Brandy

Hmm, I have seen similar I think, but not sure what they were either--other than, in my case, FREE FISH FOOD!! Hopefully the neons notice them soon. The reason I have no idea what they are is that I no sooner noticed them than the fish did and they were just gone.

Huzzah!!! Good for her!

I suspect that they will sell locally in small numbers, but judging how quickly they breed they may flood the local market fast. I am always amazed that people still manage to sell convicts in big box stores, it is a bit like selling duckweed...

I tried leaving the latest spawn in for them to raise. Dad was sort of casually guarding them, guppies were sneaking in to pick them off, and then mom was doing drive bys, gobbling up big sections. She didn't seem to be moving them. I pulled the eggs and have a batch of wigglers again. I ended up with 10 sturdy survivors from the last batch, and have higher hopes that my system is sorted out now. As I don't really have a local market or unlimited grow out, I will probably make it the last attempt for a while.

What about blooming lotus? It would only be some times, but.... The prankster in me wants to list skunk cabbage, which is quite pretty and definitely aromatic...😆

So, you have water coming out faster than it can go in. Your intake could be clogged. You could have some area internal to the filter compartments (like the areas between sections) that are clogged. Or you could have packed it so tightly with filter floss or something that it is flowing too slowly everywhere--this is usually when someone gets creative with their media. Or your pump is set kinda high and needs to be turned down a little...

Here is a tank I was given last July. The monte carlo was trying to carpet but wasn't there yet. At this point it had been set up for about a year. Here is the same tank last October after I had been consistent with fertilizer and lighting. Pardon the wierd angle.

Monte carlo will spread by runners across the surface of the substrate kind of like tiny ivy. You can see them and prune them any way you like. Just snip off anything that is out of bounds. It is a slow grower, but once established is capable of carpeting the whole tank--even without co2 or super bright lights. It does like nice aquasoil substrate as its root system is pretty fine and weak.

I think I see baby parlor palm, pothos, dracaena (dermensis?), and maybe Hypoestes Phyllostachya?

@TESTPLUG Pogostemon Octopus is a feathery plant with lots off hiding places that also likes hard water. I should have been more clear about why I was suggesting it. You want a feathery bushy thing, with lots of hiding. There should be no problem with the breeding, it is raising the fry that the plants help with. Hornwort and guppy grass, Java moss, and water wisteria are all plants that are very tangled and fry friendly.

Sorry, not a clue. Maybe try looking around on Ebay, Aquabid, or GetGills and see what others are selling them for?

From what I gather they are egg scattering fish, so most likely eggs and fry will be eaten by all your other fish loong before you see them. If you were lucky enough to see eggs, then you could try putting them in another container and hatching them yourself--not easy. If you want to give fry in your tank the best chance you would need lots of cover like plants and rock piles the adult fish can't access and then you would need to be constantly feeding tiny food in case fry was hiding in your tank. If the food is ignored by the adults, you run the risk of fouling the water, just like any overfeeding situation. It isn't impossible, but you definately picked a difficult fish to try to breed. Maybe just enjoy the adults and learn about fish breeding with an easier species.

Congrats on the tank score!! I love my 40 breeder. Sponge filters are mostly biological filters. A 40g (large on ACO) sponge filter will be sufficient to keep your fish healthy. I have 2 in my 40 breeder because I like more even flow in my tank--no (or fewer) dead spots. That isn't about filtration. That is about having enough current for the footprint and amount of decor in my tank. Mulm will build up with a sponge filter. You can take that out by vacuuming. I don't mind this as it is less important than vacuuming your house--health wise. So I do it when the stuff on the substrate bugs me, not because it is a problem for the fish who enjoy rooting around in it. By putting one filter in each corner I mostly collect the mulm in those places, and it is hidden behind plants...which also like the mulm. Most of what a sponge filter does is different than what a canister does by leaps and bounds. You wont have the water polishing capability. That bothers some people. But they are some of the easiest filters ever, so I love them.

