lefty o

a magnet will stick to the bad stuff.

depends on the series of stainless. 300 series wont rust, 400 will.

ive never used flourish tabs, but most folks that have issues with the co-op tabs floating just poke holes in them with a pin. as for copper and shrimp, i do not believe .001% is an issue. like most living things, shrimp actually require trace amounts of copper.

as long as its a normal smooth gravel, and not some jagged abrasive stuff, cory's are fine on gravel.

thats the best kind. whats the old saying, "my food , eats your food"!😎

the music city mad man singing about a Legend!

not gonna happen. im a carnivore, i dont eat grass!

getting 1 betta, start feeding the tank just as if you had the betta.

they are pretty simple. co-op has a vid or two on them. worth a watch.

ozone generator.

depends on your local market.

lifespan, a few years to who knows. i know not exactly the same, but i have a bronze cory that is 16/17 yrs old, and its buddy died a couple years ago at 14/15.

fish calculators give a newbie a starting point, thats it.

as long as your chosen fish are all compatible, i myself prefer a larger tank. feeding 1 tank is easier, a larger tank truly requires less frequent maintenance, and the big one is i tend to pay more attention to 1 or 2 larger tanks vs a bunch of smaller ones.

lets cover some basics. the most important tool when building something is a piece of paper, and a pencil. draw everything out, with dimensions before cutting any wood. this will save on the use of a lot of 4 letter words later on. also measure twice, cut once. this will also save on the use of fancy expletives. those should work. deck screws are made to take a load, and are therefore strong. unlike a drywall screw which tend to be brittle as they just need to hold sheetrock to a stud.

any straight 2x4 will do the job. use quality screws, not drywall screws. drywall screws are not strong. any good quality construction screw will do, i like the Spax brand myself.

spider wood is good, malaysian driftwood is decent, but i also prefer mopani.

the pictured stand, i would say no. in the pic it already appears to have a bow in it. it would probably fail under a 55 quickly, if it just didnt cause the 55 to leak.

im sure that 99.9% of people working in that store have no idea what dropsy is.

soak it and do a few water changes. a day just didnt make much copper dissolve into the tank. you probably get more from copper piping in your house, and thats nothing.