all anyone can do. It might be no problem. You should also have some luck with mendezi or borelli. But make sure they’re tank raised, which shouldn’t be a problem with apistos.

Betta splendens will work. But for long term survival you need a high end betta from a good genetic line. There is a girl that runs a good betta shop in dekalb Illinois. Google it per forum rules That info comes secondhand. But macmaster and panduro seem to work best. The rest of the apistos seem to fade over time.

Angels will. Mine even breed, but the fry don’t last. Bolivian rams do fine. I have a bucklehopf sp? (Laetacara araguaia) in hard water. Most apistos will not work. Pandora, macmasteri, and maybe cacatoides should. German rams might work, mine haven’t. Checkerboards should work. Gourami do fine. Rainbow fish do fine. Rasbora do fine. Slightly bigger are electric blue Acara, blood parrots, small geophagus like tapejos. honey gourami trios make excellent centerpieces. then there are west Africans that work. Kribensis, jewel cichlids ( be careful of tank mates) or small Tanganyika like shell dwellers.

Put the shells in an elevated position. Like on a plate sitting on a terracotta pot. So that the shells are 4-6 inches above the bottom. They hate that and will leave the shells.

Right. Aquarium raised fish have a better chance of being raised in our kind of water. Wild caught fish are the ones that most care guidelines refer to. For example they tell you what the hardness level should be and give you a ph range of the water that the fish comes from. Tank raised fish usually don’t follow those rules. The transition from super soft water to hard water in a few day time can be quite a shock to wild fish

The thing I would watch when ordering is if the fish is wild caught or not. Some of the wild fish may not react positively to hard water. But most will. I have gold tetras and they are just fine

Dans fish is very good. And all of dans fish are kept in hard water. It’s what Wyoming has. (Where dans fish is) It’s usually safe for most species of tropical fish. They live in it just fine. But they won’t breed in it. Only some fish show a serious reaction to hard water. Try the fish profiles from prime time aquatics on YouTube. Jason only keeps fish in hard water. It’s what his customers have. He’s in Chicago. So his reasoning is why adjust fish to what won’t work for the regular customer. I only mention them to give you an idea of what for sure will work.

You’re actually meaning the side or top rails? Not the flat surface, horizontal top. Which doesn’t provide much strength anyway. When reading it, it sounded like you meant the surface top. 2x4 should work fine for the top rail then. Wouldn’t bother with 2x4 on the flat surface. 3/4” treated plywood would work fine there. I’d would have probably went for 2x6 for the vertical braces, but I tend to overbuild everything. 😀 I even put hurricane straps on my rafters when I built my house. In Indiana. No hurricanes, just tornadoes. 🤣 but, yeah, @Tlindsey did a great job. Should have videoed it would have gone over well on YouTube.

That’s not likely. But, I’m assuming your top was several 1x6 or 2x6? But jointed together. If so, they were probably still drying. And drying at different rates. A lot of the time to get that kind of thing together, you’d use tongue and groove joints and a planer. Which most people don’t have any way to do. But, stained and treated plywood is so much easier. And the tops not really holding the weight anyway. and my 75g stand seems to be doing fine. Mdf or osb I’m sure. But it feels completely plastic, so just a ton of resin in it. But it’s purpose made from marineland @TealStarlight we’re still seeing just one picture. But now 4 black ones

Omg, please cut yourself some slack. I know it’s hard sometimes. But, really, you’re doing okay. You have the same issue that most of the people in this hobby have. Me included. You’re not failing at anything, you’re learning. And doing it rather fast, I might add. Calm your mind. Find your peace. Really look at your tank and see how much you’ve learned in so little time. Then, when you have your plans together, think of how much more you’re going to learn next. And sometimes you will fail, we all do at some point. I completely crashed my big tank 2 months ago. But when we fail, we learn. We do better next time. I certainly won’t repeat what I did to mine. You’re doing great kiddo, give yourself some credit. 😉

If I may suggest something, and it kind of goes against everything you’ve done up until now. How about trying to create a sort of show tank. Where you keep it very clean and highlight your fish. And possibly your plant skills. We both know you have the natural thing pretty much down. Learning to create something beautiful is a whole other challenge. One that I haven’t gotten figured out yet either. Give your corys and others exactly what they need to thrive. A perfect living space. Something you can be proud to show off. Then, in a corner out of the way, create a couple of sources of live food for your fish. Something that appeals to your naturalist side. Doing both would be great and equally challenging. Very different from the first time. But don’t rush either one. Take your time and figure it out first.

Ro is reverse osmosis. It takes your regular water and runs it through a membrane. What comes out the other side is basically pure water. Very little to no mineral content. If you are paying the city for water, it usually uses 2-3 gallons or litres to make 1gallon or litre. So it costs a bit more than regular water. But, no minerals of any sort and a neutral ph. You can’t really use it in this form. So you mix it with your tap water. If you do a 50/50 mix your hardness becomes halved. You can usually get a system from Amazon or your local fish store. If you have one. Our is an hour away If you have a pet smart or petco near you, the fish they have in there will adapt very easily to hard water. Just to give you an idea. But be careful when buying a few of these. From them, neon tetras, guppies, danio rerio, most bettas can be hard to keep alive. Just bad genetics.

Most tetras and corys will do just fine in harder water. I have hard water and have no issues. 4 types of corys, bristlenose, 6 types of tetras. Rainbow fish, 4 types of rasboras. Angelfish. My hardness is around 240 or slightly higher. Right where yours is. That being said, they live just fine, but have a harder time breeding. Well, some do, not all. There are a few species of tetras that have a harder time in hard water, but most common species will be fine. what I can’t raise are German rams, but Bolivian rams do fine. There was a member in Iowa, used to raise his discus in hard water as well hardness is caused by the amount of calcium and magnesium in your water. If you boil it, it will actually concentrate it because it doesn’t evaporate. So, ro is really the only solution. You are doing really well. So sorry for all that you and your country have been going through. 😭

Is it just me? I only see the first picture

@Arsenic_Y3llow bleach would work, but depending on the kind, can leave a slight residue. Peroxide breaks down into water and oxygen naturally There is a kind of bleach that leaves an oily residue. Sorry, I can’t seem to recall

Sae for stringy algae. Bristlenose or snails for surface algae. And just because you would want them. They help with the algae. But they don’t completely remove it.

You can, it doesn’t hurt them. Just keep an eye on him, it could be a bacterial infection causing it.

Do you know what your water parameters are. Fins look a little clamped too.

Exactly what I did. Filled it full from one end to the other. Good thing it’s really pretty cheap. 😀

The first question is do you actually need to. Depends on what you’re keeping. Take a test from your tap to see what kind of water you actually have. Btw, most people have hard water. Only about 15% of people have soft water. if it’s way off from the tap, only ro or distilled will work to soften it

When I disinfected my water hose, I filled it with straight hydrogen peroxide. Waited a while and flushed with water

Let’s ask @Colu

The sand will work its way into and under the gravel. It will look like the stones are rising, but not really. A fix to that is add more sand. or enough sand the first time. If you're going to add sand, you may want to remove your animals temporarily until the dust settles. Air stone in a bucket with the heater should be fine. But I'm not at all sure how you would move a lot of shrimp.

Yikes, that's rough. You doing okay? We've helped a lot of parents with their kiddos over the years. It's a tough thing to get over. Some never make it. This hobby has got to be tremendously helpful. Most of the time.