Brandy

He is super adorable!

I think they are actually little tiny seed heads! I love them. Not sure if the seed is viable submersed, but they sure are cool!

Really hard to believe how fast these guys grew:

You appear to have adequate supervision on this project.

I had this same decision to make recently for a 29g. For me it came down to a couple of things--I was planning on keeping the tank warmer than average and using low flow for a future amazon type tank. That made Otos the better choice. Otos are reportedly good with shrimp too, though I don't think that will matter in my setup. They have been really wonderful and diligent algae eaters, probably he best I have ever had. They aren't as exciting looking as the hillstreams, being a little more like cute clowns, like the corydoras. I have kept hillstreams before and do really adore their antics and their exotic aerodynamic shape. But they seem to love playing in the outflow of a powerhead. I think a 20 long would be fabulous for that, but maybe the guppies and shrimp would be less thrilled. I love the Hillstreams so much that I considered making a fast flowing tank built around them. They can of course adapt to what you have, but I would at least position some hardscape directly in your filter outflow for maximum fun. You really can't go wrong with either choice in my opinion.

So today I realized algae in my dirted tank has magically cleared up. While it is not remotely grown in yet... Photo time! The hair grass is the big win here. There is obvious new growth and this has been planted less than a month. Compare that to the stuff planted months ago according to the internet instructions of tiny clumps. Supplied with Easy Green, Eco-complete, ADA amazonia, and passive CO2. Lessons learned: 1. don't trust the internet 2. plants do indeed seem to like dirt. Or at least not having their roots shredded.

Make them do double duty! RCS under the baby fry and snails and plants in the sexed grow outs--for my future pea puffer project, lol. You are right. We need more tanks!

I can't tell in the pic due to resolution. Ich is uniform and looks like grains of salt stuck to the fish. Other white "spots" that look fuzzy and are irregular sizes are not ich, but fungus or bacteria. Does that help?

I have had some trouble with this too--I have resisted full rescaping and gone the propagation route mostly. That has helped keep me "busy" and let things go. I also happily have a few things attached to movable hardscape--Anubis and java fern and moss attached to pebbles and bits of cholla. I find that can also help fill a gap while something else is growing in. Mostly my tanks are very much a work in progress, but I think lots of us would be happy to see pics of any tank, so if you want to show and tell, I say go for it!

Sadly, I think the flight might be cost prohibitive...

Easier solution I use: make a 50% dilution and then put one squirt per 5 gallon. (pour half the bottle to another container, dilute with aged non-chlorinated tap water)

Thanks @ChefConfit! This is very similar to what I have done--chalk it up to dumb beginner's luck, and some intuition from other projects. I did not make the mineralized soil on purpose, but I essentially did the same thing on a small scale in about 2h, wash, stir, settle, repeat (reserved the other stuff for planters). I didn't know that is what I was doing, it just seemed right--potting soil is not what is at the bottom of a pond. I skipped the osmocote, capped with sand, and left it to sit bare-empty for about a week, with some filter media from another tank and a healthy dose of Seachem stability to kick off the bacteria. BOY, did it kick off! After a week I added lights and my plants and I wish I had more plants. It needs more. But everything is growing gorgeously (algae included) so I am practicing patience. After another week I added some pond snails, and finally a Betta. The ammonia has not been a problem. I think I missed it or the plants handled it. I saw a nitrite spike at one point before the Betta, but the BB seems to have caught up. I am excited to hear that your 5.5g worked out well enough in 6mo that you decided to go with a 29g! I would like to make the same discovery.

Also if you truly don't want any babies, the solution is to keep just one gender--males. My goals are not everyone's goals. (Arguably, I am fairly new, talk to me in a year and see if I am still breeding, lol)

Well, my tank is only 10g. All the plants in the world can't hide them from 7 perpetually hungry adults, and it is not a jungle by a long stretch. The only two fry to survive my first drop navigated thru the airlift on my filter when it was briefly off, and I found them a week later. As with anything, your mileage may vary, depending on your set up. One friend of mine had guppy mutts in a 55g community tank with cichlids and lots of larger fish, with limited cover. He had a relatively stable population--only so many hiding places meant only a few fry ever survived. I am a pragmatist. I have solutions, if necessary. But I am actually trying to ramp up right now.

REALLY?! That is amazing, and biologically not that common I would think? I'm sorry to hear this. 😥

Yes and no. Currently, I have a 10g breeder tank, I rescue fry to a 12g shrimp tank, where food waste feeds the shrimp. Then I have 2 empty 10g, intended to be grow out tanks. But I would like one open for a quarantine tank right now, and so far I only have about 12 fry in it, so... I could also move males to the kid's tank and keep just females in the one grow out until quarantine ends. However if I didn't WANT to save them all for a potential breeding plan, I would just leave the fry with the parents for natural population control.

