Miranda Marie

Pencilfish, by definition and natural predisposition, are considered "surface dwelling fish". It is their natural behavior to spend 95% of their time right up at the surface. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/pencilfish I've heard CPDs can be pretty nervous fish, if not kept in large enough schools (hard to do in 10 gallons), so it's possible they are staying near the pencilfish to feel safer. Are you watching closely when they eat to make sure everyone is getting some? And what food are you feeding the tank?

Tank parameters: pH: between 7.2 and 7.8 Nitrates: 0 ppms Nitrite 0 ppms. Ammonia 0 ppms KH/Buffer: 80 ppms Water Temperature: 78 Size: 7 gallons How long it's been set up: 2 years. Filter: Aquarium Co-Op sponge filter Hello, everyone! I'd really like some help. My betta fish, Romi, suddenly seems to be doing poorly and I'm not sure why. The last week or so, she's been unsteady when she swims (keeps almost "tipping over" as she moves). She's a galaxy koi betta and has always swam very well until now. She's about a year old. Her finns also seem to be getting a little raggedy on the edges, which hasn't been the case before, and she seems a little... "thin" to me? I can't tell if anything is wrong with her coloring because she's so blotchy in color (reds and blues and whites and orange). Her only tankmates are a nerite snail and a single lucky dream blue neocardina shrimp who she somehow hasn't killed. They've been in there longer than she has. I'm not sure what to do to help her, because I can't see any obvious signs of illness. No white specks, nothing that looks like parasites, no stringy poop. She is still excited to eat, but she also seems to be having trouble seeing the food unless I drop it right in front of her face (she'll be begging at the corner but it starts floating away and she thinks there's none there). Her food is the nano extreme stuff. Should I just increase water changes and watch her? Does this sound like an illness anyone can give me pointers on? I don't want to make things worse by medicating when I can't tell what's wrong. Thanks!

I would not put them in there for a couple weeks, to be absolutely sure any remaining bacteria/disease is gone. Otherwise you risk it spreading to the betta.

You didn't feed it enough to create a large enough bacteria colony to manage the higher ammonia content of the new tank. You have a *little* bacteria, but nowhere near enough to count as cycled. So yeah, unfortunately, it was basically pointless. I hope the tank cycles quickly for you from this point on though! Good luck.

I love it! Your plants are looking so nice.

Happy to help! You're not the first person I've seen who has mistaken them for snails, nor will you be the last. 😆 But they're definitely just fertilizer that they put in the rock wool to help the plants grow/stay healthy. Yeah those are definitely fertilizer. Every rooted plant I've gotten from aquarium co-op has them. 😆 And Cory has mentioned before in livestreams/plant care guide videos about them.

Aquarium Co-op plants do often come with snails, but to clear up any confusion, those orange balls are fertilizer balls, not snails. 🙂

If you want something that specifically eats the algae on the plants, I'd recommend getting Amano shrimp rather than more fish. Most fish don't really tackle algae that isn't on flat surfaces. The shrimp would eat whatever is growing on the plants while not eating the algae on the tank walls that you want to keep for the fish. Also, I keep hillstream loaches and have never seen mine eat algae off plants. They barely even eat the hair algae on the big flat rocks LOL. They much prefer the wafers (one every other day) and the leftover fish food that makes its way to the bottom. So I wouldn't necessarily say they'd help the algae problem if you're purposefully overfeeding.

I had endlers and never again. LOL. They bullied each other relentlessly. I had 9 males in a 20 gallon long and the only thing they would do is bully each other and every other fish in the tank constantly despite the fact the tank is heavily planted with lots of hiding spots. It ended up being rather stressful. XD

Yeah it freaked me out for a good couple weeks, but everyone seems healthy and fine so 😆 I think it's just that the females are rounder than the males...

I'll definitely tell her. She was trying really hard to be responsible about this and now there's this mess to deal with. 😬 Yeah no kidding 😣

That's what I was afraid of. 😐

Hello! My friend is helping set up an aquarium at her school (where she works), and she was doing a ton of research and attempting to cycle it etc before any fish were bought. The plan was a single betta or 6 male guppies. The tank size is 10 gallons. Today, she came to work to find someone had added this pleco to the tank without asking. I don't know a thing about plecos, other than the vast majority of species get wayyy too big for a 10 gallon and need driftwood and algae wafers, which they don't have. My friend is mildly panicked, so any help in identifying the specifies would be greatly appreciated.

Ehhh. I haven't noticed much of a difference. I now fast them once a week, but even trying to fast them two days in a row, they still look like that, just maybe a tiny bit less? 😆 At this point I have just accepted that is how the females look. LOL.

That's so weird and funny that we all have the same dream. 😆

I have a reoccurring dream where my fish escape the aquarium and end up swimming in the air all over my house while I try to collect them. And yes, they are alive, undistressed, and capable of flying 😆 LOL. The dream ends up just being a very frustrated me attempting to catch fish on the beams in our kitchen with a butterfly net while I scold them for leaving the tank, "yet again".

I have wanted one of these for so long, but cannot find one anywhere. 😟

I haven't kept them personally, but to quote the official aquarium co-op care guide for them: "Kuhli loaches are great clean-up crew members when it comes to rooting out any crumbs leftover by other fish, but you must specifically feed them to make sure they don’t go hungry. They prefer sinking foods such as community pellets, Repashy gel food, frozen bloodworms, and live blackworms. If the other fish in your aquarium are eating all the food before the kuhli loaches get to them, try feeding them at night when the lights are out, and they’re sure to get nice and plump." Full post: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/care-guide-for-kuhli-loaches

Melt in buse in the first weeks is super common, unfortunately. They're finicky, fragile plants. And then it takes forever for them to grow back.

I have a piece of buce that's been in my tank for 4 years. It has never changed size. Ever. It could be fake for all the visible growing it's done. LOL.

Yeah let's just say I should have stuck with root tabs in my first aquascaping adventure. 😆 Three+ years later and the algae is finally dying down and becoming manageable.

If you aren't planning to run CO2, aquasoil will create a painful algae farm if you don't cap it. LOL.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FEJgfN4GzDPbq7_Q3cto6opPuZhA4PFP/view?usp=drivesdk Just a couple hillstream loaches enjoying an algae wafer (and bickering over it a little LOL).

Plant matter will cause a *small* amount of ammonia, but not much at all and what little it does is spread out over a very long time. It's simply not enough to jumpstart a cycle, in my experience. The plants will actually uptake more ammonia and nitrate than they produce, thus starving out the bacteria.

I see you said you added a "few" flakes of fish food, but how many and how often? The Bacteria that makes the nitrogen cycle work has the same need as all living things: it must have food. Without a consistent source of ammonia being added, you won't see the tank cycle. Have you added fish food to the tank regularly, or just once or twice? It could be as simple as you not adding enough ammonia to get the bacteria colony going. Edit to add: Plants use up some ammonia and nitrate, so even if you're getting *small* numbers of those, the plants may be using them up before you can see it on a test.