You can hand pick them. Or get a fish that likes to eat them. I find many of my smaller fish will eat the pest snails and leave the nerites. My puffers will try to take bites of the nerites, so that is not good, but my smaller cichlids (ie rams) just peck the small ones and ignore the moving rocks (aka Nerites). Nerites have an operculum (trap door) that they can close if they are being attacked, which I think deters the less determined fish just enough. I hear a dwarf chain loach is a snail eating machine, but I don't know if that applies to nerites.

Thanks for the helpful labels! Why don't you put something big and full behind godzilla there in the middle to make him really stand out? pogstemon octopus or water wisteria maybe? You could cover the heater and upift tube the same way.

I really had to spot treat mine. OUT of the water. Which meant 50% water changes mostly to get the waterline low enough.

If you are talking about taking it from one tank and putting it in another (just reread the OP in a different way...) I don't think boiling would be necessary, unless there is something specific (like algae or snails?) that you want to keep out of the new tank. In fact I think you would basically instant cycle your tank, as @Fish Folk indicates.

Not a real answer either, but I have collected Pacific driftwood locally. In that case it has also "worked out" its problems in the sea. I did not worry about parasites or pathogens due to the salt vs fresh axis, Meaning what thrives in one environment generally dies in the other. I got a few little dead broken barnacles on one piece that were kinda a fun bonus even. Manzanita that is dead/cured, not green, would be necessary. If I were concerned I would probably bake it in an oven--this is kiln drying, right? Manzanita isn't given to rot, but I would avoid soft or rotten bits.

I feel ya' the learning curve is STEEP. I am a biology bench scientist, I do animal research, and I have cried. Euthanizing an animal intentionally for a purpose is one thing, realizing you screwed up and something died is very much another. I joke that I am the reason Cory had to set up the forum, I was such a horrible basket case when I got back into fish after a couple of decades. As a nurse, use your instincts--treat sick fish like sick people, they want peace and quiet, and not to be fussed with, and they need care and meds. Same/same, but different, because water. You will get this, and in a few months you will have learned enough to be dishing out advice like an old hand. Sometimes the best teachers are the recent learners, they remember how it feels to be brand new and they remember where the confusions and pitfalls are.

I would wait. Tomorrow offer him a tiny bit of the most favorite food. Teeny tiny, if he doesn't go for it, that's ok wait a day or two. If he does, give tiny tiny bits once or twice a day. I have baby brine hatching so I give that because almost nothing can resist it. But if you have flakes crush like half a flake. I cured one guppy and lost the other, so this is still not a sure thing, don't feel bad if he doesn't pull thru. They can go fast if the infection gets in their blood stream, just like a human with sepsis. At that point there won't have been anything you could have done.

More likely different species to be honest.

Lol, I have a cat whose full name is "HIs Majesty Prince Wasabi Stabby-toes, King of the Bildge Rats". We call him Sabi most of the time, and Wasabi! when he is in trouble.

The salt doesn't go away like any other kind of med, so don't add more, unless you take water out. For that, you only add enough salt to treat the amount you replace, so if you take out 2 gallons, put in 2tbsp more when you put back 2 gallons, if that is your rate as cory reccomended. To make him feel better turn off your lights when you can. He will be less stressed. He needs to get back to eating, once they stop eating it can be tough to catch them. I would leave him in there until he is better, so no more lesion, acting normally, eating. Before you go to put him back in fresh water, do a few days of water changes where you don't add salt, so that you gradually wean him off. If the disease comes back you want to put the salt back and wait longer. Because you are mid cycle, you may want to do extra water changes, and be sure not to overfeed. Salt is cheap, so change as much as you need to to keep the water quality high. It might stall your cycle, so focus on the fish for now, and once he recovers get the cycle really rolling.

Loving this. Imagine staking your career on a thing and then having to wait to find out if it worked until the signal gets to earth...It had to be an eternity. They must have been soo anxious!

Having just read up on columnaris for a similarly fuzzy guppy, if it WAS that, you might want to keep the temp lower, apparently heat makes it grow faster. Salt knocked it out really fast for me, whatever it was.