mynameisnobody

100 gallons by a mile. I see anything under 40 breeders to be a nuisance. Never change water by a mile. Tiger barbs by only a couple of feet.

In 25 years I’ve named 1 fish and that was Larry the Flowerhorn. I don’t have the headspace to remember anything other than what species it is. However, whatever makes this more enjoyable for you is what you should do. Good luck.

What is your dosing schedule like?

Most danios are fin nippers when in smaller groups. I have a dozen glow light danio’s and they are perfectly peaceful with platies, guppies, and white clouds.

@Lennie Respect

If you ever do get a pea puffer, you will soon find out that they are amazing enough on their own. No other inhabitants needed and they are also known as murder helicopters just to give you an idea of what tankmates can look forward to. Pea puffers are pretty incredible. Enjoy!

May I ask, why do you need to disinfect your sponge filter?

I have and they have excellent fish and great customer service.

If you’re ok with eliminating one their natural behaviors then it should be fine. If you want to observe that behavior, I’d use sand.

I bought a wide funnel, problem solved.

Always buy as big as you can afford and fit into your home. You can get new 125’s for about $500 at any LFS. If it were me, I’d do the 125 or look for a used 180.

@YYC Carrie It seems like you have a good grasp of what you’re doing. Mistakes will always happen, no matter your experience level. It’s the one thing that keeps me glued to this hobby, is the constant learning/experiments.

In my experience it does not get easier. I realized this and started putting something into practice. After quarantine, I will place fish where they will be for life. This requires a ton of thought and does not always work out 100% of the time, however I’d estimate about 90% success rate. In the instances that I absolutely must move said species, I lower the water lever to about 2” and it becomes much faster work. I always have a 32 gallons of fresh water on hand to toss in as soon as everyone has been wrangled. I try to do this as little as possible, hence I spend a ton of time planning.

If it is either of the mentioned above, it will decimate everything in the aquarium. I had a flowerhorn fight it’s sponge filter and once I removed the sponge from the aquarium, it decided sand got it really angry. He literally fought sand for a couple of hours. Finally he gave up, but if it’s agro then it’s a sight to behold. Texas and Trimacs basically fall under this same category. Enjoy and you should journal it’s growth and development. There aren’t many big cichlid posts on here.

I’ve had a ton of luck with pool filter sand. It is definitely coarse, not fine at all, looks good and is about $20 for 50lb bag. I love it

Looks like Black Devils Horn snails, they are pretty cool, I must say.

They’re feeding on excess food and debris. Got to love them. I haven’t heard of any getting stuck, but even if they do, it isn’t a coarse sponge issue, it’s just 1 less snail in your aquarium. The pro’s outweigh the cons by a mile.

Cut the airline that connects the airstone to the sponge filter so that it is very small. Basically the airstone must sit towards the very top of the sponge in order to eliminate bubbles. Give it a shot, it should work for you. Also I would turn down the air a lot. You’d be surprised how little you need to pump through to make it effective.

Ricefish are amazing and temps don’t matter as much as other species. The only issue is 10 gallon will be too small to keep them in. Depending where you are, you can leave them in the pond over the winter. I realize these aren’t livebearers but they will reproduce and you will see fry.

In my experience, painting the back of the aquarium black eliminates ever having to worry about it again. Every color under the sun has been tried and without fail, black is superior for many reasons. It hides a ton of gunk, while bringing out the colors of your fish. If the inhabitants are on the shy side, I have even painted the sides black and they loved it. I try to focus my efforts on parts of the hobby that haven’t been so solidified so it’s one less thing to worry about. Good luck

1-Melanotaenia Kali Tawa 2-Melanotaenia Trifasciata ‘Goyder River’ 3-all other rainbows

You may have more luck building it. You could easily build a stand a bit wider to hold all 3 aquariums. Are you equipped to do so? If not, Home Depot and Lowes sell racks, but they are much larger and much more expensive.

Yesterday I was looking at an array of my snails and I tell ya, they are one of my favorite facets of the aquarium. They always seem to be doing something different depending on the species.

@nabokovfan87 Paying it forward is a humble thing to do, however the coop makes it a bit easier because if you know then you know. I have similar things happen, but never in a fish store. I would of loved to have walked around explaining why the coop is light years ahead. Good on you for helping out, it feels great to wholeheartedly have the utmost faith in what you are recommending.

@Alexey buy the coop light. make your life easy and only buy coop stuff until you are more experienced. They basically have done all the testing, experiments, so you can rest assured that if it isn’t the very best thing on the market then you it probably has too many bells and whistles and becomes impractical anyway.