Tony s

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.

Omg. Well next time you'll have to make the "exchange" at mcdonalds

Ah, okay, you’re the boss then about the climate. Well, probably anyway 😁 so, what’s the normal room temperature? And the question remains on water hardness. But it’ll be much easier to manipulate it there than an office. for normal room temperature of 70. You could do kubotai Rasboras, green neons. For 72 or higher, a big school of Chili Rasboras. for a Centerpiece. A honey gourami If you want to go a little bigger. @madmark285’s odessa barbs would be stunning in a 30g

I haven’t made aquarium planted pots before. I’m very interested in how everyone goes about it. For a bare bottom tank.

Exactly what I was thinking. Or the air conditioner temperature way up in the summer weekend. @dfadler if the answer is they keep it steady at room temperature. Then like @lefty o said. Most fish will function just fine at room temperatures. The limiting factor then becomes tank size. And water parameters. Hard or soft water. Either is doable. But it’s easier to keep a tank you don’t have to mess with. and the question after that. Probably should be the first question. What do you really want to keep?

Try setting the outflow to go along the surface of the water. That gives you the most surface agitation without (hopefully) disturbing your substrate. Has the added benefit of reducing duckweed when you get it. And have the return next to your outflow pipe. That gives you maximum tank flow. spraybars work fine as well. But the flow pattern is different worst case scenario, take off the nozzles and put a pre filter sponge there. Just taking off the nozzle may not be enough. The force of the water is still from a small area. Prefilter would spread it out significantly

To some extent this is true. But I’ve seen a betta actually hide from a 5x dose and sit there shaking from the chemicals. So @Conan testing would probably be best. They probably don’t do it very often. And your water source may actually publish when it’s going to do that. Problem is I have no idea where to send you to find out.

Absolutely. And you never know when you may need a bigger tank. 😉

Actually, i have that now with the bare bottom. Using an aquaclear filter, everythind settles into the middle of the far side. The pots are only half the battle though, I have only used gravel so far. Gravel would work with lots of root tabs. But for a better pot what about soil, sand, aquasoil. and how do you keep the pots upright? and what happens when the pot goes over?

I use an fx2 in a 75g. It's a bit strong for me because it's an angel tank, primarily. I think it all depends on what you want in it. and how big of a waste producer they are. You can always throttle down the output side of the cannister. Builds up the same kind of pressure that a clogged filter does. And the motors are designed to handle that kind of load, mostly

So, for my angels in the breeding tank have been living bare bottomed. What's the best way to add potted plants, and how do you know if the pot is of sufficient quality. Or even what types work best. Thinking mostly of adding swords, or big leaved anubias. possibly even javafern.

wendtii and dwarf sag are easy. wendtii will get big, maybe too big. It was one of the tallest in my 75g. Sag will make a loose carpet on the bottom. up to 6" tall but can be trimmed lower. Jave fern is also easy, don't bury the center. Java moss always dies for me.

I don’t believe such an animal exists. Fry and shrimplettes are just tasty snacks. If you’re trying to breed shrimp and guppies in a community tank. It’s almost impossible. Even guppies eat guppy fry. Everything eats shrimplettes. But usually they grow fast enough to get a good population going anyway. I had a balanced platy tank at one point. You end up with a few fry and all ages to adults. But not enough fry to sell. Going to be the same with your guppies. Whether the rasboras eat the fry or not. The guppies do. Lots of cover is the best option. Guppy grass, hornwort, water wisteria. if you have good hard water, mollies shouldn’t be an issue. For platys, you’ll want a showy variety that the box stores don’t have.

That’s what he was looking for I agree. And sometimes some fish still comes from there. Depending on the store of course. Sometimes you can just see when something is off.

Most plants will do fine in harder water. They love the additional calcium and magnesium. all live bearers will do well. As well as snails. You have a bit of extreme variety of normal water. The majority of water in the US is neutral to hard. For a kids tank. Guppies platys mollies would make a great start. Then when you have those down. Mixing your water with your ro gives you a ton of options.

Lower end of pandas is around 68.

I'm working on the guppy end in the flex 15. But just lost my females, so restarting. My guppies are going to be in a single type tank. so, nothing else in there. I don't think that's an issue. If platys can go in a 20. guppies can go in a 15. Chili's are so small they can almost go 2 fish per gallon and have no problems. In fact, less than that they won't really stand out.

White cloud mountain minnows. and zebra danios. Panda corys are fun

That could work. But cichlid behavior is variable. and breeding behavior brings out the worst sometimes. In a 55g, you could try a few of those for the hair type algaes, and possibly a few bristlenose for the surface algae. But be prepared to move both, depending on mama's behavior

@yve Honestly, that's not actually true. For wild bettas like albimarginata or macrostoma that's absolutely correct. Betta splendens has been acclimated for many generations so that it can accept most aquarium condition for ph. Most tank raised aquarium fish can. The only real exceptions that can't handle higher ph are wild caught. German strains of discus and some domestic strains of discus can even handle high ph. More important than chasing ph is providing consistency and clean water. We Have a member from Iowa that used to keep his discus in a ph of around 8. Really, ph, in most cases, is not an issue. Another problem with bettas are the sources where purchased. A lot of the big box store sources (and others) have been weakened genetically. Raised by betta farms in hard water. They get a little gentler treatment than neon tetras, which are sold by the lb. and not by the welfare of the fish. Succes for them becomes how many fish sold per pond per year. These bettas get weird tumors and abscesses. are more susceptible to fin rots. and don't last long. Not to mention a bit of mistreatment by store employees. I can usually only keep them alive from 6 months to a few years. So far, with a few higher end bettas, I'm not seeing any issues at all. I usually keep anywhere from 4-6 bettas in community tanks. So @yve if I were you, I'd try the maracyn 2 in food. At the least, it's not going to hurt. Unfortunately, it may not help either. but then you know you've done everything you can do for him. What I wouldn't do is try chasing water parameters around. And just make sure the water is very clean at all times

Any extra air source is great. But I'm sure you know, the one area they are horrible at is mechanical filtration. The new sicci shark that Jason was demonstrating looks really good and would do a great job of mechanical filtration for you. But no idea when it's coming out or what it costs. For now, an extra sponge would do the job

Hello Blomme. He looks beautiful. Shogun?

That sounds great! Just don’t forget the valve at the other end. It would be tragic to find the hose shifted and was able to siphon the tank with nobody around. But, yeah, that sounds great!

You could set up a permanent hose contraption. Where you could manipulate the water into and out of the tank without the fish associating it with your presence. As long as you have a valve at the tap end to prevent unwanted water movement. And have it firmly attached at the tank end so you don’t have to be present at the tank to change water. Just present at the tap end. More frequent changes would bring your water into better balance.