PotatoFish

Odd Duck points out something I left out. the Vibra Bites don't work with all pea puffers. She wasn't emaciated when she started eating them, and I had baby marsh snails on "standby" in case she didn't take to Vibra Bites. I don't have a sample size large enough to give you an accurate idea of how often it works, but live foods are an easy win to get them to eat. I just have the one fish that gobbles Vibra Bites up as that food wasn't available when I kept my other pea puffers in college. The frozen baby brine shrimp order arrived a few days ago, and Puffy the Pea Puffer has devoured them also.

I don't have experience with red root, but frog bit is an easy plant that I enjoy seeing in my aquariums. With frog bit, they have this jelly/spongy underside to the leaves that snails seemed to like a lot, so that might give you problems if you don't have something to keep snail populations in check.

Hmmm, a different, maybe unusual kind of fish, eh?...What about putting in a "Panda Garra" (garra flavatra)? You'll have to make sure to have a nice, tight-fitting lid to make sure they don't escape. I haven't kept them personally, but they look nice, and folks say they aren't aggressive with other fish.

Why not do a cinder block fish tank stand? I think it looks pretty dang cool. Also, you can decorate the blocks however you wish (maybe keep away from ideas that might compromise their structural integrity like carving into them). Here is a picture of one example (site link below). I saw the idea in "Fish For Thought," and later, I looked up and read an article. Here is the link: https://medium.com/@aspen_hollyer/diy-cinder-block-aquarium-stand-b679b2e30375

I like the look of the tank! I second the Rummynose and kuhli loach suggestions. I think those are amazon swords in the left corner, so maybe rethink plecos if you had your sights set on them. Have you considered adding some floating plants? Maybe frogbit? It would add a different dimension to the tank.

Welcome to the forum! To add to the great "cory info" that others have said, with a larger group of corydoras, you will also note a lot of different behavior you may not have seen if you have only ever kept them as single fish or a duo. I bumped my bronze corydoras (same species as the albino, they're just brown and cream, though some of mine have some nice subtle shades of pink along their bellies) up from 4 fish to 8, and they are FAR more fun to watch now. Cherry barbs are great little fish to have. The males will color up a beautiful red if you put some females in with them, and they will pick at blackbeard algae. Maybe also get some nerite snails. They come in all sorts of colors and have a variety of shell shapes.

Lava rock is good stuff! I have heard of using rock to "build up" the bottom of an aquarium, but I am thinking it's a lot of weight. Serpa Design suggested using the plastic grid thing (picture from Google search below) to help distribute the weight of large pieces of hardscape. on burying lava rock However, I was thinking, if the rock is just going to be buried by gravel, why not just use that expanding aquarium foam and cut it down? Cory had mentioned in one of his videos, please do correct me if I misremember, that the beneficial bacteria only live a few inches down from the surface, so if you have a ramp that is far higher than that, the extra surface area from the buried lava rock might not be as effective.

I have had the same issue with barteri in the past. I have had a lot of success with anubias nana and nana petite. In the growing anubias garden in my larger tank, the anubias nana is growing to beastly proportions, but the barteri is VERY slowly plugging along.

I posted about this in the "picture" forum because I was curious about the nutritional needs of a pea puffer I got for my classroom. I have also had a lot of success with Vibra Bites. The trick I found is that you need to feed them slowly and drop them where the puffer fish is hovering. Once the Vibra Bite hits the gravel Puffy the Pufferfish loses all interest. Other food: I also drop in baby marsh snails. She seems to leave the adult grass/glass/ghost shrimp alone, and they do a great job of cleaning up Vibra Bites that hit the bottom of the tank.

While I totally vote for kuhli loaches, know that they will nom up all sorts of baby/small snails. I think the marsh snails I have in my tank just breed so mad crazy that the two kuhlis can't snap them all up. Also, I have found that since my large (near 5" from nose to the base of her tail) longfin rosy barb died, the kuhli loaches have been super active outside of their anubias garden base. I think that Amanos are a great suggestion too. If you want shrimp, maybe consider putting ghost shrimp in there. They travel everywhere, are super cheap, and will breed for you too. You can feed them to other fish and know that what you're feeding your fish gets some high-quality food (maybe even gutload them if you wish).

I would just put a guppy in my tank. Guppies will constantly nom nom nom on stuff around the tank, and for the most part, will not eat baby shrimp. The 2 guppies (males) in my 20-gallon tank cleared out all the planaria and hydra playing around inside.

I found these cool-looking rocks at my local wholesale fish store, and I got this idea I thought would be pretty neat. I would let the rocks accumulate green algae on top, and when cleaning, I would only scrub the sides of the rocks. That way it would look like the Tepui Mountains in South America with grass on top. What do you all think? Does it achieve the look? By the way, does anyone know what kind of rock this is? It kind of looks like petrified wood or sedimentary rock of some kind.

I added a new picture of the shrimp. I am pretty sure they are, as you guessed "ghost shrimp" or, another name they go by, "grass shrimp." Thanks again!!! 😄

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! I totally forgot about "ghost shrimp" for some reason! After looking up "Asian glass shrimp," I think I can say that these are probably what they are. If you can't see the picture, they're mostly clear with tinges of dark colors (red, brown, black) on the edges of their body/tail segments. I will add some frozen baby brine shrimp to the mix for Puffy. I think the kids will like watching the feeding for that.

She's fine. Thank you for the concern though. 🙂 I just got a picture of her as she was turning, her tail fin is folded in. It fans out. 😄 Because it's a smaller tank than what people usually say (5 gal), I wanted to keep things interesting for her. 🙃