Brandy

I've used newer ikea, and a very cheap wayfair cabinet. Particle board is just not up to the task. The pine dresser did great until the third tank... All I did was add a short block on the floor to reinforce the center support and it's fine. Holding 2 10g and a 12g.

Years.

If you want to breed shrimp you want them to have tons of food. That means target feeding them somehow. I use pelleted shrimp food, and then a few leaves for insurance. Also they like alder cones and cholla wood. It gives them extra food between feedings and is ideal for vacation feeding, if you are away, because it won't foul the water. It is also the ONLY food I can put in with my insanely greedy betta, who will otherwise eat the shrimp food himself. His tank mates don't breed really. Not enough food gets by him.

good for shrimp food. good to add tannins for small tanks, if you want that. Not "required" for anything.

I use a siphon to pick up big chunks of detritus that just looks bad. Such as dead leaves and large noticable poo on sand. I just swirl the siphon gently over the gunk and it lifts up and goes away. I have a lot of water lettuce and hornwort and sometimes it sheds if it was recently moved. Mostly though, I strategically place rocks and pebbles to hide the stuff. Makes for a good way to hold down root tabs too. I have a razor on a long handle for the glass that I just love, but like @Streetwise I mostly leave it to the snails and otocinclus.

😮Now THAT'S patience!

Some guppies, when dragging around a big delta tail, seem to do this. He has a typical "bend" to his spine just after the ribs, indicating that his caudle peduncle (the part that is bent) is weak. I consider it a genetic flaw, and would opt against choosing a guppy like that as a breeder, but they seem to live normal healthy lives. Females often develop this with age and multiple pregnancies as well.

MTS pusher...

The material of the container is not important (unless it is toxic--Like lead/copper bins, and very occaisionally plastic contains some weird stuff for mildew and bacteria inhibition) The volume of the container is important. We use glass and acrylic for tanks because we can see thru it. Here in the US I find it is often cheaper to get a tank than the alternatives, unless you have something on hand that is free. 5 gallon buckets might be the exception, but the vertical shape is not ideal for active fish. 6-12qts is only 1.5-3 gallons. I would go with shrimp.

Patience. Take fish additions slow, but do plant additions as fast as your wallet will allow. Spend more on plants than fish, lights and filters at first. Figure out what works for you. Cheaper LEDs (Nicrew, etc) really ARE good enough for anything that doesn't REQUIRE CO2. Fancy substrate is not important. Fertilizer is important. Quality food is important. Having meds on hand is important.

I used 2 large Aquarium Co-op sponge filters on both tanks. Maybe overkill, but the 29 really is packed with fish. I prefer 2 filters for creating more flow, but I probably could have used 2 smaller filters. I figure if the tank can hide them why not?

My two largest tanks are a heavily planted, heavily stocked 29g, and a brand new understocked medium planted 40g breeder. I had a canister on the 29, and I just took it off in favor of sponge filters. It isn't that the canister wasn't doing the job, but it was high maintenance. For the 40 breeder I just started with sponges and didn't look back. So far my absolute favorite filter is a matten filter, but if that wont work for the application, my next is the sponge...Why? because I am essentially a set it and forget it type who would rather grow plants than service filters. I would rather fuss with fertilizer and lighting and trimming plants than do regular tank chores. The reason I bring this up is that in a planted tank you need less filter than you think. I only do water changes to remove mulm and duckweed, not because my tank needs it for water quality. The nitrates are never enough. I heard all this from Cory before I got the canister, but I can be hard headed that way. Apparently I needed to buy a thing. 🙄 Now if you have an unplanted tank overstocked with turtles, koi, and chichlids you won't be able to put enough filtration on, so your mileage may vary...

Like both @JettsPapa and @Hobbit, I made a diffuser out of stuff I had. I gotta say, so far mine is the most jenky of the bunch! Note the holes hacked with scissors, and the (now rusting) binder clip...

Fun!! I am breeding mutts for fun. But I have a strong preference for certian traits and carefully choose who gets to breed. Over time the mutts can become a strain. I don't understand why people get cranky like this--particularly with something like guppies. How do they think strains arose in the first place?

I have not seen a guppy catch but not eat them. Mostly I see them gone in one gulp.

New warm nap spot discovered...

Snails and shrimp. Definitely. Let them go nuts on the algae, multiply, and encourage any other volunteer critters like detritus worms that show up. Pea puffers can be hard to get feeding, but with tons of life in the tank their natural hunting instincts will kick in!

I asked this question recently. I settled on an electric blue acara. Because I am crazy, I have 3 babies in a 40 breeder, with the intention to rehome at least one once they gain size. Here is a thread that might be helpful.

There is a lot to unpack there, but the short answer is the visible detritus itself isn't likely to hurt your fish. Many wild fish swim in murky water and even prefer it. That said, depending on how much substrate you disturbed, you might want to be on the look out for ammonia spiking up. I would watch for that, in case you have upset your cycle in any way...It isn't the floating stuff so much as the invisible stuff that can be released that causes harm. Most of the time, you will be fine, once in a while the ammonia can do a quick bounce as the bacteria re-establishes or increases to match the new load. Also, watch the filter for clogging, and rinse or replace floss as needed. Should clear in a short time.

My new baby acaras are 2.5 inches long. They will eat full grown neocaridina in about 3.5 seconds. My shrimp survive with an angelfish and german blue rams, but only in small numbers and only due to extensive plant cover.

Alternate to the mesh would be floating plants that seem to help with occaisional jumpers. Not going to do it for the determined ones tho.

This is all excellent advice, but I would like to point out that all bacteria is not remotely the same... (apologies for the following) The kind of bacteria we are concerned about on your hands or kitchen surfaces is usually the pathogenic sort, adapted to being dried out, attacked by stomach acids and digestive enzymes, etc. For those types heavy amounts of chlorine (bleach) or other clensers are definately required to fully kill it. The type in tanks that we want to keep is generally more fragile, as it is not adapted to the same kinds of environments. If it were it would have the potential to become pathogenic. There are bacteria adapted to high arsenic environments, and deep high pressure sea environments, and deserts. To living in your gut and DIFFERENT bacteria that only lives in your fish's gut. The bacteria in the ocean would die in freshwater...etc. </nerd rant> That said, the amount of bacteria in your media is only a part of what is in the tank, and any killed by rinsing should be rapidly replaced/regrown.

fastest collection is a slice of cucumber. I got pea puffers and they are too slow to eat all my snails and so far like the baby snails best. I got some juvenile acaras and they have demolished snails handfulls at a time, size irrelevant.

I would say that if you have a 20g, and basically nothing in it, you can add meds to it. The thing with a quarentine tank is that it is smaller and costs less to medicate. The other thing about QT is that bare bottoms and no plants make them easier to sterilize and treat if you get something really nasty. If you are a one tank person, you can medicate the main tank. But if not, you will want to do the plastic tub route. I have several 10g that were supposed to be for QT...and now I need a tub.

There has been only one time I couldn not get that to clear--I had inadvertantly introduced a yeast strain to the tank. Long story, largely irrelevant. Most of the time it will clear on it's own, and your tank is new. If it doesn't in about a month, and you are getting crazy over it, I found a uv sterilizer will ALSO solve this issue.