doktor zhivago

Overfeeding will often cause worms that usually hide in the substrate to come out and be directly visible. With fish in the tank it's highly unlikely you'll have problems with any worm species as fish love eating them and will naturally control their numbers. Most people with planaria or worm problems have shrimp only tanks where there is no predation pressure on problem invertebrates. As to your other issues I can't tell you much without water parameters and what species you're keeping but mature fish can go for at least a week without food and will probably start seriously hunting your worms if you fast them for a couple days.

It's probably a detritus worm. Even if it was a flat worm why are you in such a hurry to remove it from the tank? Is it even causing problems? There's tens of thousands of species of annelids and flatworms that are perfectly harmless and help break down the waste in your tank. Very few of those species are problematic.

20 gallons is a smaller tank. Its not recommended because the sword tail genus in general are very active fish who like to poke around and explore and want lots of room to swim. They will also make babies eventually and increase their population slowly (assuming they don't cannibalize every fry) and so you want to leave some room in there for that. You can certainly keep them in that tank as long as the water parameters are ok. Its not ideal but they can live and thrive for a long time. If you have room you may want to start planning for a larger tank at some point, a 29 or even 40 gallon tank provides a lot more room for a whole community of plants and fish to be happier and make more babies. However if you find you're having problems with ammonia and nitrates in the 20 gallon you may want to consider rehoming them. Is the tank heated? If its a room temp tank with the ricefish and swordtails you will probably have less issues with waste as their metabolism slows down with lower temps

Looks like the Montezuma's max out around 3". I was thinking of green swordtails that get 5-6"

Swordtails can get pretty big but it will take a while, months or even years depending on how big they are now. It's best to assume live bearers are pregnant cuz many of them can store sperm for months. You may want to start planning on a larger tank if you find you like them.

All platys are beautiful 😍😍

i put 12 harlequin rasboras in my tank (37 gallons) after about 5/6 weeks of cycle with snails and plants and they're doing fine. they actually out compete the platys for food most of the time... i think you woulda been ok with the pygmies. worst case you add some prime/fritz complete and do some water changes for a couple days while the bacteria and plants catch up as an aside, none of your 'clean up crew' is gonna eat algae if you feed them other stuff cuz it has very limited nutrient value in comparison to actual fish food or veggies (i haven't kept corys but my understanding is they don't actually do much cleaning)

Looks like diatoms. You're gonna get tons of things in your water column. Especially if it's a new tank

Test strips in general give you a rough idea of what's going on. I find them to not really be that useful if you're looking for exact numbers. Exact numbers on hardness/alkalinity don't really matter that much tho as what you're looking for is changes in that number because that can be an indicator of ph issues for example. Alkalinity is gonna get 'used up' (it's way more complicated and the chemistry is basically sorcery) as it buffers against acidity. The source of the acidity in your tank would probably be the tannins from the wood and all the organics in your substrate . Water changes will restore the alkalinity with new minerals.

How it started vs how it looks now

Probably a detritus worm. I wouldn't worry about it. There's tons of little creatures that will live and grow in a fish tank. The vast vast majority of which don't cause any problems and are actually beneficial for breaking down waste

I boiled my tanks' spiderwood twice for about 30 mins each time just to get it to sink faster. The first boil water was basically black. The second boil was lighter. It still took another day of soaking in clean water which was a little brownish by the end. I haven't noticed any discoloration in the aquarium water since I put it in the tank .

Copepods have a reflex that makes them 'jump' to avoid predators. Usually that's the guys you see swimming like they're drunk. They'll have a twin tail of their egg sacks once they get a little bigger. Here's one from my tank:

I've always just plopped and dropped shrimps but my water is liquid limestone, completely off the charts gh and kh, so I think they don't mind it. The past sets I've got immediately went to eating some pellets as soon as I put them in. No molt issues. You might want to just get some that aren't quite so bred for color. I think the culling really weakens the genetics for them and makes them unable to tolerate changes.

Live bearers like hard water. Hard water by it's very chemical nature tends to have high ph. Most of the fish are pretty hardy tho. Putting some crushed coral or wondershell in the tank wouldn't hurt

Snails and shrimps will eat the biofilm that grows on poop as it breaks down. They usually won't consume it directly. Detritus worms and scuds seem to eat the poop directly. The more life in your tank the quicker things get broken down and recycled.

Mollies get very large and are very active. A couple guppies would be the biggest live bearers I'd keep in a tank that small.

Hi all I have a dwarf lily getting huge. How does one propagate or prune it properly? It's not crazy big yet but I'd like to get ahead of if

Finally added some actual fish. I have 12 rasboras in there now.

Just run the non high range test and if it's maxed out you know the hi range brown is 8 and not 7.4

I have over a dozen now since the original post. I'm gonna have to start thinning them out soon

This is what the baby ramshorns in my tank look like. Whatever you have there doesn't look like them. I would guess either a pond snail with the pointed shell or a limpet

You can put shrimp into newer tanks. Just gotta feed em a little more. If you're not getting a super bred color line but some regular wild types they're pretty hardy

Meds will cloud it up but it's probably just a bacterial bloom from adding all those nutrients

It's an anaerobic process in your dirt where bacteria break down sulfates into sulfides. It's building up so fast because there are a huge amount of sulfates in the product you used. Honestly no idea what the solution would be other than to let them pig out for a while