Hi @beaka, I think the thing here is that they are earning the $5/month membership fee by filling out Google Rewards App surveys. That is not actually "no cost" as it does take some time, and you would ordinarily be earning the $5/month from the surveys. I personally would just rather pay the $5, but at another less-busy, more cash-strapped time in my life I would have enjoyed this idea. If you want to learn more about the Google Rewards App, Google Pay, or filling out online surveys, maybe someone here can help you with that if you let us know what you are interested in.

I am about to have a population explosion! I have 4 females that look like they will burst any second. I am amazed they have lasted this long. I would put the females in a breeder box, but I don't have that many boxes, and they all look equally ginormous. The males are being such pests ("snack dispenser? No? Ok, mate? Hello?") that I am seriously considering boxing THEM just to give the girls a rest. I am as bad as a pacing anxious spouse, lol. I really, really, really want to build something fabulous like this: @green____water Instagram post (photo) 20L Albino Koi Guppy autosorter and grow out. . . (2 of 3. view entire collage on my page) . . Using a @swisstropicals Hamburg matten filter as a divider, the lift tube is obscured inside a fake rock by @universal.rocks surrounded by large, loose gravel and several varieties of anubias. . This creates an attractive place for the females to give birth. As the fry hide from the adults in the rocks, the lift tube (surrounded by plastic canvas to prevent the adults from entering) will transport them to the nursery/grow out. . A green, peaceful wonderland. Safe from predation. Surrounded by Java moss and ferns, buce, anubias, süßwassertang, and fissidens. Tank mates include blue neocaridina and albino rams horns. This also tank also pulls triple duty as a snail growout for feeding the dwarf puffers. . After 3 months of tuning and grow in, I'm happy to report it is working exactly as planned. . . #guppy #guppyfish #guppytank #albino #koi #fish #plantedaquarium #plantedtank #aquascape #aquascaping #shrimp #neocaridina #snail #plants #guppies #guppiesofinstagram #anubias #javafern #javamoss #buce #bucephalndra #hamburgmattenfilter #greenwaterisgoodwater #aquarium #süßwassertang - Gramho.com GRAMHO.COM Instagram post added by green____water 20L Albino Koi Guppy autosorter and grow out. . . (2 of 3. view entire collage on my page) . . Using a @swisstropicals Hamburg matten filter as a divider, the lift tube is obscured... I would also like a recommendation for a good 10g temporary grow out divider that is water permeable but wont let sexed juveniles slither thru. Have considered foam...would rather something mesh?

I think sod would be different--embedded chunks would stay embedded. I think sifting is for loose stuff. However, not everyone is lucky enough to have emmersed aquatic plants growing along their driveway... 😆

Lol pretty much. My grandmother left me a set of teensy silver tea spoons. Makes feeding little bits of frozen block to little tiny tanks tidier.

I think rotting plant is delicious. I have similar looking holes and snail activity on certain floaters that are struggling due to condensation. Not sure what is causing this particular plant stress (could be many things I guess?) but to me this is indicated by the translucent areas I think I am seeing around the holes. Healthy leaves being predated on have holes but don't look soft/rotten usually, also if it were that this plant was just delicious, they would start at the newest growth typically. Unless you have a HUGE starving snail population, I think the plant is doing some melting of some kind and the snails are just preemptively cleaning up.

So far my fish go crazy over food--the end. Or my fingers. Or the edge of a spoon (sometimes used to deliver frozen food). Or a net--at first. My only picky eaters are the dwarf spotted rainbows. They want tiny things and daphnia was ignored as too big. This should make it easier to feed the scarlet badis I plan to put under them eventually--provided they will take the daphnia.

Dirt sifting keeps you from having big sticks trying to float to the surface...I just picked out chunks. I think the "still" water can work if a)heavily planted b)appropriate fish are chosen Obviously you wont want hillstream species, but bettas, rice fish, guppies, even some tetras, etc often live in seriously still water--anything that can live in natural ponds. The aeration is supposed to be handled by the plants. You will want to keep stocking levels LOW.

I would be watching for aggression, stress behavior like neurotic glass surfing or listless lack of movement, and pure awkward movement. Like if you have a dead empty tank you would want the fish to to have plenty of space to turn around, so the tank should at least be 2-3x the length of the fish in all directions at a bare minimum. Also some fish move a lot, some less so, depending on what is normal for their species, so speed racers need room to run (swim). But then if you have a bunch of decor and there are tight spots that they get stuck in, it might be your first indication that they are getting "big" for their digs. Also, as @TheDukeAnumber1 points out, just because a filter is rated for a tank 2x the size doesn't mean it can remove nitrates from the water--if the fish start increasing bioload because they are eating/pooping more, then your water changes will have to come more often because there is still only x number of gallons to dilute that waste, and that is also a clue. Edited to add: All the fish I have seen that were obviously oversized for their tank were either doing the fish equivalent of pacing, or were lying around listlessly, playing statue. Hopefully you would have moved them long before it comes to that.

I vote no filter. And you could go with plain organic compost, big chunks sifted out. I had some potting soil with vermiculite mixed in, so I used water to separate that out before using what would sink.